One More Night (Alone With You) » CH

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Friday nights with the boys gets old after it's your 7th Friday with them in a row, you're stranded in a sea of strangers, and your only life raft is the drink in your hand.

I just introduced myself to the girl that was in the corner, and she can tell how drunk I am. She'd asked me if I'd needed a glass of water. Like I haven't done this before, over and over again. Of course I need water. That didn't mean I was going to get it.

"You're really pretty" I say, sloshing my rum and coke onto my sleeve a little. But it's okay. I know how to get the stain out by now.

"Thanks" she says. She has a nice body, but her face lets me down. She's sipping her own drink sparingly, as if trying to remind me this is more of a work function than a club. It's not okay to be sloppy here.

But I know that already.

"My name's Calum" I say, getting close next to her. She is as tall as I am. I lean my hand behind her on a table, brushing my shoulder against hers. I can feel that her skin is cold through my sleeve and smile deliberately. Perfect. I'm so drunk it feels like I have a fever.

Her tone of voice speaks of finality when she answers; "I'm Caitlin."

She moves away from me then, and I watch her walk towards another group of people, looking concernedly over her shoulder at me just once as she merges into their conversation with ease.

I bring up my mental calendar. I'm at... just over a month. It's been a month and 4 days. Somehow it seems harder on the days that aren't clear anniversaries. It hurts so much more on the '3 weeks and 2 days since' than the '1 month since' because I feel like I have no right to grieve it. No clear reason to miss her.

I look around for my friends. For my boys. The killer support system I've had over this rough time. It's hard to take their advice sometimes, because none of them have ever been in love like I have. They aren't anywhere, but it's hard to see in the dimly lit function room, and I call off my urge to stand on a sofa to see over the heads of the crowd to find them.

Instead I make my way to the window, where there are less people, and press my face to the glass. Half of the room is made of floor to ceiling window, and we must be on somewhere above the 30th storey. The city sprawls out below me, lit up in lights like another sky under the real one. Artificial stars twinkle up at me, and I sigh back at them. A few raindrops hit against the window, their faint tapping lost in the chatter of the people behind me.

I'm at some kind of launch, or an official event of sorts. Theres posters for a product and a brand around the room, and a few D grade celebrities mill about, wearing the product and chatting with the guests. But I'm a plus one, I'm not worth talking to. I'm a drunk plus one, someone who's here to fill in the empty space between the people who were actually invited and to keep the bar running.

It's in the moments when I'm not talking that the void of her begins to kill me. I've begun to miss the things I never really thought much of when we were together. Tiny messages I'd get from her on my lunch break, because she knew when it was. How her hands felt on my shoulder blades when she would cuddle me close and keep me protected with her body. The dirty things she liked to text me at parties, when we were both tipsy and horny, anxious to get home and undress each other. The way she mispronounced pacific and library and couldn't spell to save her life.

"Agh" I groan, holding my forehead with one hand. I'm not supposed to think about her in a good light. That's what the boys keep saying. She broke up with me, she's the evil one. She's the bitch who hurt me, who I didn't need in the first place. I can live without her, and I'm way more fun when I'm single anyway. I cut loose. I get drunk at formal gatherings. I spill my drinks on myself. I sleep with strangers to feel dregs of intimacy.