Author: Veronica

Part One here.

I organised to meet up with a friend -A- who was visiting from up north. She met me after work and then Nathan drove us back to where I was living. We arranged to have drinks at Nat’s new place and I went home and grabbed a change of clothes. I talked to my boyfriend, while A listened.

Her comments after I finished talking to him? ‘He treats you like shit Ron’. It’s not that my boyfriend treated me like shit, he didn’t really, it’s that we were 16 and we’d been together for well over 2 years. Familarity and everything. He was a nice boy.

And so, we went and got drunk. All together, Nathan and I, his older brother, a housemate, and my two friends, A and K. After a few drinks, I stopped drinking and instead, watched everyone else get drunker. Eventually everyone passed out or went home except for Nathan, his housemate and me.

We didn’t do much of anything except talk.

Nathan snuggled me, he looked into my eyes and talked to me, he kissed my fingertips. He made me melt.

His housemate left in disgust.

The morning came and I was sober. I had had no sleep, I needed a shower and I started work at 2pm. I also realised I couldn’t keep going the way I was going and that it wasn’t fair to my boyfriend. I talked to A, I talked to Nat’s housemate, I talked to thin air. I begged Nat’s housemate to give Nat my number. She was reluctant, but said she would. She didn’t.

9am that morning found me back at my boyfriend’s house, sitting on his bed, telling him that I wasn’t ‘in’ love with him anymore and crying.

I regret how I told him. We had been together for 2 and a half years and I didn’t have the decency to let him wake up properly before dropping the bombshell. I regret that.

I showered and cried and got ready for work. Before I left, I packed a bag and my now ex and I talked, a lot. As I left for work, we parted with a hug and a kiss, on sort of good terms.

I walked to the bus stop, hung over and exhasted. That night at work was the longest shift I have ever worked.

I crashed the night at Ex’s grandmothers house. She was lovely enough to let me stay (my shifts all started at 6am that week and she lived close to work) for a night or two and to hand me tissues as I silently cried.

Then, I spoke to my mother about everything and I went home, on her orders. Back to my grandmother’s where I was living, except when I was staying at my boyfriends house.

It was the smartest thing I have ever done.

A few days later, Nathan and I met up for coffee before I started work and spent 3 hours talking about nothing. The next day, he picked me up from work and drove me home. He didn’t go home that night, or any night afterwards.

And that was that.

We moved into his house not long afterwards, and from there, back to my parents after a large falling out with his housemate.

We rented our first flat and suddenly, here we are, 5 years later.

It’s been a rollercoaster these last few years. We’ve now got a mortgage, two babies, two dogs, two horses and two cats. And for all that happened to get us to this point, for how ill I still feel when I think of some of it, for how unproud I am of some things, I wouldn’t change a moment. Because here we are, and I am happy.