Blazed

chapter Nine



SOMEONE THREW UP in my mouth at some point between 'the fray' and my getting home. I don't remember it, but I was certain it had happened from the way I felt the next morning. That or the apocalypse had happened, localised entirely in my skull.

Sticky eyed, and almost definitely still drunk, I had little to no memory of what had happened after Blaze led me down into the crowd and insisted that I climb on his shoulders. I think I fell, I might have flashed my chest, and for some reason I recall a zebra. The details are a fuzzy black hole in my mind, but what I do know was that I woke up in my bed, undressed and stinking of sweat and liquor. A sequinned orange top hat lay on the bed next to me and the ache between my legs gave me the impression that I might find myself getting another noise complaint. I just hoped it was Blaze who'd left the bite mark on my inner thigh.

It wasn't until I lifted my arm to rub my eyes, I noticed the thick black letters drawn on my skin.

Told you I'd get your number. Call me!

Blaze

But no number to call. In the same second, I realised that there was music playing outside in the lounge and the nauseating smell of greasy food. No... that was the burger I was lying on. No... it was outside. The unmistakable smell of bacon tugging at my gag reflex.

"Blaze?" My shout came with a cough and a hand full of glitter. Well, I appeared to have either had a good time or sucked off a clown. And swallowed.

Half dressed and carrying a breakfast tray, Blaze slammed in singing unreasonably loudly and looking so good it was unfair. I felt like the Crypt Keeper and he looked like f*cking Adonis in the flesh with his own sheen of glitter. It was only his unsteady hobble to me that made him human.

"How dare you look so good on a hangover."

"I'm not hungover." He giggled cheekily and put the tray down on the bed next to me. Again, it was covered in speckles of blood, but somehow it was the glitter that made it look nightmarish. "I haven't slept, I'm still drunk."

I groaned, "me too," and pulled a pillow over my head. "What time is it?"

"Roughly seven in the morning."

"What the f*ck! When did we get back?"

"Five-ish. We stumbled in, I f*cked the hell out of you for about half an hour, you begged me to take the ass, proposed, then passed out with me still inside you."

God knows I wanted that to be a joke, but the play by play flashback ran involuntarily through my mind. "I remember that," I groaned. "I feel like someone's pissed on my brain. Did we have fun?"

"Lots," Blaze assured me, removing my squashed burger from under the duvet before pulling it over us both. "Eat your breakfast so I can curl up on top of you and listen to those exquisite little moans you make when I'm inside you." His leg pinned down both of mine, leverage for him to clamber over me, nuzzle between my breasts and inhale deeply. "I can't get enough of you. Damn it, I can't keep up with how much I want you. Your tiny waist, flawless skin, your sweet, pink, tight little pu—"

"Shit, Blaze!" I blushed violently at the way he spoke about my body. Those buzz words were fine, yes, if said in regards to someone else. Drunk Blaze had a dirty mouth and I have to admit, it got me a little hot under the collar.

"Oh, but Emmeline!" He whined pitifully and ran his tongue down my body until he disappeared beyond the duvet. "You're so snug and still full of my cum..."

"Oh god, don't—"

There went another hour of my morning, my breakfast on the floor and a large chunk of my so-called innocence. I guess I spoke a little prematurely about how dirty his mouth was.

MY POST-COITAL POWER naps seemed to be getting shorter. I didn't know if that meant my body was becoming immune to my soporific endorphins or eager to get back to the person who triggered them. I was almost physically addicted to Blaze and needed more and more of him to satisfy the cravings.

But having to leave me to wake up alone seemed to be wearing thin. Still drunk and 'shagged out', Blaze had needed to leave me right away before he fell asleep next to me and retreat to the couch. I desperately wanted to let him rest with me, but we both knew already what my brain would do when we woke up together— freak out. I was scared of how I'd react if he was there, petrified by the big question mark that hung over my own indecisive mind. I didn't want to turn polar and kick him out of my life, afraid to let him into my heart, anymore than I wanted to become one of those needy, psychopathic girlfriends who became irrational and demanding. So I evicted him to the lounge and slept alone, listening for signs of him around when I woke up.

That morning, I had nothing but the buzz of music still playing outside and a text message on my phone.

Don't let me sleep.

Okay, so I had his phone number now, and he'd already saved it in my phone book with a heart next to it for good measure. He'd also changed the background to a picture of him curled up next to me, grinning into the camera while I slept. The image was new, obviously taken that morning. The glitter gave it away. When he wasn't around, I would at least have the reminders that he existed, evidence that he wasn't a reoccurring dream or another hallucination to add to the list. Flesh and blood man who cared enough to bunk on my back breaking furniture to keep 'us' a reality.

But I made a promise to myself not to text or call him unless he did first. It was like being back at the basic rules of dating etiquette.

When the room steadied enough, I crept through the lounge to the kitchen and watched him napping on my couch. I'd seen Chris, Daniel or Jonathan grace that camelback many times, but Blaze looked the most at peace there. He didn't have bad dreams like my friends and I did every time they slept, just lay naked, midriff covered with his jacket, mouth slightly open and one foot dangling over the arm rest. The muscles in his torso flexed and defined as he breathed steadily— in, out, in, out, almost hypnotic. I had no idea that watching someone sleep could be so entrancing.

I poured us both cups of coffee and tiptoed in to crouch next to him, finding myself smiling. He really was beautiful, and as far as the world knew, mine.

But he's not yours, is he? However much you think he wants you, you can never be the focal point in his life. You'll only ever be a part time lover— god knows what he's doing in the week.

Shut up, he's caring for someone. It's his job, he gets paid for it.

Unless he's lying. Maybe he does care for her, but maybe he's f*cking her as well. You don't keep yourself for him, why would he? You don't really have a right to complain, do you?

"Emmeline?" Two sleepy green eyes fluttered open at me and crinkled with an accompanying smile. It stopped my heart to see him so unguarded in those first waking moments, before his brain could start to process and produce his usual cockiness and wit. Shakily, I raised a hand to stroke across his hairline, feeling something I thought I'd obliterated from my emotional repertoire years ago. Tears burning the backs of my eyes and complete, pathetic, unreasonable dread.

He meant too much. I was already hurting. If I cut him off now, it might save me from years of obsession, but it would shred me to do so. And down the rabbit hole she goes...

"Hey, don't cry." Even the quiet encouragement couldn't stop me. I was 'feeling' the most I had in years and was a little resentful about it. All the framework I'd put in place so far to become indestructible had been burned to the ground and lay in sad little piles of ash at my feet. Back to square one, somewhere I'd come to London to escape.

"This is all just too much, Blaze. You are too much. I don't think I'll come out of this in one piece, even if I step back now."

"Oh, Emmeline." Shifting to sit, he pulled me up into the couch with him and manoeuvred me onto his lap, pressing his nose into my hair. "This time last week I felt the same way. I thought I'd come and see you again just once to say goodbye and limp home to lick my wounds because I was in too deep. But then I heard two words. Two words that perfectly epitomised our dilemma and told me how to proceed. Two words who came from a woman neither of us know; a woman who'd just been told that if she discharged herself from hospital and refused chemotherapy, she'd die."

"Go on."

" 'F*ck it'." I twisted to look at him and raised an eyebrow. He nodded briefly, then pulled me back into the warm snug of his arms. "Wonderful woman, ancient, vulgar to the back teeth, and she said 'f*ck it'. Her explanation was that life is too short and she'd already taken more time than she deserved. She said she'd wasted her life second guessing impulse decisions and saying no when she should have said yes, and 'damned if it isn't about time someone took it away from me so I don't balls it up further!' "

"She sounds wise." The hassle I'd have been saved from if someone had taken away my life or freewill...

"Not so much. She smoked sixty a day and had lung cancer. But I understood what she meant. I don't want to waste my life on 'what if's. How do I know this would turn out so bad if I don't even try? I'd rather walk through life saying 'oh well, at least I know' than turn my back on something that isn't so significant for no reason. I told you yesterday that nothing will get rid of me now, not when my mind is so made up and I've finished second guessing. We just need time. Do you have time?"

"Yes." I had time in bucketfuls because I was guilty of wasting it too. With or without him, I'd keep wasting it, but at least the scenery was better when he was wasting it with me. "I really don't have any choice but to sit here waiting for you, do I?"

"Sure you do. You can send me away and go on with your life as normal. But that doesn't mean I won't stop coming back."

SO waiting it was. This was my 'normal' now— door watching and making the effort to leave the house looking good every morning whilst trying to maintain my usual patterns of behaviour so it didn't look like I was too far gone, then intermittently being swept off my feet and spoiled with compliments and affection that would drive my feelings for him deeper, making it more painful every time he left.

As depressing as it may have sounded, I really didn't mind it. It was almost like my routine with Hunter except he didn't spare me the kind words and subdue me with orgasms at every chance. The roar of the cynical voice in my mind was easily blocked out when Blaze spoke to me and wanting him wasn't nearly as self-destructive. I was actually kind of happy about it.

WE stayed wrapped up on the couch while we drank our coffee, idly chatting and trying to piece together the fractured memories of the night before. I did fall off his shoulders, and Blaze caught me. How symbolic. Spending this kind of quality time together was peaceful and soothing, the fact of it being uneventful being proof that our strange relationship had substance beyond the alcohol and animal sex.

He looked like hell and he still looked great. We both stank to high heaven but somehow he just wore it like a movie role, cast as my party animal 'boyfriend'. The word still felt strange.

"I think I need to de-funk." The words lacked motive. I was still exhausted and heavy-headed, putting 'moving' fairly low on my to-do list.

Blaze lifted my arm and stuck his nose into my armpit, squeezing me to stillness when I tried to squirm away. "Jesus, you're right. You're noxious."

"You disgust me." I thought about daring him to sniff lower down but not trusting him to hold back from the challenge, I begrudgingly pulled myself away from him and made tracks through the bedroom to the en suite, groaning at the sight of my bed. I had to trim my fingernails.

"You're a natural blonde." Blaze caught me by the elbow just as I was about to step into the shower and smirked downwards. I followed his line of sight and grimaced. The point of focus was the fine muzzle of pubic hair making an appearance between my legs.

"I was about to deal with that." Grooming had never been essential but somehow it just made me feel feminine and a little more acceptable. "So if you don't mind..."

"You want me to leave while you shower?" I glared at him like the question was stupid. It was stupid, but he raised an eyebrow and leaned into the shower screen, not flinching at the ice cold sheet of glass pressing against his still very naked body. I didn't even try not to eye-f*ck him. "Why are you so body conscious? You have an amazing figure. Even with those god damn scars, you're still one of the sexiest women I've ever met in person." I was about to ask why I wasn't the sexiest when I remembered he'd been in a music video with Amelia Marsh. There was no way to compete.

Shuddering inwardly, I backed under the water and closed myself in before I confessed, "because I used to be f*cking fat." He had to hear it sooner or later, and there really was no time like the present. If he was insistent on throwing around claims of sticking with me despite everything, it was better I told him when it was easier for him to take back.

His scoff and disbelief rang over the hiss of water. "No, really."

"Really, Blaze. I was the fat, ugly, sweaty, blonde nerd who hoarded chocolate in her pencil case." The memory of looking like a two tonne whale made me literally gag.

"So what the hell happened?" I paused and closed my eyes, praying for the subject to go away. "Emmeline?"

"... Boys. One in particular. He was really nice to me when other people weren't and gave me and Daniel the time of day. I was mad for him to the point of being downright brazen but he ignored it, so I figured it was my weight. I took the weight loss to the extreme— I..." My voice broke. Reliving those memories was painful and talking about them now of all times— when I was naked— wasn't helping. No matter how hard I looked in the mirror, I saw fat and I saw ugliness. I couldn't remember the last time I looked at myself and saw anything I liked. Sure, I was a little more accepting of it since Blaze had been around, but still, Fat Emmy was always there.

"I dropped a shit ton of weight and even though he told me I looked great, he never asked me out. So I thought I needed to drop more." The screen slid open and Blaze slipped in behind me, folding his arms around my body. He felt so much warmer than the water pouring down on us and was giving me what I'd needed nine years earlier. Just that comfort and willingness to touch me.

"You were anorexic."

"Yeah, but I'd get so hungry and snap sometimes. It went on for years, still does. It was around the time I collapsed in a gym and ended up hospitalised he met some half-Japanese chick who looked like a f*cking hentai character. Abnormally massive rack for a seventeen year old, big brown eyes and really amazing raven hair. So I dyed my hair black, figuring that was what he liked, which earned me a smug girl chat in the college bathrooms. She told me I was still fat, he hated me because I was ugly and I'd never be as good as her. So I made a bungled attempt at suicide, ended up back in hospital and was forcibly sectioned, where he told me I was selfish. That just provoked a self-harm habit in places I knew nobody would see— where I thought it was 'needed'. However much I thought I hurt, it just didn't feel like I was hurting enough."

"Emmeline..." He eased me around by the shoulders and pulled me against his rippling bronze skin. Even hearing about my messed up life, he was still semi-hard and holding me. Why the hell was he doing it? "Cupcake, anyone who can't accept you on face value isn't worthy of you. You don't have to change for anyone— nobody at all. You want to be a fat blonde chick indulging an oral fixation? Then be that fat blonde chick."

"You'd like me blonde?" I looked up at him shyly and my mouth curved into an awkward smile.

"Yeah, it would suit you because genetics made you that way. But I like the black and I'd like red, green, blue or purple. Hell, I couldn't give a shit if you were bald, which is a serious possibility if you don't stop dying it. But it doesn't matter what I like, as long as you're comfortable in it."

God. There was no way this man was for real. He was already screwing me, so where was his ulterior motive? What could I possibly have that would make six foot three inches of pure godliness say these things to me? "Do me a favour though? Don't lose any more weight. You're perfect the way you are." He nodded down to the proud erection straining between us. "See, we're only talking and I'm dying to be inside you." His confession made me drop to my knees and lick my lips, taking his thick heavy cock in my hand. It was the first time I'd really paid attention to it beyond foreplay in a dimly lit room and I was determined to repay the favour for all it's good work.

My lips pushed over the crest and switched me right on. He felt right in my mouth, solid and firm but still soft. Closing in on him, I reached up for his hand and urged it down in my hair. I wanted him to guide me, to tell me how he wanted it. His fingers flexed on my crown and rocked me back and forth, encouraging me to f*ck him with my mouth.

He purred my name as I sucked, twisting and bobbing to find any spot he preferred and targeting it. Cupping his balls in one hand, I tugged just enough to make him flinch and throw his hands out to steady himself.

"Faster," he rasped, leaning into me, "suck me harder." One hand pumped while the other squeezed, my tongue flattening against his underside, curling around the crown and swirling around the tip. He twitched and buckled, filling my mouth with his own unique creamy flavour forcefully enough to spill over. I pumped until he softened and continued to tease beyond the tremors, hoping to get him hard enough to taste him again. "Christ, woman, give me a chance."

I looked up innocently and took the hand he offered, knowing that my cheeks were as flushed as his. The noises he made always turned me on. "Is this your kryptonite?"

"You are my god damn kryptonite."

I grinned, feeling a little giddy with pride. "Come on, let's do my hair. I told you I'd make you."

"ASSHOLE, I TOLD you— nobody called Miss Tudor lives here. Stop calling." The one sided screaming match in my lounge forced me back a step when I emerged from the bathroom, a fresh bottle blonde that was artificial but almost my natural colour. He'd done a great job, obviously well practised, but I didn't dwell on it. I didn't look so sallow in my own colouring, and my irises glowed like a cat's eyes. Even Fat Emmy stopped and stared in awe at the person looking at her now.

My eyes slipped into a glare when they locked onto Blaze clutching my cordless landline handset, slamming around in the kitchen like he owned the place. And then they softened when I realised that he was dressed only in boxer shorts and an unbuttoned white shirt. His hair was still damp and carelessly combed back into no particular style, his stunning irises visibly greener than normal and visible across the room. As soon he put that phone down, he was going to end up with those boxers around his ankles.

"No, you listen to me, dumb f*ck. I don't care how much this call is costing you, I have spent enough time inside the woman who lives here to know that she doesn't go by the name Miss Tudor." Shit.

I scurried across the lounge, feet slipping on the hardwood, and wrenched the handset from his hand. Why the hell had he felt the need to say that?

"Hunter," I panted, resting against a cupboard, "I am so sorry, you don't usually call on a Sunday." He didn't usually call at all, but who was splitting hairs?

"Your friend is a real idiot, Emmeline. You pick him up on a street corner?" There was an accusatory hardness around the word 'friend' that got my back up.

"What the f*ck would you care, you dickless wonder?" My words carried enough aggression to embarrass me. "What do you want?"

"I want to know who you are and what you've done with my best friend." He sighed, and at even blows on insults, the battle ended. "Your mother called yesterday to let me know that you've been distracted by a new boyfriend." Hell, I should have known that they'd have a little back and forth repartee going on between them. Not knowing that he'd been the cause of my anguish, my mother still worshipped the ground he walked on and thought he was fabulous. "Was that him?"

"What? That is precisely none of your f*cking business." I glanced over my shoulder at Blaze, who had stationed himself over the cooker and was frying bacon again with a scowl, and moved into the lounge. "It's complicated. Anyway, you know nobody calls me Tudor here."

"He didn't sound like any of your male friends and we all know you don't keep company overnight. I thought you'd let one of Henry's staff in to tidy your shithole." Resentfully looking around my flat, I couldn't reasonably deny that it looked 'lived in'. But the mess was new from that weekend— I'd noticed areas of the space suddenly become well ordered and neat overnight when Blaze was around. Was there anything he wasn't setting right in my life?

"I would sooner die than get his goons in. I'm Emmy White outside of Cardiff, a separate entity. Independent."

"You're still pretending you're 'normal'? Grow a spine, Emmeline. You have obligations and a public image to uphold, if not for Henry then just for your mother."

I sighed and slumped down on the couch, not stupid enough to think that there was a good way to have this conversation. So I'd get out of having it. "What do you really want? I presume you don't want a step by step guide with diagrams of how I interact with my... boyfriend?" There, I said it. It was real now.

"I want to know why you've really been ignoring my emails."

"You could have called." Silence in reply. Hunter knew better than to try and defend himself when he knew I had a point. Those moments were rare. "I'm sorry, I've just been really busy. I forgot."

"You forgot about me?"

Every trace of my good mood and regained self-esteem vanished. I had nearly forgotten about him. Barely thought about him for weeks. The man at the top of my list had been unfairly demoted and really hadn't been so much as a blip on my radar. Nine years of friendship neglected for my pretty new toy who was really equally as inaccessible. I was a terrible friend.

And how did I suppose he'd ever change his mind about me if I wasn't giving him the time of day? Who would lay themselves out for someone who turned their back as soon as something shinier caught their eye? Hunter didn't hate me because I was fat. He hated me because he knew I was a cold, selfish bitch.

"I promise it won't happen again."

"You don't have to make any promises to me, Emmeline," his voice was filled with hostility I was afraid of, "you want to f*ck your own life up and end up sectioned again because you're keeping the wrong company, you go for it. Just have the decency to recover or die in time for the wedding so your family can be there."

The phone slammed down on his end, leaving me in a loaded silence where even Fat Emmy was afraid to speak. I'd blown any chance of ever seeing the inside of that man's heart over a walking hard-on I'd never wake up next to. How the hell could I undo the damage? Why did I even f*cking care anymore?

Still, I didn't scream and curse out loud like I was inside. Nothing good came from making a scene and I was no attention seeker. It wasn't safe for me express outwardly with my history, not if I wanted to avoid going back to that hellish ward of unhinged misanthropists. I could deal with it alone, in private. Let it go then...

"Emmeline?" A bacon sandwich appeared over my shoulder, but I ignored it. I wasn't hungry, but it wasn't me being mental. I just wasn't hungry. "Please."

"I don't f*cking want it!"

"I don't particularly care what you want right now." Enraged, I spun around onto my knees, ready to throw the phone at Blaze, but stopped as soon as I was looking at him.

This was what I'd neglected Hunter for. A selfless man who spent his whole life 'caring' for someone else but still arrived wanting to care for me in more ways than one. A man who'd put himself out for me even when I didn't want it since day one, and didn't hate me when I threw it back in his face. A man who'd thrown me into the fire like Joan of Arc but stood in the flames with me rather than leave me to stand alone.

A man who believed in me far more than I believed in myself. Maybe he understood what it was like from my perspective to be eclipsed by Hunter.

Despite not really being hungry, I took the sandwich from him and bit into it just to put a smile on his face. Blaze visibly relaxed and sat down on the couch next to me, curling an arm around my shoulders and pressing his lips to my temple.

"That was your Japanese friend?"

"He's not Japanese, he just lives there. And I don't think he's my friend anymore. We haven't spoken since the day you walked in on it and he's not best pleased."

"He really does expect you to sit around waiting for him to spare you half a minute?"

My teeth clenched and ground together at his recollection of the conversation. "He's been emailing, that's the problem. I've been too busy thinking about you to read them. He set my mother on me."

A breath hissed out between his teeth. "That's so f*cked up, Emmeline. He needs to realise that you have a life beyond him, people who are looking out for you. The world doesn't revolve around him." Except it does. Fat Emmy smacked her lips at my sandwich and mouthed 'a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the thighs'. At least he was until you f*cked it up over an easy lay. "Why do you let him talk to you like that? He clearly has no respect for you, it's disgusting."

"Because it's the only way I can have him in my life." I could hear the cogs grinding furiously followed by the distant sound of a penny dropping. He'd got it. He'd figured out my complication, my reason 'why not'.

"He's the boy." The transformation in Blaze made it impossible to look at him. His mind was working through everything and the disappointment showed in his hunched back and sad eyes. I'd given him too much to process that day and it was taking it's obvious toll. Bet he regrets saying he can overlook your shit now. "Is it the same? As... this?"

Setting the plate down on the coffee table, I knotted my fingers in front of me. I couldn't stand the defeat in his voice but I wanted him to understand. "I can't really have either of you, but that's where the similarities end. Both of you, I..." Want? Need? Love? "I have two gorgeous men in my life in a way barely tolerable and holding on to something that's just not quite enough is hell. But while that much might seem the same, you're polar opposites. You're looking out for me and he's only ever looked over me. You focus on the person I am and can be while he dwells on the person I was. I have a flesh and blood you, full of empathy and pushing invisible boundaries to put us in the same room in a way that we shouldn't be, and I have a man on the other side of the planet who didn't care enough to tell me that he was leaving until he was already there. I feel the same way about both of you but he makes it feel like something I should mourn." Christ, Hunter sounded like a complete bastard when I described their differences. Why the hell did I care about him so much?

Blaze turned to face me, frowning. "You're in love with him?" Why did that sound less wistful?

"Irrationally so. It's a nine year habit I've never had a reason to quit."

"And now?"

Ah. The crux of the matter. He needed me to tell him that he was a good enough reason to let go of my stupid infatuation and I couldn't. It wasn't that simple— I couldn't just turn it off for him. If I could, why would I for a life of no guarantees and why wouldn't I have done it sooner?

"It's like quitting drugs to become an alcoholic, Blaze. Either way, I'm damned to spending my life mooning after a man I can't have. If I erase him from my life, what do I have left when you go too? Some nice new clothes, some new scars and a few memories? I don't know that I'm not the sort of person who needs something to be reckless about. My life would lack purpose. And I know that's unhealthy and co-dependent, but—" He cut me off with a kiss.

"I have to go."

"I know. I've said too much."

"No. You said what matters. But I do have to go because you have a lunch date with your mother." Shit. In the midst of all the outrageousness and revelations, I'd completely forgotten. "I set clothes out for you. Something nice and demure to hide your war wounds."

"You're quite the domestic god." He smiled but it lacked his usual enthusiasm and sincerity. It was like looking at the first lie he'd ever told. "You hate me, don't you?"

"I could never hate you. I hate him." I could understand why. Finding out the significant woman in your life had a history of self-harm and a latent eating disorder must be tough, but for her to then say that she was dividing the love that should have been concentrated on one person— that had to sting. Knowing who he was had to be rubbing salt in the wounds.

"I'm sorry that you didn't meet a better person, Blaze. Somebody a little less colourful."

"I'm not." He leaned over to recover a duffel bag he'd stowed under the couch and quickly dressed into trousers, half-buttoning his shirt before he rose to collect his shoes from the bedroom. I didn't move, just watched him get ready to walk out of my door for what I presumed would be the last time.

He lingered a moment too long when he kissed me a poignant goodbye, cradling my face in his hands. "I'll call you."

IF he'd wanted to vengefully wound me as he left, the clichéd brush off did the job nicely.



Ten


JULY WAS TOO hot and too fickle. Even with a stupid floppy great sun hat, the heat was too much until the breeze made my skin prickle. I'd been in that state of hyper-awareness before, seeing and hearing everything that should have been hidden out of sight, sitting in some giant, isolated goldfish bowl that resonated everything, separating me from a world I still watched while it still looked in on me. Detached from my feelings, completely apathetic but still present, about as sentient as a robot.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it, love." I tipped my chin just slightly to look at my mother under the brim of my hat for some kind of clarification. The sun glared off her white silk shirt making it hard to have a conversation looking right at her.

We looked strangely alike that day, my own shirt and pencil skirt outfit almost matching hers. Two golden blonde sophisticates lunching on the terrace of a restaurant only the dirty rich could swindle reservations for. It felt shallow and disingenuous but it was exactly what I needed; something a million miles away from my usual habits and somewhere nobody would ever think to find me, not that anyone would look. As for being habitually ashamed, that didn't happen when I was out with Ivy. Her purity was as noble as gold and bloody contagious. Plus I had my hat. I was, for all definitions, intents and purposes, completely covered.

"Hunter." Knowing she couldn't see, I rolled my eyes and sipped at an intensely saccharine fruit cocktail containing a whole shelf full of spirits. "His mother spoiled him horribly, he doesn't think before he speaks. He's been very lucky unlike—" Her sentence stemmed off into an awkward and apologetic half-shrug. "He knows how to work a room but he's horribly impersonal. I imagine he's awfully jealous of your new romance." The one that doesn't exist anymore? Doubtful. Fat Emmy was feeling bitter too. He might have been the enemy but she sure liked to look at him. I raised my glass to her in a gesture of solidarity.

"Mother, he's livid about anything that might interfere with his stupid wedding. I mean, come on, who throws a sakura blossom themed wedding in January? The fundamental basis of the event is a f*cking sham."

"Emmy, language!" She scolded me but her eyes said that she agreed. Born romantic Ivy Tudor was vehemently opposed to artificial flowers of any kind, particularly when they would naturally be in bloom just a couple of months later. By her way of thinking, a fake rose symbolised fake love. I never pointed out to her the potential symbolism lurking behind the fact that real roses died. Maybe it was better if it was fake. It sure as hell wouldn't hurt so much. "Speaking of your romance, why on earth didn't you tell me that you're dating the Blaze?"

Struck-dumb by her knowledge of our 'relationship', what else could I really do but play the fool? I'd concentrated so hard on keeping that part of my life hidden from him that I'd neglected to consider that it might find him first. Stupid, of course, when my mother was as hungry for gossip as she was. "Pardon me?"

"This is you isn't it?" Unfolding a magazine and spreading it across the table between our glasses, she tapped the page at several pictures from the night before at The Roses, showing me in varying degrees of drunkenness while always attached to Blaze. It made my heart ache to look at them. The accompanying article was as reckless to look at but I just couldn't help myself.

UK rock act Monday's Miracle stormed Tudor owned 'The Roses' in style at their highly anticipated secret gig in Mayfair last night. Founding foreman Blaze topped the bill, rejoining former bandmates Scott, Jordan and Matt for the first four songs of their set, leaving the stage with an artful leap across the two hundred and ninety-seven strong crowd.

But the ladies were left lusting when he emerged to watch his friends perform with his frequently pictured companion. Bad news folks, that foxy brunette is officially stoking his fire, and boy, does it ever burn for her!

Our insider couldn't get close enough to the inferno for an exclusive, straight from the horses mouth, skinny on how it's rocking in that casbah, but Monday's Miracle guitarist, Scott, had this to say:

"Oh yeah, they're the real thing alright... As far as girlfriends go, our man lucked out. Emmy is sexy, smart, hilarious, and drank most of us under the table. I give it a month before he whisks her off to Vegas so none of us have at her after the tour."

So that's it girls, hang up your fantasies and chuck out the best knickers you wear in case he's on the bus that might hit you if they're not fresh on— hot tamale Blaze has finally found love and we got sunburn just looking at it.

"Bloody hell." It made for difficult reading. Not two hours earlier I was the envy of the female population of Great Britain, maybe even beyond. Now it was only a matter of time before the press found out that I was the conniving slut who'd had him and lost him over the futile desperation to f*ck my best friend. My temples began to throb with a tension headache. You really blew it this time. Yeah, yeah, I know.

"And he was in your flat yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes but—" But what? But I lost two men in the space of ten minutes just by being my usual messed up self? "It's not like that, Mum. Sticking 'girlfriend' on it is just a way to make it socially acceptable for it to be public knowledge that we fu— ... had relations whenever he had a free five minutes."

"Pull the other one, Emmeline." Again, she tapped the pictures, forcing me to look at how happy we'd seemed the night before. "I've never seen you smile like that."

"Can we please change the subject?"

She curled her fist under her chin, looking at me with that worldly, all-knowing look only mothers are capable of. "You've had an argument."

"No, not an argument. We've just... reached an impasse. We're too different, incompatible. He doesn't have the time I need and—"

She straightened. "What really happened?"

Transparent as ever, I sank down in my seat sulkily and stuck my lip out like a child. "He found out about Hunter."

"Ah." I'd always had a feeling that my mother had her suspicions about what Hunter really meant to me, and I think I'd just confirmed them. "And you think that there isn't enough space in your heart for two men?"

"No, I do, I just don't think Blaze does."

"Oh Emmeline," and here came the pep talk... "men are very proud creatures, very territorial. I'm sure he's just stewing and will be beating your door down again in no time. What was the last thing he said before he left?"

" 'I'll call you'."

"Oh." After a beat, she clicked her fingers at a waitress and pointed at her glass. "We're going to need another round."

Uh huh... that was what I thought.

IVY'S DRIVER DROPPED me off at Esme's around nine in a state of near catatonia, barely able to walk, speak, yet still clasping that ridiculous sun hat. A liberal attitude towards drinking to excess was apparently a Tudor trait, residing in all of us. My family had a reputation for knowing how to throw a party, and now that reputation apparently lived independent of the name.

Nobody recognised me for a while, not until Daniel strode into the bar in his gayest finery, looking to whet his whistle after Sunday lunch with the in-laws. Somehow, the temporary camouflage that came from my new old hair was liberating. Jonathan had gone straight home, as drunk as me by all accounts, leaving Dan and I to stare across a table at each other the way we had done in so many restaurants, bars, canteens and hospital wards so many times before— me dejected and him feeling bereft of a limb in his partner's absence. He was co-dependent. He wouldn't deny it.

For Daniel, watching me was like watching a woman hang from a bungee rope. I'd plummet, then gleefully spring back up. And then I'd fall again and again, the enthusiasm of my bounce getting less and less, climbing a little less high every time until there was nothing left but down. The last time he'd seen me hanging with no gambol was when he'd been dragged out of my private room away from the sight of me screaming and struggling at doctors trying to fit a nasogastric tube. I saw that memory play through his mind sometimes, obvious from the way he paled for a second and the dark shadows crossed his eyes. It might have been worse than finding me bleeding to death and I didn't know exactly how much bounce he thought I had left.

Chris didn't join us either, apparently pissed off that I hadn't turned up the night before. As much as I appreciated that my friends were sensitive, I couldn't help but feel like they couldn't stand to see the bigger picture sometimes. I rarely acted through malice, so my actions were never a slur on them. It was hard to win when the people there to support you were as self-loathing and downtrodden as you.

The habitually quiet Sunday lull was in full swing, or lack thereof, when Esme found us, first frowning at me like she didn't recognise me, then slamming the same magazine I'd been shown by my mother down on the table.

"What the hell is this?"

"A magazine?"

"Don't act cute, Emmeline." Jesus. Esme had never used my full name before. "You were at the secret Monday's Miracle gig. With Blaze. And them. Some f*cking warning might have been nice." I should have known that my decision to monopolise the evening would come back to bite me, but I had enough alcohol in me to slur a retort.

"If you were so worried about me, all you had to do was call. Nobody ever has the sense to just call, you all have to presume the worst of Emmeline Tudor, the hopelessly f*cking suicidal."

"No, I—"

"Is it cold up there on your soapbox, Esme? Do you, she who is so naturally beautiful, really think that I don't deserve to be the centre of focus in a room sometimes? How often do I get a shoo-in standing next to you like some glorified f*cking wingman? How dare I enjoy my last blissful night with Mr Decadent without my babysitters?"

"Emmy, shut up! I'm pissed off because of the journalists who've been crawling around here all day!" Stunned out of her anger, Esme sat down next to me and drummed her fingers across the table's top. "You're a mean blonde. A hot mean blonde." An involuntary giggle escaped from my throat with the sob I'd been holding in all day. Once I started, I wouldn't stop, and nobody wanted me to lose that control. "You have that look like you're crying but the tears won't come out. What do you mean 'last night'?"

My 'crying inside' look was easily detected by my friends and seldom discussed. It only ever came as a result of a feud with Hunter and their patience was exhausted where he was concerned. Chris and Esme didn't know him well enough to rationally comment on his behaviour, Jonathan knew him only as a student and Daniel kept a rigid silence on the matter. He was grateful for the acceptance he'd been afforded as a gay outcast in a society that championed conventional lifestyles and conformity but disliked his attitude enough to not jump to his defence. Not a single one of them had the energy to rehash old debates with me and only the hint that my latent tears were for someone else drove the curiosity.

"Hunter called the flat and Blaze answered. He knows the score now, he just doesn't want to sing from it." I scrunched my eyes up and flopped forward to bury my head in the crook of Esme's neck, haunted by the memories of standing just off stage, watching him with wide-eyed wonder. "And boy, can he sing."

A faint whimper rattled in Esme's throat. It was the kind of helpless noise she made when she was speechless over something she'd been expecting for a while. I'd heard it the last time she'd been told that a book she'd been chronically obsessed with had been delayed for release by six months.

"What did you do about the journos?"

"Plead the fifth, of course. I didn't want to give them any reason to whip their cameras out in here." As beautiful as she was, Esme's anonymity was as precious as mine. She'd turned down so much acting work in a bid to keep her face out of the public eye, preferring to just be a disembodied voice over the urban A-List goddess she could have been, all in the interest of keeping her mother away. I didn't even know if Esme was her real name, but her face was unmistakable to anyone. I couldn't imagine that she'd changed that drastically over the years to be unrecognisable.

"I would never intentionally screw up your privacy."

"I know, I was being irrational. And so are you. Blaze wouldn't—"

"He said 'I'll call you'." Trading glances with Daniel, Esme pulled me up straight by the shoulders, the stunted flow of encouragement trapped by her own flailing faith.

"He's a very honest man. I think he's earned your belief in him. And you're not going to like this, but I think you need to cut Hunter off." It wasn't something she'd needed to tell me for me to know it. The idea to blank him out the way I had recently done unintentionally had crossed my mind so many times before, but like I'd told Blaze, I didn't know what my purpose would be if it wasn't to moon after him.

"I can't. It f*cks with my head when he calls me because he's such a prick and I still want him for reasons I can't even explain anymore. But it's still there, that sense of needing him in my life. I hate and resent him, but he visits and I need him to kiss me, to love me obsessively like I do him. The sadistic craving for something that's done so much damage."

"And Blaze?"

"Just as sadistic." I shook my head at myself, recounting every other time Hunter had broken the lines of communication for a while and left me at a loss. Like the miles weren't enough, the emotional distance between us left a migraine-like ache in my skull until he called out of the blue and spoke to me like nothing had ever happened, leaving me confused and reeling from the abruptness of his turnaround. I never harassed him with correspondence in any form; he always came back to me and I was grateful for it. It was the delusion that he needed me as much as I needed him that kept me dreaming.

And that was exactly how it had played out with Blaze. I would wait and hope, counting down the days until I fell back into his good graces. And if it never came, I might still hold on, convincing myself to believe my own lies.

There was no way back once I'd put an emotional investment into a man, no matter how involuntarily. I needed them both like water and air. Not one without the other. All or nothing. Double or bust.

THE DAYS I felt like I was living on the periphery were always the hardest to get through. My lips would chap, stomach cramp, and I'd always end up run down and nursing a common cold because my immune system gave up before my brain did. My leukocytes were quitters. My appetite suffered and my body buckled under the strain of being sick and hungry. I was always cold, even in the sun, and walked hugging myself to keep warm. I'd been told that I'd been lucky to avoid any permanent damage from my eating disorder but I couldn't possibly see how these moments in my life were part of the best case scenario.

But whatever was going on inside, I didn't feel it. Just the vague sense of plodding on for everyone else's benefit when I wanted to do nothing more than curl up in bed and hibernate. I was in a bad place, but it wasn't that place. My bungee cord still had some spring in it but was granting me a reprieve before it yanked me back into the real world. This was just the eye of the storm, a place where I could wistfully sigh for no reason and nobody would pester me with questions about what was wrong.

MONDAY was the worst. Unable to sleep, I spent the early hours of the morning clearing the clothes and toiletries Blaze had left behind into a box. I'd get it all back to him Somehow. Someday. Washing my sheets would have come up on my list too if the flat hadn't been inexplicably tidied when I staggered back home from Esme's. If he'd snuck back in to clear my bedroom of his blood stains as a consolation prize, I'd hate to be trading gifts with him at Christmas.

I went to work exhausted, keeping one hopelessly optimistic eye on my phone, but still dragged myself to Esme's that night, chasing a higher level of numbness through intoxication and my usual meaningless fling. The minute I started breaking my routine was the minute I'd be beyond recovery.

The fatigue of Monday was the start of the nosedive. On Tuesday I woke in a cold sweat, racked with shivers as a fever set in. The four ulcers that popped up in my mouth overnight chased away any lasting inclination to eat. My body felt like lead, aching too much to move, but I still dragged myself through the usual day, taking Esme home with me that night. I wanted my daily orgasm, but I didn't want it at the hands of anyone else if Blaze wasn't there. The unproductive string of casual f*cks I left in my wake had always felt like a betrayal to Hunter when I crept away from them, but I needed them to feel like I wasn't somehow faulty or deformed. The more I did it, the more I felt like he wouldn't want a woman so 'well travelled', but every man— or woman— I laid became a faceless vessel for a fantasy that I was sleeping with him.

Now, I couldn't act on it like I used to because I didn't want to be wanted by anyone else. Nobody else fit me or knew my body like Blaze. Nobody appreciated the way my back arched more and more as I crept higher towards the climax he pushed me halfway to with a smile.

On Thursday, I woke up after apparently seeing in Wednesday disorientated and incoherent. I slept like a corpse and couldn't be roused, setting off a mass paranoia over the state of my physical and emotional well-being. My doctor told Esme that my body just needed the rest, so my friends sat in on a bedside vigil watching over me like I was already dead. They sat around me on my bed playing cards over my unconscious body, occasionally disturbed by my conversational but wordless rambles and aimless stumbles to the bathroom.

I don't remember any of that. A seething Esme ordered me back to bed on Thursday morning, but I ignored her, red nosed and hoarse. I needed the normality of menial employment in my life and my job was hardly strenuous.

"You're over-reacting." She shot me a look that would have melted lead paint. Honestly, I didn't feel too bad now the fever had settled, at least I didn't until I picked up my phone and remembered what had made me ill in the first place.

The picture of Blaze and I still stood prize of place as my wallpaper, his eyes much brighter and greener than I remembered. Sunday morning replayed in my mind; a montage of still images pasted into my memory like some perversely masochistic scrapbook of regret and 'if only's. How had my life flipped so quickly?

"Call him." Esme pushed me down onto the couch to brush my hair, knowing that she wouldn't win the argument of me missing work again. Being largely unconscious and oblivious to breaking so many of my firmly set habits the day before stopped me from getting crazy about it, but I wouldn't give myself a reason to crack now I was lucid.

"Don't be ridiculous. Even if I was the type of woman to chase men, wouldn't he have called already if he'd meant it?"

"Maybe he's waiting for you to call him?"

I surprised her by laughing through gritted teeth. My scalp hurt enough to touch without the added insult of the knots that tangled my hair from root to tip. My whole body felt bruised. "I thought I was supposed to be the naive one. I may not be a seasoned pro at interacting with men beyond the bedroom, but I'm pretty sure thinking a woman has another man on her mind when you screw is a major turn off." Not that I wasn't guilty of inflicting that insult on four years worth of men.

"Was Hunter on your mind?"

"No, are you crazy? In case you hadn't noticed, Blaze has a way of paralysing neurons and synapses with a look. It's easy to forget to breathe around him." Just thinking about him made me feel tired and bone weary. I didn't think we could really be classed as 'broken up' when we'd never really been together, but I suddenly understood why women were rendered whiny and insufferable even when they'd been the one to call it quits. I just wanted to talk about him, like recalling all his traits out loud would keep him alive, but I was sure that doing it was just as bad as my already unhealthy tendency to self-harm. If anything, my unwillingness to be that f*cked up over a man again drove my motivation to not fall victim to old vices. To be that pathetic once in a lifetime was enough. Twice, and people would probably leave me to die shamefully. " 'We' didn't exist outside the bedroom. He hung around to stop himself being demoted to the same level as the guys I pick up every night. All we had was our wild animal sex and now that's tainted. What would bring him back? He's a hot guy, he only needs to blink to summon a bevy of fangirls ready to service him." Just thinking about how replaceable I was depressed me.

Esme sighed behind me and began to part my hair into sections. I thought that she might secretly be glad that to dress and preen me the way she hadn't been able to for weeks. Something about braiding and curling my hair relaxed her and made her feel like she had some use beyond reading scripts— a purpose to me beyond being decorative. "It's not just sex between you, Emmy. Any fool could see that. It's just the only way you two can be on the same wavelength without scaring yourselves with words. You're both more scared of saying it than you are of hearing it and that's fair enough. You've fallen for the wrong guy once before and now you've done it again. But don't belittle him or yourself off by thinking this is just about being an available orifice when he has a spare evening. To use terminology you're comfortable with, you're on the same page in the same confusing book full of continuity errors and plot holes, but you're sure as hell not characters in a horror story. I have a good feeling about which three words your tale ends with."

I winced at a particularly sharp yank at my hair. " 'They all died'?"

"No! Happily ever after!" When were you lobotomised? It wasn't like her to churn out rose-tinted romantic clichés. Not even a little bit.

"Ugh, Jesus. I'll be sat right here waiting when you, strange alien imposter, return my dear unromantic, cynical Esme."

"Keep saying that. I'll be waiting to hit you back with my 'I told you so'."


MRS REYNOLDS ONLY had to have her offer of another day off sick with full pay refused once before she let it drop. Maybe it was a wisdom that came with age, but she knew the points of my personality that were negotiable and altering my routine was not one of them. Instead, she showed me the fridge full of orange juice she'd stockpiled to give me a vitamin C kick and relegated me to paperwork duties to keep me off my feet.

The tedious process of cross-referencing the stock information she'd complied over the week and the information we had on our system was just monotonous enough for me to get lost in it's rhythm. My head bobbed to the sound of Portishead I picked out from my MP3 player and soothed me to a state of near-hypnotism, moving almost automatically without thought. She always had me do something slow paced like this when she knew I was going through a rough patch, offering me an opportunity to shut down and recover when others wouldn't let me. The typical tactic was to distract me, wearing me out so I couldn't brood over my problems, when peace was what I really needed. How else would my body catch up?

I had heartburn to rival a nuclear holocaust when I got home that night. Racked with dry heaves and draped over porcelain, Esme held my hair and traced shapes on my back while I panted through the spasms that tore through my stomach.

We had sat that way too many times before— naked and mutually post-orgasmically exhausted. What good had ever come from living my life that way until Blaze came, a man who took me out of that pattern whilst simultaneously satisfying all the criterion I set for a 'normal' night? Why was I so scared to go home alone just once rather than add notches to my bed post, leaving me feeling dirty and devalued?

"Am I wasting my life?" I looked over my shoulder at Esme, resting my cheek against the toilet seat. "Is this work- drink-f*ck-sleep cycle doing as much damage as I think it is?"

"I can't answer that definitively for you, Emmy, but it's not great." My eyes closed, acknowledging the confirmation of my thoughts. "I love to hear you purr and watch you drift off when you're satisfied, but it's sobering to hear what you say to yourself when you're asleep." I flushed, unaware that I'd ever spoken in my sleep. "We've all learned to accept that this is who you are— you and your pernicious hallucination who tells you to hate yourself— but it's hard being your friends, for no reason other than the fact we're so useless to help you and doomed to watch you spiral out of control."

Her honesty was hard to hear but I took note and considered it carefully as she slept next to me that night. I don't know that if she'd told me how they felt sooner it might have changed my perspective, but in that moment I was ready to reconsider a way of living I thought was working for me.

I WOKE UP on Friday morning bloody minded and determined, sporting a mentality I could only liken to the force of will I'd adopted when I first sat down to draw Syncretic Sciences. My aim was simple; to act like the entitled young woman I was without sacrificing the simpler life I'd fought for by shunning high society. Esme helped me pack the ill-fitting, unbecoming clothes I'd lived in not so long ago into bags, destined for the charity shop next to Double Booked to be exiled from my wardrobe indefinitely. For the first time in years I had surplus income thanks to Blaze's gentlemanly tendency to cover the bill whenever we went out, so I spent it on a new bed I had no intention of sharing with strangers. My second chance bed. If I couldn't be someone Hunter and Blaze wanted to love, I'd become someone they wanted to miss.

The bags of unwanted clothes sat along side the box of Blaze's belongings on the coffee table when I left for work, just a pile of dead weight I'd been insisting on carrying around. It all looked fairly innocuous when it sat there so innocently, but I knew how damaging it could be to keep it. The time to dwell was over. The ghosts residing in those objects would be laid to rest, or so I hoped.

I wasn't Emmeline Tudor, but I wasn't the same Emmeline White who'd cut herself over a catty remark when she was seventeen. I was new, improved, and damned if I'd let my past catch up with me again.

THE latter part of July saw a minor influx of custom, enough for there to always be at least one person browsing the shelves at all times. As dire as that might have seemed, these were the beginnings of our prime days before another minor improvement around late August. The rare occasions when customers tried to spark a conversation were the times I tried the hardest to force my new outlook, smiling politely and chatting back when I might have usually grunted a dismissive, monosyllabic response and wished them away.

It stung when people recognised me from the pictures at The Roses despite my drastic image change, and asked me some fairly intrusive questions about my fabricated relationship with the ever pre-eminent Blaze. Women mostly wanted to know if he was well hung while the men wanted to shower me with compliments and insist that they'd make a better bedfellow. As complimentary as it may have been, and as familiar I was with that kind of attention, I felt ill at ease and out of my element, almost lost in a place I knew so well. The more small talk I forced, the more claustrophobic I felt until my earlier positivity was almost completely sapped.

I took a late lunch and opted to escape the confines of the shop to roam the side streets I knew would be quiet. My Thursday vitamin boost had done wonders and the only remaining evidence that I'd been ill was a slightly runny nose and the lethargy I could no longer fend off. It helped that I'd been pounding decongestants as much as the dosage recommendations would allow.

The distant throb of traffic in the distance played as a soundtrack alongside the steady click-clack of my kitten heels through the thoroughfares that stemmed off the main streets into smaller, more intimate areas of the city. In my mind I was searching, though I didn't know what for. I'd already seen most of the shops and townhouses that filled the streets during aimless wanders with Blaze, who had an innate ability to seek out jewels in a huge coal mine of conurbation.

I took the time to sit at an abandoned children's playground hidden between a splash of poorly kept greenery and a vein of largely boarded up retail units. All but one swing hung uselessly from their chains— a perfect epitome of how I felt inside. Change wasn't as easy as I hoped and the optimism was hard to hold on to. If I could have bottled it I would have and shared it freely with anyone else as forlorn and demoralised as me.

But the single swing that still stood functional felt like a reminder that even in the most dilapidated spaces there were survivors, something that refused to go down with the rest of the pitiful wreckage. No matter how poorly managed it was, there was always something fighting against fate, a spark of hope in perpetual darkness.

What was stopping me from being that something— if not for myself then for the friends who took my crap on a daily basis?

MRS Reynolds had a look of roguery about her when I got back to the shop, suppressing a smile given away by the deep dimples in her cheeks. Her hands rested on a brown paper package bound up in parcel string. Unremarkable, yet strangely the most out of place item in sight.

"You've had a delivery," she spoke with tethered laughter, "of the utmost importance, I'm assured."

The sparkle in her eyes unnerved me but told me that there was no option to open the parcel in private. I pulled at the string and sucked in a shaky breath when the paper fell open.

The world wanted to play games with me and I was in no mood to take my turn.