Mister Daire Downstairs

Prologue

PROLOGUE - PART I

I sigh.

This week has been tiring. Maybe tiring isn't enough, because this week has thrown me like an over-excited toddler with a ragdoll. It's been exhausting. A checklist of all the worst things that could ever happen magically ticked themselves off within a span of six days.

And July has just begun.

What if this lasts the entire month? The thought makes me shiver, and I cover my mouth with my fist.

Darrin Fiffik, from the driver's seat, spares just a glance from his attention towards the busy street.

"Hey," he whispers. "It's all going to be fine. With Daniel."

I cannot even look him in the eyes, and I know I shouldn't, but still I say. "It's all very easy for you to say."

He exhales, and I am aware that even he is getting fed up of my entire mood. Heck, even I'm aware that my mood is annoying enough to tick off an amiable guy like Darrin.

"For the last time, it's not my fault that you were there to see your boyfriend jerking off to some cowgirl."

It sounds a little less bad when he says it like this, because he wasn't there to see it with his own eyes. He knows it just like I told him – that's the difference, and it's so huge. Because, it was so much more than just Daniel having sex with a cowgirl. It was so much more than just having sex.

Even from a screen, it can just snap to you how two people are in love with each other. And I was in the same room as them, to say something.

That was when I realized that it wasn't just a fling, that it wasn't just a rendezvous. And that was what hurt more.

"Sorry." Darrin says. I must've been too quiet after his response.

I shake my head – I can't allow my boyfriend, if I can even call him that now, to be the reason why I fight with my friend – and try to smile. "Know what? It's better off this way. Its end was nearing anyway."

He shrugs. "I guess." And smiles. "He could never be good enough."

It's what people do. Criticize everyone just to make one person feel good. But I accept it gracefully, and grin.

"Honestly though," he begins. "He's been with you for like – what? A year? More than that? He was supposed to hint that he might be planning a meeting with his parents, not his side-chick."

My heart sinks like an anchor dropped in the sea at his assertion. Partly because it's true – if Daniel wasn't going to bring up family meeting this week, I had made full plans to do so, by inviting him to Mom and Dad's anniversary next month. So, I guess he's right, except, well, the side chick thing. But he doesn't know what I do, and it's better to let that be.

"Yeah, well, I think men whose name starts with a D are just not right."

"Excuse me." His voice is a little high, offended by my statement. Scoffing, he murmurs something about 'ungratefulness' and how I define that word, and for a while it all seems simple.

Last I saw him, after the entire fiasco, I'd just told him to talk to me on Monday. I could just confront Daniel, break up with him, return him his Valentine's days and New Year's gifts, and be at peace.

Except that it's just one out of a million other things that have gone wrong. And I don't quite have a plan for all of those things.

"Ugh." I can't help it. I'm disgusted, depressed and feeling a thousand other synonymous feelings about how this week turned out.