had found, dated and proposed to another woman? While I’d been daydreaming about our reunion, he’d been marching full steam ahead into a new life without me?
We weren’t getting back together, were we? Not at Francesca’s wedding. Not ever.
‘Delilah, darling?’ Francesca’s hand was back on my arm, squeezing gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. It’s been all over Facebook.’
‘I’m not friends with Ben on Facebook.’ He’d wanted a clean break. No phone calls or texts, no contact on social media. He’d erased me from his life completely.
‘I feel terrible,’ Francesca says, her grip tightening on my arm so much it starts to hurt a little. The sharpness helps me to focus.
‘Don’t.’ I shake my head, attempting to dislodge all the old feelings that are whooshing to the surface and threatening to topple me off my chair. ‘Of course he’s moved on. It’s been nine months.’ Nine months, eight days and seventeen hours, to be exact. ‘Like you said, we’ve both moved on.’
Lie number three of the day, but this one is absolutely necessary. Ben and Francesca are clearly still chummy and I don’t want word getting back to him that I’m a complete mess without him. I won’t weep, even though I think Ben is a great, big turding scumbag for getting engaged so soon after ditching me. I will remain strong and poised, even if it means lying through my teeth.
‘You have?’ Francesca’s hand is snatched away from my arm as she claps her hands together. ‘That is brilliant news, darling! I thought it would be awkward, you know, with Ben and Eden and everything, but now you’re with someone too it won’t be awkward at all!’ Eden? Ben’s new fiancée – ugh – is called Eden? ‘I’m so happy for you, darling. So happy. You will bring him, won’t you?’
‘Bring him where?’
‘To the wedding.’ Francesca giggles. ‘I can’t wait to meet him. I’ll rejig the seating plan, so it won’t be a problem.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’ Really, there’s no need at all. My imaginary boyfriend doesn’t take up much space at all.
‘Nonsense! You are one of my oldest friends and I want to see you happy and settled. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about Ben, you know. You met him through me and ended up heartbroken, so I’m glad you’ve found somebody else. Is this it, do you think? Is he The One?’
Francesca’s eyes sparkle as she leans across the table towards me, eager for details of my fictitious boyfriend.
‘Could be.’ I grin at Francesca, the lie slipping off my tongue quite easily. ‘He’s amazing and gorgeous and we’re having so much fun together.’
‘I can tell. Look at you – you’re glowing!’
Fictitious men have that effect on me.
‘So what’s his name?’
My grin slips a little. What is his name? What name screams sexy and gorgeous and a million times better than Ben Martin?
‘Oh.’ Francesca pounces on her handbag as it begins to buzz. She whips out her mobile and yelps. ‘I have to take this. Excuse me.’ Francesca dashes away, giving me a bit of breathing space to conjure a suitable name. Danny is the obvious choice. Danny is cool, he has swagger and looks very much like John Travolta in his heyday. Or how about Billy? In Chicago, Billy Flynn is suave and successful and pretty damn irresistible. And then there’s bad boy Cry-Baby, but I don’t think I’d get away with that one, no matter how hot Johnny Depp is.
‘I’m so sorry but I have to dash.’ Francesca returns – briefly – for one final sip of coffee and to grab her jacket and magazine. ‘But let’s meet up again soon, yes? I want all the details. Bye, darling!’ Francesca drops a kiss onto each cheek before she scuttles from the café.
So I need a boyfriend to take to Francesca’s wedding then. And I have six months to bag one.
The BFFs
Text Message:
Delilah: I am dying, Lauren. Head is going to explode. Stomach is going to explode. I feel explode-y
Lauren: Germs or beer?
Delilah: Beer. Too much beer. Can’t get out of my pyjamas. Super-glued on
Lauren: Want me to come over in my pyjamas? We can slob out and watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Delilah: This is why you are my very best friend (but don’t tell Ryan I said that)
Lauren McIntosh is one of my best friends (I’m greedy and have two. Ryan is the other – more about him in a minute). We’ve known each other since our first day of secondary school, when we were shaking in our knee-length skirts (and they really were knee-length back then. We hadn’t discovered that they were totally uncool and we must roll them up to bum-cheek-skimming length to survive school). I was sitting at a table at the front of our form room (like the skirt situation, I didn’t know that you must endeavour to sit as close to the back of the room as possible yet) when a girl stopped by my desk. She was quite short and skinny with her ginger hair plaited into pigtails at the side of her head.
‘Scary, isn’t it?’
I was bloody terrified but I gave my own hair (blonde and loose around my shoulders) a flick. ‘I’m fine. Not scared at all.’ I caught this new girl’s eye and gave a wobbly smile, my show of courage completely failing before it had properly begun. ‘I’m lying. I’m so scared. Do you think we’ll get bog-washed?’ I’d heard so many horror stories about high school that I didn’t expect to last the day without serious injury and/or humiliation.
‘I hope not.’ The girl bit her lip and her big green eyes started to get a bit swimmy. ‘Can I sit here?’ She pointed at the empty seat beside me and I nodded, grateful that I wouldn’t have to sit on my own (I did already know that sitting on your own was a bit sad). ‘Thanks. I’m Lauren, by the way.’
‘Delilah.’ I moved my pencil case over, to make room for Lauren’s.
‘Like the Tom Jones song?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yeah.’ I heard that a lot. I heard the song a lot as people thought it was hilarious to sing it to me on a regular basis. They still do that now, but it’s mostly the older generation or my friends when they want to wind me up. For a while, I had a burst of ‘Hey There Delilah’ by Plain White T’s but that’s mostly fizzled out now.
‘Do you know anybody here?’
I looked around the room and shrugged my shoulders. ‘Sort of. Some of them went to my primary school but they’re not really my friends.’
Lauren twisted a ginger plaited pigtail around her finger. ‘I don’t know anybody. We just moved here over the holidays.’
‘That sucks.’
Lauren nodded,
