[18+] Mark just wants a quiet life. With plenty of action at work, he has no interest in bringing the drama home with him. But he does need a flatmate, and when blonde bombshell Zoe crashes onto the scene, she's more than he bargained for.
Zoe is a...
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March 2009
ZOE
There's one big problem with sleeping with your best friend: when a perfectly nice guy asks you out, you don't feel like you can go to your friend for advice.
Richard is everything I want in a partner. He's kind, funny, attractive, and he cares about me. There's just one thing holding me back: he isn't Mark. He doesn't make my heart race. He doesn't fill me with giddiness whenever we kiss. I don't have this magnetic urge to tear off his clothes.
With Richard, what you see is what you get, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we're less likely to have a row about him hiding his emotions if he's always up front with me. I just can't help worrying there's no excitement there, no anticipation about discovering something new, about seeing a part of him reserved only for me.
It's irony at its finest. And I've got nobody to talk it through with. Everyone on the grad scheme is tight-knit, and since Richard is included in our circle of friends there, I can't chat to the other girls without the risk of it finding its way back to him. If it did, if he did find out that I'm comparing him to my best friend, I couldn't bear the hurt that would cause.
If I do talk to Mark, there's a 90% chance he won't show any emotion at all. He'll give me advice like always, but with that comes an inevitable sense of rejection that he just doesn't care either way. That I've been right to hold back all these years. We're not a couple. Far from it. But our friendship and sex is incomparable. How can I ignore that? Throw it away?
I somewhat dug my grave a year ago when we had the argument in my bedroom. We made up fairly quickly, but the damage was done. I said a stupid thing out of fear, and now every insecurity I had about my relationship with him has multiplied tenfold. On the one hand, it proves I was right to hold back. On the other, my heart is broken into a million tiny pieces that can only be reconstructed by him.
Richard deserves a chance. I'm just not sure I do.
*
Mark and I spend Easter with my parents in Devon. Sometimes I think Mark likes my family more than he likes me. With everyone else, he's a closed book who doesn't enjoy socialising. With my parents, he opens up. He relaxes. It might be because he doesn't have a family himself anymore, and he misses those parental figures in his life. It's healthy for him anyway, even if I suspect he does talk to my dad about things he'd never discuss with me.
"You're quiet, love," Mum says to me as we clear up the dinner plates. "Everything okay?"
"Fine." I place two wineglasses onto the worktop above the dishwasher. "Just tired."
"We were going to watch a film, but if you and Mark want to head to bed early—"
"Mum." I close my eyes to summon patience. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm seeing Richard. There's nothing romantic between Mark and me."
