Chapter three:
"Isabelle, it's Friday night and we haven't went out in so long!" Claire groaned falling on the bed beside me.
"It's only been three weeks Claire" I sighed flicking through Instagram.
"It feels like it's been three years!" She cried dramatically.
"Josh and the guys are going out so why don't we go out for dinner?" I suggested throwing my phone on the bed.
"We can have a huge catch up!" she agreed happily.
Claire and I decided to go to San Lorenzo's to get some Italian, we had never tried it before so why not. When the waitress had escorted us to our booth I looked around and admired all the posh, well off people sitting eating their food chatting amongst each other. They were all dressed so professionally and there Claire and I had sat wearing leggings, Super Dry jumpers and Uggs.
"Are you both ready to order?" A young Italian waiter asked looking at both Claire and I.
"Uhm well you see I've never actually had Italian before so whatever you suggest I'll try" I laughed shyly.
"I'll have whatever she's having" Claire agreed.
"Would you both like our special mushroom risotto?" He suggested pointing out the picture on the menu.
"What's that?" Claire asked dumbfounded.
"Risotto is an Italian dish of rice cooked in stock with ingredients such as vegetables and meat" he explained.
"Please" we both chirped handing him the menus.
As we sat eating our risotto and drinking our white wine we had a long conversation about everything we had encountered in the past few weeks.
"You and Paul?" I inquire looking up from my plate.
"He asked me to be his girlfriend last week and obviously I said yes, he's really nice I never thought I'd find someone like him. How's Josh?" Claire explained smiling like a little girl with a new puppy.
"He's doing great, he just finished making a television stand for college he's a good handy man, he and the lads are gone out tonight to that new bar. Paul is gone too isn't he? Josh was talking about it today".
"Yeah Paul went out with them, we should go out tonight! Why is it that we get to stay in while the guys have fun" Claire muffled stuffing her face with rice.
"Yeah we should we can ask the girls too".
"Yeah I'll text Jessica, Aine, Aoife and Amanda" Claire squealed grabbing her phone and texting the girls.
"Jessica will probably make up some excuse as to why she can't go. Chase doesn't let her hang out with us remember?".
"I'll text her to be nice, at least then she won't be able to spread a rumour saying we never even asked her out with us".
When we got home I stood trying to decide what to wear.
"What will I wear?" I asked Claire as I scanned through my wardrobe. The truth was I didn't want to go out, I wanted to stay home watch movies and eat junk, reason being that I had a feeling something bad was going to happen.
"That floral body con you bought in Put a Bow on it. You've never wore it so you could tonight" Claire suggested while straightening her long blonde hair.
"Good idea. I'll wear my new beige heels with the gold zips".
When I had my dress tossed out on the bed I ran into the bathroom and hopped in the shower. I hoped to run into Josh but then again I wasn't sure if he'd appreciate the thought that his girlfriend was spying on him.
When I had dried and curled my long brown hair I put on my dress and heels. I looked in the mirror for a moment wondering whether or not I should where the necklace Josh had given me when he won his county final. It was a silver chain with a small hurl.
"Wear it" Claire smiled picking the necklace up off my table and fastening it around my neck.
"Can you read my mind or something?" I sighed.
"Twin telepathy" she giggled.
"But we're not even blood related" I retorted playfully.
"Doesn't matter".
"Claire have you ever been afraid to love someone in case they leave again?" I asked sadly, it had been on my mind all week but I was to scared to admit it.
"I have that feeling with everyone Is.. I'm always afraid that the people I love are going to get bored of me and leave..".
"Hey I'm not going anywhere! I love you" I empathised hugging Claire tightly.
"I love you too Is".
When the girls arrived we decided to sit and have a glass of champagne while we waited for out taxi.
"Where is Jessica?" Aine asked sipping her wine. Aine and Jessica had been friends for a long time, when Jessica got with Chase he forbid her to see Aine or any of us.
"She can't come, she said she has to stay at home and do some stuff" Claire added reluctantly.
"I don't see why she can't make her own decisions like why is he controlling her?" Aine blurted out as if she has read our minds.
"I tried talking to her the other day but she wouldn't listen to me so I just stopped trying, oh the taxi is outside" I explained standing up to get my bag.
We decided that a night in Dublin had to be spent in the best way possible. We decided to go to the new nightclub that everyone was raving about. Krystle was meant to be the best club around and I knew that Josh was going to be there because he had been talking about it all week, so I decided to surprise him.
When we arrived the song 'Into you' by Ariana Grande was blasting through the speakers. It was so loud we could hear it from the back of the long queue outside. When we finally got inside the club was packed from wall to wall with people dancing, taking shots and playing bump and grind. The lights were hitting off the walls at every angle.
Claire grabbed my wrist as we walked through the crowd towards the bar. The bartenders were shaking up cocktails when we ordered Red Devil shots and went to join the girls at the table.
"This club is amazing" Aine gasped admiring everything.
"No wonder everyone is dying to get in hear" I agreed taking my small shot glass in hand. They weren't kidding when they said red devil the liquor was a bright red fiery colour.
"Bottoms up" Claire giggled as we all took our shots. It tasted even worse I could feel it burn the back of my neck.
"Oh god that's revolting" I said wrinkling my nose at the distaste of the shot.
Throughout the night I had kept an whe out for Josh but I hadn't seen him. It wasn't that I didn't trust him but for some reason I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that something really bad was about to happen. But still I pushed it to the back of my mind and focused on having a good night with my friends.
"Hey Isabelle.. You need to see this.." Claire snapped as I came out of the bathroom.
"Why what's up?" I asked feeling my feet wobble from underneath me.
"It's Josh..".
"Is he okay?!" I asked worryingly trying to keep up behind her. I knew the feeling I had wasn't a good one!
We walked over towards the seating area and I couldn't believe what I had witnessed. Claire pointed toward the seating area as I stared in disbelief. I stood for a moment watched another girl grinding against Josh and kissing his neck as he stood not attempting to stop her.
"Hey Is, you okay?" Claire asked trying to comfort me as a tear stream down my face.
"Yeah I'm fine honestly I just want to go home" I gave her a brave smile dragging my eyes away from them and marched out of the club trying my hardest to hold back the tears threatening to escape.
Claire came out running out behind me and threw her arms around me as I stood crying in the rain on the side of the street.
"Do you want me to go back inside and slap a bitch around the place?" she asked daringly.
"No it's fine, lets just go home".
~3 days later~
Monsoon season had arrived as I had expected. I wasn't in the mood to go to work and socialise with fake people who didn't have a care in the world for how I was feeling so I sat on my sofa all day flicking through the channels until I saw "The Lucky One" was on.
"Well I'm definitely not the lucky one my boyfriend of not even a month cheated on me!" I yelled hysterically at the television.
I hadn't been replying to Josh. He had messaged me on Snapchat, Facebook and iMessage, each time a new message came in I'd open it and not bother to reply. It wasn't as if he didn't know what he had done. I wanted to go over and slap that blonde bimbo around the place but I wouldn't give either of them the satisfaction of seeing me upset.
So instead I acted as though I was sixteen again and ignored every call and text he sent.
"Isabelle it's Claire open the door it's freezing cold!" Claire shouted through the key hole.
I climbed up off the sofa and walked toward the door letting her in. She was soaked to the skin. I walked back to the sofa and sat down covering myself in blankets leaving her to close the door behind her. She quickly pulled her yellow raincoat and floral wellies off before going into the bedroom and putting pyjamas on.
"You really have gotten yourself in a right state" she sighed sitting beside me.
"I don't care anymore" I mumbled eating more Malteasers.
"I know you do Is! Not only are you eating junk food as if they were carrot sticks but I can see it in your face that you just want to cry your heart out".
"I don't.. I don't..need him to be happy.." I stumbled over my words as I tried to hold back my tears.
"Has he tried calling?" She asked sadly.
"Yeah I have 75 missed calls and 89 messages".
"In 3 days!" Claire asked shocked.
"Yup".
"Paul asked me if I had heard from you too. He said Josh had been trying to get in contact but you weren't picking up".
"What did you say?".
"That Josh knows exactly what he did wrong when he had that trollop all over him in Krystle on Friday night".
I couldn't help but laugh at Claire's ignorance. Even when it came to Paul she would always stand up for my honour.
"It's tr.." Claire was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"It's probably just the delivery man, I ordered new boots" I explained and walked toward the door.
I didn't even bother to try fix myself I just opened the door quickly so I could get my package.
"What do you want?" I asked surprised.
"Isabelle I can explain.." Josh began tears in his eyes.