Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98418 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98418 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
From the start Lilly has made me go against all rational behaviour. I shouldn't have wanted her so much, but I did. I should have just dropped it when she said she wasn't interested, I didn't. And now, I shouldn't be here acting like a whiney little bitch who just got dumped, yet here I am. Sucks to be me.
I press the buzzer and wait.
"Hello." Her voice is barely a whisper as it comes through the intercom.
"Lilly it's me. Buzz me in." I struggle to keep a lid on my temper.
"Theo..." She sighs. "Please just leave."
"Not until you at least talk to me. You think you can just leave a note and that’s it, we're done?!" Again too stern. "We are not done!"
She sighs. "We are done Theo. Jesus, get over it!" She snaps.
"Lilly." I growl into the intercom just as it clicks off. She hung up.
I quickly find myself sinking into a black hole of nothingness. Never have I felt like this, it's like someone has punched a hole through my chest. How has ‘just sex’ come to this? The only thing I can focus on is her, and the loss of her. It takes me a long time and a lot of confused suffering before I come to a shocking realisation. I'm in love with her. I'm fucking in love with her! The irony that after all my years of fucking around, the one woman I’m actually in love with doesn't want to know. And so I have a drink, and another, and another, until the pain starts to numb into a low buzz.
I wake up at my desk at home on Monday morning. My head is throbbing and my stomach is delicate to say the least. I'm still wearing the clothes I had on yesterday. I must have drunk myself into a coma.
I check the clock. It's nine thirty. I call Lucy and tell her I won't be coming in today, but to divert anything essential to my home office.
Once I’ve showered and changed I decide to check my emails. There's an email from my PR manager with an attachment. The attachment is a magazine article with a picture of Lilly and I dancing. The headline reads Is London’s most eligible bachelor finally off the market? Perfect fucking timing.
There are three pictures on the page. In each one Lilly looks exquisite, the epitome of elegance, beauty and vitality. One shot is a very zoomed in shot of us close together outside The Duke. The second is outside Circus House, I’m holding the car door open for her and she's smiling at me. The last is from last night, we're dancing, eyes locked on each other. The way she looks at me is certainly not the look of a woman who is unhappy. How did I manage to fuck this up so badly? The article states that her identity is as of yet unknown. At least she won't be hounded by the paparazzi.
I can't get past this hole of self-pity, and so I wallow and give in to the misery. By midday I can't take it anymore, and so I start drinking again. This is the pattern of my life for the next two days. At times I miss her painfully, at others I hate her for making me this pathetic, but no matter what I always want her.
On day three I wake up to someone shaking me hard. "Theo!"
"What?" I groan. I lift my head from the sofa to see Hugo standing there. I haven't been back to my bed since Lilly left, it smells of her, even after the sheets were changed and I can’t stomach it.
"Mate, what the fuck happened to you?" He frowns at me.
"I got drunk." I state matter of factly.
"I can see that but why?"
"Because I felt like it." I sit up and rub my face.
"No shit, but on a Tuesday night, and on your own?" He folds his arms across his chest. “Do I need to book you into rehab? There are better ways to become famous.”
"Why are you here?" I change the subject.
"Maria called me. She said she came to drop off some food shopping this morning and you were unconscious on the sofa, stinking of whisky." He raises an eyebrow at me.
"Well you've seen it for yourself now. Take a picture." I mock. I get up and head toward the kitchen. "Coffee?" I ask as I switch on the coffee machine.
"Please." He eyes me warily. “So dare I ask why you're like this?"
I shrug. "I'm just having a rough couple of days."
"Theo, this is not just a rough couple of days. What's going on?" I don't feel like revealing my problems to Hugo. He's a good friend but he won't understand this.
"You won't understand this Hugo."
"Ah, shit. Is it Lilly?" I avert my gaze away from him. "I'll take your silence as a yes."