The Waitress

The changing face

The world went mad that July.

Mells' world.

Tom's world.

The tabloid world.

It was like the whole planet had changed on its axis and spun out of control and then totally inverted.

At the time Tom thought it was a good thing. But he was wrapped in a bubble of love, lust or whatever the hell it was – delusion? At the time he thought he'd found everything he needed, the girl, the profile - everything.

At the time Mells told her self it was a good thing. He was her friend and he was happy, deliriously so it seemed from the seemingly endless stream of photos of him.

It was a good thing.

And she had told him to go out and get it and he had. He'd followed her advice.

It was stupid then to feel anything but happiness for him? It was stupid to think back to those two days in February straight after her birthday and his, they were a blip on the radar. They had both known he needed this and now he had it.

Be careful what you wish for – those words echoed in her head from the beginning and in his not long after.

His grand romance lasted three months and had almost taken their friendship out in the process.

In quiet moments, though there were few of those, she analysed it, blamed herself. She'd pushed him towards it, he was lonely and they'd been friends and then February had happened and she'd distanced herself. Not intentionally. Not really.

He'd been too busy and too isolated to contact her from Vietnam and then assignments had hit, assignments and assigned texts, then work and books – new friends from university. It had all taken head space that he could have inhabited.

But then she wondered if it was fear and guilt on both sides.

In the quiet nights of contemplation in her lonely beachside house, she wondered whether those two days of farewell sex had triggered something in both of them.

They hadn't meant to.

They hadn't expected to.

And yet it somehow felt inevitable.

No, it wasn't planned or plotted in fact they had both thought they were beyond that point in their friendship and yet the moment he had touched her. Innocently put his hands on her hips. From that moment they had been on a collision course, hurtling to a point where they couldn't stop themselves. So much for two people who usually prided themselves as masters of self-control. She'd gone straight from the bed they shared to university, from uni to work and then back to his bed.

That had been the other surprise.

Once they had uncorked the bottle the genie refused to go back. They had been texting all day, back and forward. It had been so right, so nice to have him come to work and then walk her back to his unit. To kiss in the elevator like they were starving. To have him pick her up and carry her to his room and to have him take her against the door and later again in the shower. To wake up with him in the morning. Wrapped around each other – only possible at this time of year in an airconditioned room. They'd kissed and made love, slowly and sensuously with fingers and lips touching everywhere, everything. And then they'd dressed, he'd grabbed his bags and left her life.

Sure, they'd talked about it in the 2 am witching hour when the body is sated and the mind wants to rationalize what has just happened. They'd decided that it was a symptom of being alone and then getting so close so fast, of that friendship now being stretched around the world. All of those things contributed to what they were feeling.