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I had met her at an interminable party six months ago. The party had been to celebrate the engagement of a friend of a
friend and a friend of somebody else’s friend. My friend had failed to show up so I was left on my own without any friends
to talk to. The fact that everybody was talking about mortgages and interest rates only compounded the feeling that
I should have been elsewhere. The other guests all had high-flying jobs in banks or solicitor’s offices or accountancy
firms whereas I had a menial job in a local bookshop that had been demolished several months earlier by accident. A fat
man with bland hair had tried to engage me in a conversation about football. I repeatedly told him that I had no interest
in football but he misinterpreted this as an invitation to continue talking to me about football. He eventually asked me what
I was interested in. I told him that I was interested in books. His face lit up and he asked whether I had read
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. I considered hawking up a big globule of phlegm into his drink but instead told him that I
had been musing over the influence of Don Quixote on post-modern meta-fiction. At that point the fat man went away.
As I swished the dregs of red wine around my glass I considered ways in which I could amuse myself. I tried to imagine
that everybody in the room was naked but that only made me feel slightly nauseous. I turned away from the crowd and stared
at a pot plant in the corner. I then realised that I had become the strange man who spends the whole party staring at a pot
plant in the corner. Not wishing to be branded as a stereotype I looked away from the plant and found her standing before
me. She asked me who I was so I told her. She asked me how I knew the happy couple and a said that I did not. She asked
what I was doing there. "I was just surmising how much easier it would be to get a blowjob if I could ejaculate strawberry
milkshake." Much to my surprise she laughed a genuine laugh. The last girl I had said that to had shuffled awkwardly,
glanced over my shoulder and said that her friend was calling to her and that she would be back in a minute. I would have
been more inclined to believe her had we been in a busy nightclub rather than standing in the middle of a large, empty field.
I had been hoping that she would just make her excuses and leave me alone as I was feeling even more antisocial than
usual. Instead, my profane quip had endeared me to her and she started to converse with me, saying that people kept asking
her about her mortgage or whether she had ever read a Nick Hornby novel. "I fucking hate Nick Hornby," she had said and
I suddenly found myself warming to her. As I looked at her I began to notice that she was, in fact, very pretty. She had particularly
attractive eyebrows, dark and thin with a questioning arch. Her eyes were the colour of coffee beans and I momentarily dwelt
on the image of grinding those coffee eyes into a percolator and drinking the hot drink of them. Her hair was long and dark
and thick and could have been weaved into a particularly fetching rug. "These people," she was saying shaking her head.
"No life in them. None at all." "It must be nice to have no imagination whatsoever," I said. "They seem so content."
"Do you have any imagination?" I chuckled. "Imagination? Oh yes, I have imagination; too much. I shit imagination."
"Must smell." "Only in the mind. Mental stench." "Mental stench…" she said with a laugh. "You are quite
odd, aren’t you?" I shrugged since there was no possible retort to the negative I could offer. Instead, I looked
into her eyes and said, "Do you want to go and get a coffee?" "Or maybe a strawberry milkshake," she said mischievously.
*** We sneaked out of the house and were briefly accosted by the fat man who liked Nick Hornby. He asked us where we
were going. He wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner so I amiably told him that we were going to the park to fuck on
a swing. That shut him up. We went to a late night coffee shop several streets away where educated people go to spend
£5 on a mug of froth. We both ordered black coffee. It took a little explaining to the assistant that all we wanted in our
mugs was coffee without cream, sprinkles or any other form of embellishment. We then sat down at a table outside the shop
front, as it was such a mild night. I don’t recall much of our conversation other than that her name was Alice
and that she worked in a fashionable East End art gallery. She talked a lot but I did not mind; she had a strangely melodious
voice and a hint of an accent, Irish, maybe. Occasionally she would check herself and apologise for waffling on. I said that
I did not mind as I had very little of interest to say. She refused to believe that so I had to explain that most of my conversation
is specifically designed to make people want to not converse with me any further. She asked me why. I told her that I don’t
like people. She asked me if that included her. I said no. She smiled. We bought more coffee and smoked out there on
the pavement. After an hour and a half I realised that I had fallen for this woman. Sadly, this moment more or less coincided
with her mentioning her boyfriend for the first time. His name was Graham. He was an artist. A painter. She had met him
while organising a show of his work at the gallery. He was very talented, very intelligent and very handsome. He sounded like
a complete tosser to me. He had pulled out of attending the party with Alice that night because he had to go and see his agent.
Alice said that he cancelled many dates at the last minute but she did not mind. She understood that his art was important
to him and she did not want to appear to be standing in the way of his career. Didn’t that annoy her at all, coming
second to the man’s art, I asked her. She hesitated for a moment and then replied no, she understood. If you were mine,
I would not let anything stand in the way of spending time with you, I thought. Alice asked me if I was seeing anyone.
I restrained my desire to laugh wildly like a monkey high on amphetamines and calmly said no, I was not. She regarded me oddly
for a second and then nodded. We finished our drinks in silence. At around midnight we finally parted company. She gave
me her phone number and e-mail address. I made a mental note to go out some time and buy a telephone and computer. She said
that we should meet up again some time. I agreed. She said it had been a pleasure to meet me and I responded likewise. She
kissed me affectionately on the cheek and then walked off to catch a bus. I stood there watching her fade into the darkness.
When she had disappeared from view I looked up at the sky and mumbled, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" And then a pigeon flying overhead
shat on my face. *** Once I had procured a telephone I gave Alice a call. She asked me to go to the cinema to see
La Ronde as none of her friends liked black and white films with subtitles. She squealed with joy when I said, ah, Max
Ophuls, certainly. "I can’t believe that I am surrounded by artistic people all day but none of them like or have even
heard of that film." "Yeah, well, what can you do?" I replied. "You’re wonderful," she said. I asked
her why Graham The Artist did not take her. She said that he felt that cinema was too much of a compromise, too much of a
team activity to have a true artistic vision, that the ideas became too diluted by having been processed by many hands. What
he did, as a painter, came straight from his own mind to the canvas without having to be fed through a committee and therefore
attained a purity that cinema could never equal. Fucking twat, I had privately thought. "And besides," she added, "he
never has the time to spare." The cinema became a regular thing for Alice and me; we shared a similar taste for old films,
foreign films and cult films. One weekend it would be a Bogart / Bacall triple bill of To Have And Have Not, The Big Sleep
and Key Largo , the next it might be a selection of Jan Svankmajer’s animated shorts, the next the re-edited
cut of Welles’ Touch Of Evil… and so it went on for a several months. We would sit in thrilled silence,
eyes agog at the huge screen before us and then we would enjoy enthusiastic discussions about what we had seen over a drink
at a nearby bar. It was both wonderful and unbearable: wonderful because I had finally found somebody who possessed as much
useless information about feature films as I did; unbearable because I ached to be with her, to stroke her hair and caress
her neck. *** "You don’t mind that I never invite you out with my other friends, do you?" Alice and I had
just stepped out of the cinema having watched a double bill of Shindo’s Onibaba and Kuroneko. "Nah.
Probably wouldn’t like them anyway," I joked, although I was not joking at all. "No, you probably wouldn’t,"
she said. "I’m not sure if I like them most of the time. Besides," she added, taking my arm, "I don’t want to
share you with them; they don’t deserve you." "Yeah, yeah," I scoffed. *** As the weeks passed, Alice became
increasingly despairing of Graham The Artist. "I know he is embroiled in his latest work," she confided, "but I feel
like an old raincoat shoved into the back of the wardrobe during the summer, no longer needed, surplus to requirements."
Dump the bastard . "Well, maybe when this project is done with, he will have more time for you." "Maybe,"
she sighed. "I just wish he could give me… I don’t know… something, just to show that he still loves me."
The fucker doesn’t deserve you. "Maybe you should say something, just subtly. Don’t be pushy about
it. Just say, ‘Hey, I need a little bit of attention.’" "I could do, but I don’t want him to think
I am trying to crowd him." Fuck him, the self-centred arsehole. "Look, he just gets caught up in his work. I’m
sure he doesn’t mean to neglect you." "And since when did you start making excuses for other people’s shortcomings?"
I frowned: Why was I making excuses for Graham The Artist? "You are right," I said. "Ditch the cunt." Alice
laughed at that and kissed me, as she often did, on the cheek. "I love you," she said. "Yeah, yeah," I said. God,
no, please don’t. I cannot bare to hear you say that. I love you. I love you. *** Alice’s mischievous
inclinations compelled her to invite me to the opening of Graham The Artist’s new installation. My mischievous inclinations
compelled me to attend. "I shall try to behave," I told her. "Please don’t," she replied. When I arrived
at the painfully fashionable East End gallery the place was already filled with people and I was grateful to the tuxedoed
young man who immediately presented a tray of glasses of wine to me. I took a glass of red and knocked it back in one. Taking
another glass and thanking the young man, I began to meander around the outskirts of the room, breathing deeply to try and
stave off an encroaching feeling of claustrophobia. I finally spotted Alice in amongst the cluster of beings standing next
to an extremely tall, long-haired man dressed in an impressively tailored, single breasted grey suit. He was talking with
great authority about something to a crowd of metropolitans. Alice looked around her absently, occasionally taking a sip from
a glass of white. I gazed at her, unable to bring my legs to walk towards her. I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I should
not have been there. The extremely tall man finished his speech, bid farewell to the little group he had been addressing
and moved onto another party that had arrived just after I had. Alice dutifully followed him, saying nothing. I stood
by the wall for a good five minutes, next to a potted plant, watching her. She was wearing a long-sleeved black dress that
clung to her as far as the knees before flaring out down to the ground. She was beautiful and I felt nauseous. I wanted to
stay there and watch her for hours. I wanted to run screaming from the building. I wanted to hold her. I never wanted to touch
her again. I wanted her. I wanted stop wanting her. She was swaying slightly from side to side, scanning the room with
little enthusiasm. I had just about made up my mind to run screaming from the building when she noticed me. It was then that
I experienced one of the most gut-wrenchingly perfect moments of my life. As her eyes fell upon me, her expression changed
from that of a bored schoolchild on some brain numbing field trip to that of a delighted child who had just been given a puppy
for Christmas. The invisible strings that had been dragging her facial features towards the floor were suddenly cut loose,
allowing not only her mouth but her entire head to smile. I waved awkwardly at her and before I knew what was happening
should had crossed the room and thrown her arms around me, almost spilling both of our drinks. "You made it," she said.
"Evidently." "Come and meet some really dull people." "Yay…" Alice took my hand and dragged me
over to where the extremely tall man was pontificating to his rapt audience. She introduced me to the little crowd and reeled
off their names, names that I had no intention of remembering. Finally she turned to the extremely tall man and said, "This
is Graham." "Ah, Alice’s mysterious friend. A pleasure to finally meet you." Graham The Artist shook my hand limply.
I managed to muster a smile as he began to talk at me in a tone that was somehow matey yet aloof at the same time. After
barely ten seconds of listening to his drivel I knew that I hated him from the very core of my being. But then I was never
going to like him: He had Alice. "Alice tells me you work in publishing," said Graham. "I worked in a bookshop,"
I said. "Oh… right, well…" Graham had obviously lost interest in me. To my relief, he made his excuses and
wandered away to preach at another group of new arrivals. "What the fuck am I doing here?" I muttered. "Helping
to keep me sane," said Alice. "Come on. It’s nearly time for the great unveiling." *** Graham The Artist called
for everybody’s attention and gestured towards a door at the back of the gallery. He explained that the installation
could only accommodate twenty people at a time so we would be admitted in groups and each group would have fifteen minutes
to view the piece. Alice clung to my arm and made sure that I would be in the first group of people allowed to enter.
There was an expectant hum among the first group of twenty as a gallery employee opened the door. Graham The Artist led us
into the room: It was perfectly square and covered top to bottom with white plaster. Along the ceiling were strips of halogen
lights emitting a cold, sterile glow. The majority of the floor space was taken up with cubicles like those found in offices
all over the world. The walls of the cubicles were about seven feet tall and each seemed to contain a monitor screen and keyboard.
The screens were all switched on and displayed a blue background and a perpetually blinking yellow cursor. Graham The Artist
instructed us all to step into a cubicle. We could then do as we wished but we were not to vacate our cubicles until our allotted
fifteen minutes had expired. I took up position in a cubicle and stared at the screen expecting some kind of video or
images to start playing. The screen, however, remained blank, bar the patient winking of the yellow cursor. I looked around
the blank walls of the cubicle and sighed. Should I speak? Despite knowing that there were nineteen other people in the room,
I felt utterly alone and awkward. Why was nobody speaking? Probably for exactly the same reason that I wasn’t speaking.
After a minute or two, my gaze returned to the blue screen before me. Still nothing there but the cursor. Had something
malfunctioned? Were we supposed to do something to activate whatever it was that we were supposed to be watching? Were we
allowed to speak to each other? Why were we separated from each other? Did we have to touch the keyboard in some way to activate
the viewing? I thought about shouting out to the people in the adjacent cubicles to ask them what the hell was going
on and whether they could see anything on their screens. But I did not. The room, full of people, was silent but for the monotonous
hum coming from the fluorescent strips of light above us. I felt lost and confused. I felt angry. All kinds of thoughts were
filling my head, frustration that I did not know what to do, that I could quite simply speak out but did not because I might
be breaking some unarticulated rule, that this installation was some kind of joke, that Graham The Artist was standing outside
the door laughing his nuts off at our gullibility. And then, all of a sudden, after maybe six or seven minutes of standing
in that cubicle growing angrier and angrier, something appeared on my monitor, a word, a single word, "Hello?" I stared
at the greeting for a moment, unsure of what the appearance of this word on my screen meant. I slowly reached towards my own
keyboard and typed, "Hello to you." And then the screen began to gradually fill up with words: "Hello?" "Who’s
this?" "Where are you?" "You at the gallery?" "Yes." "You in this room?" "Are you?" "Yes?" "What the fuck is this?"
"Is this what is supposed to happen?" "I don’t know." "This is weird." "Who are you then?" "You are also in here,
aren’t you?" "What are we supposed to do?" "I’m thirsty." "I need to piss." "They could have put chairs in
here." "Do you think anyone would mind if I left now?" "This is creepy." "I’ve been on my feet all day." "They could
have warned us." "I feel like a complete lemon." "I don’t get it." "This is the installation, right?" "What does
this mean?" "What does it all mean?" "I don’t understand." "How much longer do we have?" "Maybe this is it." "Do
you think this is a joke?" "What do you make of it?" "Is this it?" "This is supposed to be art?" "I think I might
be beginning to understand." "It’s cold." "Maybe we are supposed to be feeling like this." "Maybe the point of it
is exactly how we react to it." "God, this is crazy." "I think it works quite well." "Very strange." "Clever." "I need
to piss right now." "This is fucked up." Just then the screen cleared and a message in large letters on a red
background appeared: "Thank you. Your fifteen minutes has expired. We do hope that you enjoyed the experience. You may now
leave your cubicle and exit the installation. Goodbye." *** A couple of hours later, after everybody had experienced
the installation, the gallery was buzzing with intense conversations. Throughout the room people were engaged in animated
discussions, everyone talking loudly over each other, some praising, some vilifying, some awe struck, some baffled. I
was standing with Alice, Graham The Artist and a group of psychophantic hangers-on who were all debating the piece. My mind
was racing, full of speculations and suppositions. I could barely make sense of everything that I had felt in that room. Overwhelmed.
"So," said Graham The Artist, "what did you make of it?" Emerging from my own mire of mental activity I realised
that the question had been directed at me. I really wanted to tell him that I hated his work, that it was pretentious, psychologically
and intellectually shallow, sophomoric, sterile and empty. Much to my annoyance, though, I thought the installation was quite
brilliant. I glanced at Alice who was looking at me expectantly. "Well," I said, "I thought it was possibly the
strangest experience I have ever had at an art exhibition." Graham The Artist nodded and gestured for me to continue.
"Well, the concept is deceptively simple and yet, speaking personally, the response to it was complex. Deliberately withholding
what people should do once they are inside the installation is inspired. I felt bemused, angry and contemptuous of the piece.
I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t want to call out and say, ‘so what the fuck is going
on?’ because I didn’t wish to appear stupid and ignorant. And then when people finally started to type on their
keyboards and realised that they could communicate it dawned on me: This piece is all about relationships, relationships in
the workplace, social relationships, our inability to communicate, our fear of communicating and yet our desire to communicate.
What was stopping us from just calling out over the cubicle walls at each other? Nothing. But it seemed… wrong somehow;
a room full of people unable to engage with each other in person, so to speak, and yet happy to communicate via their keyboards.
People together and yet, at the same time, isolated: Fear and desire…" Graham The Artist was regarding me intensely.
"That was just the way I interpreted it, anyway…" I mumbled. "No, no," said Graham The Artist brightly. "Your
response is… is wonderful. What you describe is exactly what I hoped to achieve." He looked at me with a new found respect
that, despite myself, pleased me. Alice was smiling at me. "I told you he was great," she said to Graham The
Artist. "You know," he said quietly, leaning down to me, "in this room full of artists and critics, you are probably
the most articulate of the lot." I blushed. I fucking blushed! This man who I had formed a total hatred of because he
had the one thing that I wanted, because he had her and didn’t seem, from what she had told me, to appreciate
her one single bit, this man whose very existence I resented with every sinew in my body, this man was… seducing me!
He was praising the very qualities in me that I hold dearest. He was massaging my ego, complimenting my intellect, the one
thing about myself that I respect and prize. And, in that moment in the gallery, I fucking fell for it! I fell for him!
Later that night, as the crowd was thinning and I was preparing to go home, Alice came up to me and took my arm as she so
often did. "Thank you so much for coming," she said. "It was a good evening," I replied reluctantly. "He is
a remarkable man, don’t you think?" she said looking over to where Graham The Artist stood, still engaged in deep conversations
with his audience. "Yes," I said slowly. "Remarkable." Goddamn him. *** I became distant, depressed, reclusive.
Alice and I still saw each other, still went to the movies, still frequented coffee shops and bars, but less often than before.
I found it immensely difficult to be with her now even though she still complained of Graham The Artist’s lack of attention
towards her. I might have remained happy to listen to her woes and to continue to harbour fantasies of her saying, "that’s
it, I can’t take anymore, I’m going to leave him!" had I not met the man, had I not seen with my own eyes how
much Alice adored him. Because despite his deficiencies as a boyfriend, as a human being, Alice was utterly smitten with his
talent and his art, and there was surely no way that I could compete with that. I may have fulfilled Alice’s needs to
be treated as an intellectual equal, her needs to spend time with somebody who shared common interests, her needs for emotional
support, but her passion would always be saved for him. Between Graham The Artist and me, all of Alice’s needs were
met, but my one remaining need could never be met while Graham The Artist continued to consume her passion. I knew what
I had to do: I had to fall out of love with her. I had to bury all those amorous feelings that I felt for her. I had to forget
all those moments that we had shared discussing art, life and love. I had to forget that she was one of the few people whom
I had ever met who got me, who understood how my head works and who was attracted, rather than repelled, by what comes out
of my mouth. I had to distract myself, immerse myself in my books, my films, all my old obsessions. I had to focus on representations
of life in order to avoid living it. And then… and then… One evening there was a knock at my front door.
I reluctantly put aside my copy of Crime And Punishment and answered the door. Alice stood there crying. I froze, speechless.
She looked so wretched, so lost, so small. I tried to speak but could only mumble incoherently. She stared at me, her eyes
pleading, until she came towards me and wrapped herself around my body, quivering, heaving. I swung the door shut and held
her, trying to calm her, trying to hush her tears away. We embraced there in the hallway for nearly ten minutes before she
stood back and wiped her cheeks. "What’s happened? Alice? What’s wrong?" "I…" she sniffed. "It’s
Graham. He… Oh God…" I put my arm around her and led her to the lounge. Setting her down on the sofa, I
moved to the sideboard and made her a vodka and tonic. I sat down beside her and handed her the drink. She took a big mouthful
and then coughed. "Tell me," I said. "It’s Graham. He… he’s been having an affair… for
months. Not just one… his been fucking all over the place. For months. All the time we have been together he has been…
all over the fucking place." "I’m sorry," I said. "The bastard… the bastard has been… ever since…
God, how could I have been so… I’m so fucking stupid. Months, fucking months! And I never realised. Never. I tried
to be good, gave him ‘space’ to do his work. Only he wasn’t ‘doing’ his work, was he…
He was ‘doing’ every fucking bitch whore in the city." I put my arm around her and she leaned into me, resting
her head on my chest. "Why?" she whispered. "What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I enough for him? I tried…
I tried to accommodate his needs… everything. Fucking men! Why do they always… What’s wrong with me?"
"Nothing," I said. "There’s nothing wrong with you." "Then why? Why did he do this?" "I don’t know."
And I didn’t know. I really couldn’t fathom it. How could he… to Alice? Alice! Didn’t he know how
lucky he was to have her? How could any man… to Alice? We sat in silence for I don’t know how long, Alice
weeping and me gently stroking her hair. This had been the moment I had been dreaming of: Alice realising what a shit Graham
was and running into my arms, saying how blind she had been that for so long she had been putting up with the great artist’s
indifference when all the time there had been this wonderful man, this perfect man right here in front of her face. I should
have been delighted. But with Alice shivering with grief into my armpit, I felt nothing but shame, shame that my own gratification
could only be fulfilled by her pain. She was in pieces and I was sweeping her up for my own selfish reasons. Was I being a
good friend or was I merely trying to take advantage of her? Why was I consoling her? What would I hope to gain? But
that evening there on the sofa was not about me but about her. I let go of all my mental analysis and simply gave myself to
the moment. I did nothing but that which Alice needed. I was just there, holding her, comforting her not with words
but just with my presence. And I would have stayed there like that for however long she needed me to be there. I would have
done that gladly and asked for nothing in return. I wanted nothing but to make her feel better, to see her smile again, to
hear her laugh. Eventually, she began to talk. "All I ever wanted was someone… someone who would make me laugh…
someone who would take care of me and respect me. I just wanted to love and be loved. That’s all." Love, I thought
to myself, what the hell is love? What does that word mean? What does it really mean? We all supposedly want it and yet it
causes such pain. Is there anything more painful, besides bereavement or physical violation, as losing love? Is there anything
worse that to love but not to be loved back? For many, to find love is the greatest goal in life. We put love on a pedestal
and praise it to the skies. And yet, how many of us find it? How many people achieve the mighty goal of finding true love?
True love: Do those words have any real meaning? Whose definitions of the word "love" are the same? If two people say, "I
love you," but don’t harbour the same definition of what they believe love should be, then what possible value can those
three words have? If love is supposed to be a long-term commitment between two people then how can it possibly survive
in this world? Can we really be surprised, in this career orientated society where employment is becoming increasingly short
term, where people don’t expect to stay put in any one place for more than a handful of years, where professional relationships
are becoming increasingly one dimensional, superficial and disposable, can we really be surprised that a long term commitment
between two people, that love is simply not viable? Who has time for love? When people are not working they are seeking
instant gratification. Now! Now! Must have fun now! Not much time, must move, must move, quickly now! And what is love if
not an investment of time? But time is the one thing that is being eroded from modern life. Who, in the 21st Century, has
the time to fall in love? What about monogamy: It goes against all our inherent desires and yet we yearn for it. We
want stability and yet also adventure and promiscuity. Monogamy is not natural but we consider the idea of it noble. We have
the ability for abstract thought. That is what raises us above the level of animals and yet we are animals. We are
cursed with the ability to think. The head and the heart. The head and the heart, constantly fighting. Marriage?
Is marriage anything to do with love or is it nothing more than a legal formality, a contract? If marriage had anything to
do with love then why can’t homosexuals marry? Love is this glorious quality, our most treasured commodity and yet two
men or two women cannot marry. One kind of love is revered and praised but another is unacceptable. What is marriage if not
a form of protection in the event that the love fades? Is marriage nothing to do with two people being together but rather
an insurance against two people deciding to part? The head and the heart. To suggest the demise of love in the
21st Century, however, is to speak madness. No matter how difficult, logistically complex and unfeasible the idea of finding
love becomes, we will continue to search for it. It is the combination of our basic instincts to fuck and spawn and our so-called
intelligence, our ability to think and define our insecurity, our sense of loneliness, our desire for validation through the
love of another that fuels this eternal drive to find love. The head and the heart. Our hearts, our feelings, our emotions
need to be nurtured and cared for but it is the head that realises the near futility of searching for love. But without the
head, without the ability to rationalise, to articulate, to explain, we would not be able to define what our hearts desire.
If it were not for our heads, our hearts would not know that which our heads tell us is next to impossible to find. And
how that infuriates me. How filled with rage I become when my head joyfully explains to me that what I feel for Alice is love
but that, sorry, Alice will never love me back. How I angrily rant at my heart to just stop loving her and how my heart sheepishly
replies that it cannot. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be in love. And you should not want it either, my head
screams at Alice. Forget about it, move on, seek something else, something new. Don’t waste time on love, Alice.
Forget it, Alice. Fuck love! But as is always the case, the words in my heart managed to scramble up my throat and out
of my mouth before the words in my head had barely formed. What I said was this: "Maybe you should just go out with
me, then." Alice turned and regarded me for a few moments, and then laughed affectionately at the absurdity of the idea.
THE END
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