The rest of that day...

I was in a state of absolute bliss.

No drug on the planet could have got me as high as I was at that moment because of the love I had found. I fell asleep that night with the smell of Her still in my nostrils. I could feel Her touch on my skin even though she wasn't there. She was as much inside me as I had been inside Her.

The next morning I stumbled out of bed, walked to work and got as much work as I could before She was due to make an appearance. Nine o'clock came and went. There was no sight of Her. I walked to the office and asked Lou if Claire had picked up the keys to kiosk 2 and had opened up.

"No, she's called in sick again. The boss is going apeshit, that's two weeks in a row she's thrown a sickie. He says if she does it again she's gone." Lou informed me.
"Did she say what was wrong with her?" I enquired.
"Her flatmate phoned for her, he says she's got a stomach ache." Lou told me.
"Do you need me to open up kiosk 2?" I asked.
"No, one of the staff from the pantry has opened up. The boss wants you to take some things down to the cottage for him." Lou said.

The boss's cottage was located in a small village in the borders and this meant I had at least a couple of hours driving ahead of me. "Am I going in the car or the van?" I asked.
"It'll need to be the car, the van has to go to the garage to be serviced. Joe Miller is picking it up in half an hour so remember to leave the keys." Lou said, throwing me the keys to the boss's car.

I walked along the corridor to my office and got the van keys, dropped them off at the office and told Lou I'd be as quick as I could. I jumped into the boss's BMW and set off for the borders. As soon as I was out of town and was on the city bypass I floored the accelerator. The car leaped forwards and shot down the road at highly illegal speeds.

Keeping one eye open for the presence of any police cars I made good time getting to the borders. I dropped the stuff in the back of the car off at the cottage and headed back towards Edinburgh. Once again I pushed the car into the red and hit speeds that, had I been caught, wouldn't have been easily explained away.

I reckoned I had a spare hour and made my way towards Her house. I pulled up outside her stair and realised that I didn't know which flat was Hers. Not that this stopped me. I leaned on the horn of the car and let the noise attract people to their windows. A few people leaned out of windows and shouted abuse at me but I ignored them and continued to honk the horn.

As I stared at the windows of the block of flats I saw no sign of her. "CLAIRE!" I yelled at the top of my voice, giving the car horn a rest. Still no sign. "CLAIRE!" I yelled again. Once again, no sign.

"I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL I SEE YOU, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK HOW LONG IT TAKES!" I yelled. The door to Her stair opened and She appeared in the doorway. I walked over to Her and She looked at me with anguish in Her eyes. I was about to ask what was wrong when I noticed that she was trying to hide Her face. "What the fuck?" I said, noticing the bruising around her eye.

"Who did that?" I asked, as calmly as I could.
"It's nothing Ross." She said, taking her into my arms and holding her close.
"It's not nothing. Now tell me who did it." I asked.
"My flatmate." She said, timidly.
"And is your flatmate in?" I asked.
"No. Please Ross, it's complicated. You wouldn't understand." She said.
"Try me." I said.
"Please don't ask me to explain it Ross, I don't know how to explain it to myself." She said.

She asked me to come up for a coffee and we walked up the stairs to Her flat. Inside Her flat I stood talking to Her as she made the coffee. She explained that She and Her flatmate were sort of in a relationship and that things were difficult for them at the moment. They'd grown up together in the small village back in Ireland and had been childhood sweethearts. When She had decided that She wanted to study in Edinburgh he had come along. Their relationship had went from being friends to being on and off lovers but she still saw herself as being single.

"He loves me Ross, I've known him since I was a child, but he can't see that I want other things." She said as She sat staring at the cup of coffee that was going cold in front of Her.
"And what do you want?" I asked.
"I want to feel loved. He doesn't understand that there's more to loving someone than just being with them." She said.

"He will when I beat seven shades of shit out of him." I said, anger welling up inside me.
"Don't hurt him Ross. He doesn't deserve it." She said.
"And you deserve being used as a punchbag?" I said.
"Maybe." She said.

In a moment of rashness I made a decision. "Well, until you know what you want I'll keep my distance. I'm not going to stop caring about you but I can't carry on like this. I'll be there if you need me but if me being with you makes him do this to you I can't see you outside work." I said.

I stood up, knelt down in front of Her, kissed Her gently, told Her I'd see Her when She got back to work and left.

For the next month or so at work I was caught between asking Her to come out with me, knowing that this would only make things worse between them and staying away from Her. I stood back as a lover and stood forwards as a friend. I did what I knew I had to do. I had to give Her space to decide for Herself and I had to do it with a smile on my face, even though my heart was slowly breaking apart.

Then came the night of Murray's leaving party. The night that I kissed her and time stood still, the night that She told me She was going back to Ireland, the night I died inside, the night I'd remember forever...