A man in his twenties is leaning against the wall on the Circle Line westbound, head back against the cool brickwork, deep in thought.
It all started so well, he thinks. Old-fashioned romance, it was, or as close to it as you get these days. It had been a student ball, one of those things where you get to wear a penguin suit for the night and pretend to be civilised. He'd just gone with his mates for a laugh. But sometime around ten he saw her, and she saw him. The next thing he remembers it was 4 o'clock in the morning, the tired-looking DJ was playing the night's last record, and they were still dancing, oblivious, locked in an embrace, spinning across the virtually empty floor among the bottles and crushed plastic glasses.
Things went fine for ten months after that, at least after he'd found the guts to call her. Actually, he's wrong on this - he hadn't had the guts, but she'd had the sense to call him anyway. Suddenly, though, something went wrong, and he still doesn't know what. All he knows is that it was his fault. She told him as much. That's the way it always goes with me, he thinks. I always end up ballsing it up, throwing away life's opportunities. Throwing away a good thing without even noticing I'm doing it. Oh well, that's how it goes, he glooms, as the familar sick feeling that always accompanies thoughts of The Breakup wells up in his insides.
Posted by mpk at June 7, 2004 10:47 AM | TrackBack