Friends.

Chapter 7: Baileys & Bailing

I thought it was a dream. I thought the whole twenty four hours of heaven were a dream. I wish they were. I wish I didn't have this lump in my throat as I remember how happy I was only to have it ripped way by him. I wish I wasn't furious at him. I wish I didn't want to call him. I wish I didn't want to return any one of the 3 missed calls I have from him as I check my phone first thing in the morning.

Harry:
how are you?

Harry: Are you okay?

Harry: Call me.

Harry: are you angry at me?

Am I angry at you?! What kind of sick joke is that? of course I'm angry at him. But I'm not going to tell him. I agreed to going back to being friends, now I just have to readjust and not think about the way his hot breath felt on my neck. This is going to be tricky.

It must be atleast midday by now. Its incredible how well you can sleep after crying yourself to sleep. I hate this verison of myself. I'm never like this. Its awful. I have no energy to ever leave the comfort of this bed. I look around my old bedroom, its so high school. My pink flower wallpaper remains untouched, my desk in the corner is neatly organised with my school books and there's a musty smell from it being virtually unlived in for 5 years, other than occasional visits.

"Tea?" Mum's head pokes around the corner. She really does have impeccible timing. Her long flowy floral blue dress suits her to a tee.

"Thanks." I use what little strength I have to prop myself up on my elbow to take the tea off of her. Its warm, not hot like I like it but I don't complain. She must've made it when I was still asleep, not expecting me to sleep this long. Neither did I, I can never sleep in.

I finish the tea too quickly as Mum watches from the door way.

"I think I need something stronger." I rest it down on the bedside table.

"I think you do too. Come on."

So at midday, we sat in the kitchen and had a glass of Baileys...okay three glasses of Baileys, and a very good chat.

"I know what you're going through Charlotte, we're very similar you and me." Any similarity to my Mum is a serious compliment. The woman is incredible. She's a genius. These days, she's a visiting law professor at Cambridge but before she had me, I swear she could've taken over the world. Not only does she have a PhD in law, but she also has a degree in Biomedical Science, which is quite random because the two don't correlate at all, generally people with Law/Business brains don't quite understand Science to the level of people with that sort of thought process do. But she was excellent at both, and this made my Mum an absolute superhero to me.

She was a human rights lawyer, but in her spare time she conducted research into cures for disease in third world countries. She's done everything, traveled the world, fallen in love, been extremely successful in her career and now, in her late 50s, she's finally starting to slow down. Her ambition and career success made her wait a very long time to settle down, she was 25 when she met Dad but was 35 when she had me.

"We might be smart, intellectual types, but that doesn't mean we don't feel heartbreak as bad as anyone else. In fact, I always believed we felt it worse. Our brains over think everything, logically but irrationally, and we obsess over everything. It hurts now, I know. But you have to let the sane person inside your brain take control and remind yourself of what is important."

"My career." I answer her, knowing it wasn't actually a question. My career is the last thing on my mind at the moment, but I haven't been so focused for the past 5 years just to throw it all away now.

"Exactly."

"Its so hard though." I frown into my glass that is very nearly empty.

"Someone breaking your heart?" She clarifies.