Collection of One Shot's

Broken

It all started about four years ago, I started a new job a bar so that I could pay my way through the last year of University. I met Chris there, he was an old timer and had been working at the bar for years so he was the one that was given the job of showing me the ropes. He was very nice and we clicked instantly, being twenty five at the time he was four years older than me and because of the attention and the excitement of it being an older man I fell and hard.

For the first six or so months we were inseparable and he made sure that I was given the same shifts as him so that we didn’t even need to part to go to work. He would treat me to nights out and I would return his gesture by buying him small gifts, nothing special but the gesture was there. He would always tell me how much he enjoyed being in my company. He would get upset when I had to go to class or pull an extra shift at work and I thought we were in love, naively I thought this was it, and he was the one.

One day I came home and he was in my flat I smiled at him and kissed him on the forehead, then I went to the fridge to grab a drink and asked him if he wanted one. When I went back to him he was pulling on his coat getting ready to leave and I looked at him confused when he wouldn’t look at me properly.

“This isn’t working out for me anymore Ben sorry.” He mumbled and with that he left my life.

It is safe to say the next three weeks were awful for me, I barely moved from my bed, quit my job and refused to go to class. I was an utter mess. I lost all dignity by calling him constantly, texting him when he wouldn’t pick up and hounding him on Facebook and Twitter. I wanted to get back with him of course I did I loved him but I would settle for an explanation, something that told me where I had gone so wrong. I thought we were happy.

In a desperate state I even went to his house and sat on his doorstep all day and night waiting for him so that I could find out, but he never came back or if he was already in there he ignored me completely. I felt desperate, a pathetic loser and looking back I realised that he never once gave me the impression that this would be forever for him.

Eventually sick of my moping and worried about the threatening letters I was receiving from the University, my friends dragged me from my pit and forced me to clean myself up. For the first few days back out in the open I was terrified of bumping into him, I walked around like a zombie and ignored anyone that tried to talk to me unless it was my friends.

In my English lecture they were discussing unrequited love and I thought this was so damn typical, all year it had been about war poetry and crap like that and when I come back it’s about love! I got up and left the room before I broke down in front of everyone I noticed that the lecturer gave me a scowl as I left but I couldn’t stay here.

The first time I saw him was about a month later, I was in a coffee shop reading a text book for an exam I had later that week and he walked in. I heard him before I saw him, I would recognise that laugh anywhere and I held my breath listening to him before looking up. When he caught my gaze I blushed crimson and I winced as my heart froze in solid ice when he looked me up and down then ignored me.

I ran from the coffee shop as quickly as I could, I was mortified. I made a deal with myself right there and then that I would move on, somehow I had to forget him. I decided that it was time to try and date again, maybe I could meet someone who appreciated me more than Chris did?

My friends helped me as much as they could and even set me up on a few dates but in the beginning I couldn’t stop comparing them to Chris and with each failed attempt I would get more and more angry at myself. I let him take a part of me and I needed it back, I was trying my hardest but nothing seemed to be working.

Until I met Dylan two years later, he was such a nice guy and we started slowly as he understood that I had come out of a bad breakup and was happy to wait. We went on a few dates and I started to relax with him and I found that he was really easy to talk to, funny and he always kept eye contact with me which was nice. As nice as he was though I reminded myself that Chris had been like that in the beginning then he had left me without an explanation, so I continued to date Dylan but held myself back.