The Summer Deal

Nine - The worst dish ever

I was in love once. 

It was the kind of love that was so raw, so pure, selfish, and unadulterated. It made me ache from the inside at the intensity of it. 

He was an angel from heaven with a purpose to throw me into hell. Johnny Wrinkler stole everything from me. My heart. My soul. My books. My stationery. My seat. My tiffin and my swimming goggles. 

And I'd let him despite thousands of complaints from my parents to his parents about his thievery. 

Also, did I mention that it was a kindergarten love? Johnny Wrinkler was a heartthrob among the little girls, but he was a bully and a thief. I'd fallen for his charms like every other girl in the classroom but learned a lesson at a very young age. 

I learned there were two different kinds of love. 

There was a kind which made you weak on your knees and your heart inflated like a goddamn hot air balloon. It was something that my parents had and they cherished it. And then there was a kind which made you go blind on everything. What I had for Johnny was a blind love. Too bad he had to switch schools after my father gathered other parents and lodged a huge complaint against the poor kid and his parents. 

"What am I going to do, Sarah? I can't go to my parents in this condition." Quincy cried. If I was being honest, she was making my day worse than it already was. "They'll kick me out if I tell them that I got pregnant before marriage."

That was the seventeenth time she spoke that ghastly word, so in honor of it, I filled my glass full of wine for the seventeenth time and drank it without caring about my liver or the problems it may cause tomorrow morning. Empty bottles of alcohol lay on the floor, with me being the epicenter of it. Quincy's incoherent cries echoed in my suite while I drowned myself in another glass of wine when I heard that p-word from her once again. It was nice to let go of everything once in a while through excessive drinking. 

The world was a miserable place to fall in love. Some people like my parents got lucky with it, but some people like Quincy Thorne ran out of their luck. 

I knew Adam Collingwood was one cheeky, playboy, spoiled bastard who would run away from responsibilities. I never liked him, but I couldn't rub it on my friend's face by saying I told you so. And to add more problems on top of the new guest residing inside her uterus, Quincy's parents were conservative as hell. They were great physical therapists by profession during weekdays, but when the weekends kicked in, they turned into little shy nuns who read the Bible under the blanket as if it were Vogue and spent half of the day in the church—their favorite destination. 

"He just left, Sarah. I showed him the pregnancy tests, he said 'excuse me' and then he was gone! He's been gone for hours!"

I filled my nineteenth glass. Bastard. He couldn't be just gone. He came from an influential family who had media flocking at their doorstep. One call and the entire city of London would find him in seconds. 

"I can't raise a kid alone! I'm only thirty-one. I have ambitions left, I just got a promotion and... and everything was so perfect in my life. I had my fiance with me, and he..." She then started cursing about the flaws Adam had and how she tried to cope with him being around in her life in such a short time. Stupid. Asswipe. Always left the toilet seat up. Never bought me flowers. Demanded sex at ridiculous timings. Never arranged his section of the closet. 

And the list goes on and on and on. 

"... he nearly dropped my grandma's urn last summer and stop drinking, Sarah! You're tempting me to have one, and I can't."

I nearly spilled my wine. I was sitting on the floor with my head resting on the edge of the bed. My laptop was on it, and I made sure that my legs and the top of my head were visible to her, not my bloodshot eyes.