Breaking Hearts Has Never Looked So Cool

“He loves you!” exclaimed Annabelle,

“Shut up!” I told her, shaking my head. It had been a week since the Jason incident and that Saturday morning shop was the first chance Annabelle and I had had to talk about it alone.

“Well, beating up a guy who wanted to take you home isn’t exactly the behaviour of someone who has no feelings for you, is it?” she said with a knowing grin,

“Seriously Annabelle,” I said, perhaps being a little too violent with the clothes I was browsing, “it meant nothing, you’re reading too much into it. That guy wouldn’t leave me alone, and Gerard just got him to go away for me. It was one little punch!”

“Guys only fight over girls they like!” said Annabelle. She was persistent; you had to give her that.

I rolled my eyes, “whatever,” I said.

“And tell me what he said when you were alone again?” she demanded,

“He said that he didn’t believe no one had ever fought over me before and that it would prepare me for later life,” I said, sounding bored but not feeling it as I allowed a pleasurable shudder to run through me.

“A clear compliment!” said Annabelle, (or should I refer to her as detective Annabelle?), “and a veiled attempt at telling you how he feels!”

“You’re insane!” I told her, raising my eyebrows, “he was just being nice,”

“What’s your reasoning for him giving you his jacket?” asked Annabelle excitedly,

“I was cold,” I said simply, was it so hard to work out?

Annabelle sighed as though I was completely stupid. “Guys only give their jackets to girls they like,” she said knowingly,

“May I reiterate?” I replied, “you’re insane!” I placed heavy emphasis on the word ‘insane.’

“No, you’re insane,” she replied, jabbing me in the chest, “you can’t see what’s right in front of you!”

“There’s nothing to see!” I cried out in a slightly louder voice than I had originally intended, causing a few startled shoppers to peer curiously at us,

“Look,” I said, heaving a deep breath and gently grabbing Annabelle’s arm, “If I let what you keep saying get a hold on me and I actually believe that he feels something, when it turns out he doesn’t, I’ll just be even more disappointed and it would be another knock I just can’t cope with,”

Annabelle widened her eyes and regarded me in a sympathetic fashion, “I wish that you would just see that you don’t have to have your protective guard up all the time,” she said quietly, but she had finally learned her lesson.

“I won’t say any more about it,” she said calmly, “today,” she added with a mischievous grin.

I opened my mouth to make a comment about something or other, but Annabelle cut me off by looking at her watch and gasping at the time.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” she said, “its 1 already! I have to go and meet Mikey!”

My stomach clenched a little bit; the concept of bros before hoes never seemed to have meant much to Annabelle.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said warmly, letting her envelope me in a hug, “I’ll see you soon, tell Mikey I say hi!”

She nodded, before striding out of the shop with a smile on her face, not to be seen by me for a good long while.

I sighed and put the top I had been surveying back on the rack. I didn’t feel like shopping much anymore. I swiftly reached for my phone and held the number one speed dial.

“Hey, this is Frank’s phone, I can’t answer right now but feel free to leave a message,” came Frank’s answer phone message.

I grimaced and hung up. For a few minutes I just stood there, tapping my foot angrily on the floor and trying to come up with a plan of action. I couldn’t just spend my whole Saturday sprawled in front of the television – that would just be too sad!

“Oh well,” I whispered to myself, “if you can’t join ‘em – shop!”

I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon draining all of my financial resources. Isn’t it funny how when you shop alone, you get so much more done?

Exalting in my innumerable new purchases, I emerged from the shopping centre with a huge grin on my face and approached the bus stop.

“I really need to be given a car,” I said quietly to myself as I waited for the apparently non existent bus to arrive.

“For fuck’s sake,” I said after about 20 minutes of waiting, “why do you do this to me?”

Annabelle had given me a lift in her car that morning, and it was just typical of my luck that her jetting off to see her boyfriend was the direct cause of me beginning the long trudge home.

I felt like a complete idiot lugging so many shopping and the handles of the bags started to cut into my hands, causing a constant grimace of pain to be on my face.

And that was when it started to rain. Great, thick droplets came hurtling out of the sky like aquatic bullets and I was immediately torn between protecting my new purchases from the weather and protecting myself. Through the haze the falling rain caused, I could see a black car slowing beside me.

“Shit,” I said under my breath, “just keep walking,”

Then, whoever was in the car tooted the horn,

“Ignore it, ignore it,” I said a little louder,

“Hey!” called a voice, and I was forced to whip around and face the car. In that instant, it was like all of my prayers were answered. It was Gerard’s black car, pulling up to the kerb, with the window wound down despite the rain; and it was Gerard himself, sitting in the driver’s seat and grinning somewhat about my precarious predicament.

“What on earth are you doing?” he asked, an irresistible grin playing on his lips,

“I was walking home,” I answered, shivering involuntarily. It was half because of the cold of the rain and half because I was talking to him.

“Now you’re being driven home by me,” he told me matter-of-factly. “Hop in,” he ordered, and at that point he reminded me of Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre – so perfect.

I obeyed his request (as always) and jumped into the passenger seat of the car.

“You look like you’ve done quite a bit of shopping,” he commented as he pulled away from the kerb and started driving again,

“Yeah, Annabelle ditched me for your brother so I decided to spend every penny I have,” I said wryly,

“She ditched you, huh?” asked Gerard with a slight chuckle in his voice, “if it makes you feel any better, Mikey ditches me all the time,”

I laughed, “it’s ok,” I told him, “they’re in love so I understand,”

“Do you?” He asked quickly, and I didn’t know what he meant.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “I guess I never really felt that way about anyone before...” I trailed off uncomfortably.

“Me neither,” he replied honestly, and I realised with a jolt that we had just pulled up outside my house.

I was surprised; I had assumed that merely because he was three years older, and he seemed so much older and so much more mature, he must have been in love before.

We sat in a comfortable silence as we mulled over our thoughts.

“Hey,” said Gerard suddenly, “do you want to do something tonight, seeing as we’ve both been ditched?”

I was short of breath; Annabelle would say it was a date, but I knew better.

“Dump your stuff,” he told me, “and I’ll come and get you at 6.”