Bad Love

Chapter 9

Jasmine's favourite thing to talk about with Andrew was Melissa. Whenever they were having one of their late night talks after Lucy had gone to bed she would intentionally steer the conversation toward the topic of Melissa and would ask Andrew as many questions about her as she could think of; being the only girlfriend that he'd ever had she was an important part of Andrew's life that Jasmine was keen to know about. The casualness with which he spoke of the sexual relationship they'd started having when they were just fourteen surprised Jasmine; Andrew didn't seem like the concupiscent type, but then she had started seeing something different in his eyes in those moments when his eyes remained on her for longer than was necessary, something like desire. She started to think that maybe her looks hadn't deserted her as much as she thought they had and began paying more attention to her appearance. Wanting to know what Andrew found special about her, Jasmine spent increasing amounts of their time together asking him about Melissa.

"Is Melissa seeing anybody at the moment?" She asked him on the Monday evening after Melissa had told Andrew about her play.

"She's seeing Claire Masters, the drama professor at the university we were attending."

"Do you think it will last?"

"I don't know. Ordinarily I don't give Melissa's girlfriends a chance, but Claire's different. I just hope Melissa doesn't get hurt," he added with discernible concern.

"Why would Melissa get hurt?"

"Claire has, or at least she tries to project, an artist's personality: single-minded, driven, and competitive. I don't want her losing interest in Melissa after Melissa's developed feelings for her."

"You care so much about her," Jasmine said wistfully, "Do you still love her?"

"I do, but I'm not what she really wants," Andrew said plaintively.

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes, I do."

"What do you miss about her?"

"Mostly her mind. Once she started reading she very quickly developed sharp insights into everything."

"Do you miss sleeping with her?"

"Yes, the time we used to spend together in bed was very special."

She had suspected it for a while, but it had become unavoidable to Jasmine that what she wanted was to sleep with Andrew. At night, when they'd both gone to bed having had their talk, Jasmine would reach under the covers and touch herself, furtively at first, then quickly becoming more confident and aggressive. She was a changed woman, unrecognizable from her former self. She hardly thought about Lucy anymore and whether she was doing everything that she needed to do as a mother as well as she could. There was definitely a glint in Andrew's eyes when he looked at her but without being able to know definitively that what she was seeing was desire she couldn't take the risk of acting on her feelings. Desperate to feel close to him, she took to spending a few minutes in his room every morning while he was still out running. Jasmine had hated the room when Bradley had been using it for his study, it used to be filled with files that he brought home from work and all of his stupid 'self optimisation' books and CDs that he would spend hours reading and listening to. Andrew had filled the room with novels and autobiographies, and all of his CD's were recordings of classical music. Andrew had made the room a warm and comfortable space that Jasmine enjoyed spending time in.

She would sit on Andrew's bed, touch his books, press play on the CD player to listen to what he had last been listening to and sometimes would poke around the room in search of things that she was yet to discover about him, which is how she came upon the sketchpad. Thinking about what might be contained within it, Jasmine stood holding the pad with trembling hands for a moment before she sat on the edge of his bed and tentatively opened it. The first drawing was of a young frizzy-haired girl sitting on the floor with one leg stretched out before her and the other up against her chest with her hands and chin resting on its knee. Andrew's rendering of her was mesmerising, he had successfully captured a multitude of emotions in her pose and facial expression that revealed how much he understood her and how much she trusted him. Jasmine instantly knew that this was Melissa. She felt a deep pang of envy looking at the picture; Andrew and Melissa obviously loved each other a great deal more than she'd surmised from the stories that Andrew had shared with her. It was a love she had never known. She turned the page and moved onto the next picture, which was of an old couple sitting on a park bench enjoying their familiarity with each other. This was followed by three more nudes of Melissa, then one of a middle-aged looking woman wearing big wire rimmed glasses and a cardigan, drawn with the same painstaking attention to detail as his drawings of Melissa, then one of a resigned looking woman in a simple dress sitting alone at a table, then one of a man and a woman looking out of a window drawn from the rear, then a few more of Melissa, then a drawing of a woman who looked familiar to Jasmine. The drawing was in a different style to all the preceding drawings that had been done with soft pencil strokes and delicate shading. This drawing was dark and dramatic; the woman in it radiated powerful sexuality. Unable to shake the feeling she knew this woman Jasmine sat and stared at the drawing searching for a name to put to the face.