Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

Paulie. I tried to grieve for him, imagined that he'd died because in a way, to me, he had. I knew I was never going to see him again, and it tore me apart to know that he was out there somewhere getting on with his life, and that he didn't need me in it anymore.
    He didn't answer my calls. I texted, but got no reply. When I phoned his home his mother lied to me and told me he'd gone out. I know she lied, I could hear it in her voice. I could picture him perfectly, sitting on the stairs, whispering to her that he wasn't in. Eventually his dad came on the line and told me never to phone them again. I sent emails but they bounced straight back. He was offline whenever I logged onto Instant Messenger. Remembering the hours we'd spent chatting through the night over the computer, the click click of the keys as I typed, prevented me from sleeping.
    When I did sleep, fretfully, my dreams were haunted by the old-fashioned dial up tone of the modem, high-pitched pings and static fading out into three words, barely whispered, falling from his lips.
    I numbed myself with drink. It was so easy to do, every uni social was at the pub, every night there was a party to go to, and when there wasn't there was the irresistible pull of the village, where I could lose myself in darkened rooms and flashing lights and hot, sweating bodies. It's hard to feel anything much at all when the room's spinning and the only things keeping you upright are the cold porcelain of the sink under your greasy hands and the hard points of ten fingers holding your hips.
    I failed a class and mum freaked. I mean seriously freaked . I'd never seen her really mad before but that day she put the fear of God into me. I can't remember all the terrible things she threatened me with now, I think I blanked most of them from my memory, but I'll never forget how that call ended. She'd shouted herself calm and I was clutching my handset, cowering like a child and hardly daring to breathe. "You know, Jack," she started, her tone softer, "Paul's found someone else. Maybe it's time you moved on?"
    I held that hot phone to my ear long after she'd disconnected the call, my knuckles white around the fashionably tiny handset.
    I knew she'd thought we were a couple– everyone did. After a while it got lamer constantly trying to disabuse people of the notion and we let it slide. I read Hamlet in school, I know what people say when you protest too much. In our own way we were a couple, but without the sex. Maybe like old and married or something. We just skipped the honeymoon. I don't think I realised, until that moment, how much I thought of Paul as mine. We were a team, the two of us, each one all the other needed. Almost.
    Jealousy reared, livid, acid green. The idea of Paulie– my Paulie– with another guy made me sick. The thought of another man touching him, kissing him… I'd never seen him with anyone else, I'd never had to confront how I'd feel if I did. Maybe if I had, if he'd taken my advice and actually pulled someone on one of our many nights out, I'd have known then what I know now.
    Even then I didn't know, even while I was tearing my room apart and sobbing myself to sleep. I was nineteen, and still as dumb as fuck.
    I'm twenty-five now, and smarter. But now I'm too late.
    ****
    "Still not found yourself a boyfriend?" Curtis' green eyes sneer at me across his pint. Paul nudges him not-so-subtly with his elbow.
    "Who says I want one?" I sip demurely at my JD and coke, ice tinkling in the glass as I tip it, sliding across my lips, a little frisson of cold. My eyes are glacial as I meet his across the table. "Besides," I slide the empty glass back onto its coaster, "the night is still young."
    "Same old Jackie." Paulie smiles affectionately in my direction, earning him a glare from his lover that he doesn't notice.
    Why am I here again? Another Friday night back in this dive of a bar that I thought I'd escaped seven years ago. I was used to better than this: Manchester had spoilt me. I glance at the other patrons, an eclectic mix of old and young, all shoehorned into this place because of one thing we've got in common. Absently, I wonder how many of them I let fuck me when I was younger. I don't see any familiar faces, but that means nothing. That tall guy, late thirties maybe, dark skinned, just teetering on paunchy, is he looking because he wants me, or because he's already had me? Or the blond guy with the mean eyes at the table opposite. Or the skinhead just