Chapter Two

Normally, my life isn’t this complicated. You see, I’m a simple girl with simple hopes. Up until two weeks ago, all I really wanted in life was for my boyfriend Douglas to buy an engagement ring. And he did! He just didn’t give it to me. But, I was fine. Even though the break-up was difficult, I remained very dignified.

Well, not so much dignified as a screaming crying mess. But it’s not like I embarrassed myself or anything. Unless you’d call throwing yourself at the tails of someone’s suit jacket embarrassing. Which, luckily for me, I do not. We had a very mature conversation, really, if you think about it. I sweetly said, “Please don’t go! Please don’t leave me!” Okay, so maybe I was screaming it at the time, but you get where I was going with that one.

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Douglas said, “It’s not you. It’s me. You are an amazing girl. You have so much to offer. It’s just that this doesn’t feel right. It’s just not the time for us.”

Now isn’t that mature? So, I answered him in kind.

“And it is the time for you and that— that— bimbo? What the hell is her name?”

“Beryl.”

“That’s not even a naaaame!” I bellowed.

“Brooke, let’s not get hysterical,” Douglas said. Hysterical? I was like, so, not hysterical. “Can’t we make this friendly? Can’t we try to still be friends?”

“Okay. You’re right. Friends.” See how mature I was being?

“Right then,” he said, sounding very Scottish. How I loved that accent. “I’ll be going.”

This may have been the part where I lunged for the tails of his suit jacket and he then dragged me about twenty feet to the door.

“No!” I was screaming. “No, please, no!” Okay, yes, now that I’m telling you about this, I distinctly recall being dragged across the floor screaming, “Don’t go!”

Oh, please. As if you never did that, too.

As a last ditch effort, I cried, “You can’t do this! Please don’t go! It isn’t right!” In an instant, his expression changed. ‘I’m getting through to him,’ I thought. I lightened my vise-like grip on the tails of his suit jacket.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t go. It isn’t right.”

I shook my head in agreement and breathed a sigh of relief. As visions of wild, passionate make-up sex floated through my mind, he said, “After all, I own the apartment.” And with that, he opened the door.

I should never have let go of the tails of his jacket.