Reality. Number 1.

R walked past me in the street tonight.

I had felt this overwhelming sensation all day that I was definitely going to meet him. Sure enough, there I was standing at a bus stop with my friend, J, and I caught a glimpse of him breezing past. I called to him and he chatted to us until our bus came, never once breaking that friendly barrier that kills me.

I don't know what's wrong with me. It wasn't so long ago that I was so crazily, insanely in love with B that I was planning to secretly marry him, and then all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, R comes along and ruins everything. Of course B doesn't know that R's ruining everything. B just sees me falling out of love with him and asks me why, and tries anything he can to try and keep me with him. He kisses me the exact same way that he always did, so why then do I want my hand to be on the back of R's neck, and not his?

Truthfully, the whole 'R' thing started as a means of detracting from a very boring life. I had just come back from an amazing trip where every day had meant a new city, a new beach, new people. I had collapsed into the same job. The funny thing about travelling is this: the people that you leave behind tell you that they can't wait until you're back so they can hear all your amazing stories. You begin to tell them and they are interested for about five minutes. Why is that? Is it jealousy? Or are they genuinely not interested?
When I arrived back to work with a suntan and a new tattoo, nobody wanted to hear about my trip. They wanted to tell me about new shoes that they had bought and more importantly, had I met the new boy yet?

The new boy was everything that I  loathed in a man: arrogant, overly self-assured, vain, supercilious, critical, shallow. And then he asked me where I had been, and what it was like. Suddenly, during that one conversation about my trip, I could see right through him. He was kind, but he had been hurt in the past. Most likely by a girl. Isn't it always by a girl? The arrogance masked an obvious insecurity and I wondered how I hadn't picked up on it instantly as it now resonated in everything that he said. He was very good looking. Just my type: a little rough around the edges.

But back then I saw him as a reason to put on some lipstick before I went to work. I certainly wouldn't say that I fell for him right away. I saw him as a friend, and a confidante. He seemed like the right person to talk to about my relationship with B. My perfect, flawless relationship with B. I can exactly pinpoint the moment where my relationship fell apart: "where have you been travelling?" This was the moment I began to sabotage things, to pretend that things were going wrong just so that R might have thought he had a chance.

Meeting R on the street tonight was actually very sad. He walked away, smoking a cigarette and waving. My heart was pounding and I was holding back from telling him exactly what I wanted to which was that those two clumsy nights in august hadn't been a mistake, and that I would do anything to hear him say it. "Ok" he said, taking a long draw of his cigarette, his second in five minutes, "see you monday".