The Love Club

There is one thing I can say for certain about Lex Parker – there were a lot of days that I woke up in the morning and wished I’d never known her. There were a lot of days I drank myself stupid over how much I regretted buying her that first drink, taking her out that first time, bringing her into my home that first night. There a lot of days when I wondered if things could have been different if we’d met at a different time, at a time when she was more stable – maybe a time before all of this, when I could have saved her, or maybe a time after this, when she would already have moved on. There were a lot of days I wanted to forget her.

But there were also a lot of days that I wanted her back.

I guess today is one of those days, where I can’t quite manage to get myself out of bed and on my feet, and my phone is ringing like mad, and I really ought to be doing something important but all I can think about is Lex Parker.

I guess today is one of those days that I could forgive her.

So maybe I really just ought to stay in bed.

As soon as I open my eyes, she’s in my head – I wonder if she’s ever gotten the letters I sent to her at Devon Green, the ones where I told her I wanted to talk when she got out, the ones where I told her I hated her and the ones where I told her I loved her. I hadn’t decided then, and I haven’t decided now.

So I guess that’s why I just need to write it all down, to get it all out, to process through the rubbish and get to the heart of it all. To what happened with me and Lex, to what happened with all of them. To how we got dragged under that effervescing current – into the fast lane.

I was in a bad place and so was she. I need to keep telling myself that. I will lay in my bed today and stare at the ceiling, thinking of everything Lex was to me – of hazel gazes, of salted caramel macaroons, of butterfly grazes and of the new moon. But I’ll never forget how red the room spun when she said those words to me through weedy, watery eyes.

“I’m not a bad person, I’m just a person who got wrapped up in some bad things.”

I guess today is one of those days where I believe her.