The Love Diary

Saturday 13th January

Today was supposed to be great. There was so much love and good intention…

I got up early this morning to take the boys down the beach for the sunrise. And it was beautiful. 

We walked along the beach and I sipped the peppermint tea I brought with me. 

We were heading back up the dunes towards the car park when I went down. I think I put my foot in a rabbit hole and I hit the sand face down. Hard. 

I laid there stunned for a moment and then I turned to sit. My back twinged and then as I moved slightly more I realised I had definitely twisted my ankle. 

The boys had laid down in the sand and were watching me as I rolled my ankle round and winced at the pain. 

I sat there contemplating my options but in the end pushed through the pain, stood up and hobbled back to the car. 

I made it home, grabbed some ice and propped my leg up to ice my ankle. Immediately Duke was licking the ice bag and I had to keep shooing him away so the ice didn't melt too quickly.

I grabbed my phone to text Craig.

'Hey, I'm not sure what our plans were for tonight but I've twisted my ankle badly. Something simple that doesn't require walking far :('

I shot the text off, praying he had just planned dinner for tonight and had just been bigging it up yesterday.

'Hey, make sure you take some ibuprofen for that! Hopefully it'll start to feel better soon!'

I smile and feel relieved. 

I've decided to try and keep moving to stretch the muscle and so I hop into the kitchen and get some breakfast. 

I decided as soon as I hit the sofa that I wasn't going to even try much today. Being injured gives me a free pass to be a couch potato today. I put Modern Family straight on. I'm obsessed. 

After I fed the dogs I slowly crawled my way upstairs to get ready for tonight. My ankle was feeling sore and tender and I got ready sitting down as much as possible.

I managed to get myself sat on the stairs and slipped my trainers on gingerly. I had originally planned a completely different outfit with slightly heeled sandals but I certainly won't be wearing them at the moment.

When Craig arrived he looked me up and down and frowned.

"I thought you would be wearing something less…relaxed…" he stretches it out slowly.

"I… sorry… this is alright for dinner tho right?" I said confused looking down at my fancy trouser and trainer combo.

"Well… we're going to the zoo's light festival spectacular… so I mean… spectacular?" He's continually looking me up and down.

I was speechless for a moment. I gave him advanced warning of what happened and he was so casual.

"I think I'm dressed fine for the zoo? How much walking around will there be? I still can't really put weight on my ankle…" I step out of the house and lock the door, waiting for him to answer. When he didn't say anything I just pushed past him and started hobbling towards the car.

We arrived at the zoo after a silent car ride and the experience guide explained how the evening was going to look. 

We were taken into a dining hall which had been strung out with multi coloured fairy lights and sat down to dinner.

“So what actually happened to your ankle?” Craig finally spoke.

I recounted the morning to him and tried to make it clear how painful it was still. He nodded along and then started to tell me about his morning. 

After dinner we went on a guided tour of the zoo. All the harsh flood lights were off and the zoo was lit with various colour lights. I took some more ibuprofen before we set off on the tour. I've been to this zoo before. I know how big it is.

“Hey, come on, we have to keep up.” He said to me in an angry whisper. I stood up straight and looked at him.

"Oh sorry, am I holding you up? Oh no wait, I’m holding my ankle up. Because I’m injured and can't put weight on it”. I snipped back to him. He sighed and turned around to watch as the group moved on. 

I rolled my ankle and winced, I was trying to loosen it up to make this feel better but I didn't think it was working. I limped past Craig and he fell into step just behind me.

We caught up to the group who were looking at the giraffes eating some leaves on a tree.

By the time we had made it around the whole zoo my ankle was throbbing and I was a bit sweaty, I think because of the pain and struggle of walking.

We got back into the car and I was so relieved to take the weight off my ankle. 

“What was that?” Craig demands as he slides into the driver's seat.

“What do you mean?” I take a sip from my water bottle and take two more ibuprofen.

“Your ankle can't be that bad. You were making a scene. They had to keep waiting for us to catch up.” He's not looking at me as he says this.

“I literally told you this morning that I hurt my ankle. I didn't plan this. I didn't know you planned this.” I literally couldn't believe it. What was happening.

“Right.” That's all he said. All the way back to mine. He stopped outside my house and turned the car off. And just sat there.

“Look Craig. Thank you for tonight. But… I don't think we should see each other again.” I said it and looked over at him.

“Look Alice. I'm sorry. I just thought tonight would go perfectly and be really romantic and I was stressed.” He looked over at me and grabbed my hand.

I pulled it away.

“Craig. I appreciate that. But I still don't think it's a good idea. Goodbye.” I opened the door and got out as quickly as I could and hobbled up the path to the door. 

He didn't leave right away. But after I shut the door I heard his car drive away. 

I let out a huge sigh and crawled up the stairs to my bed and collapsed.

Beauty and the beast.