The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

I’ve been down here for the best part of an hour, not as drunk as I want to be despite downing a few, but I cannot shake this awful soul-destroying agony in my chest. I don’t let the tears fall, knowing the mess it will make of my face and make me look pathetic. Instead, I do what I do best; I lift that chin, push the pain down behind the block of ice that is now lodged in my heart, and swear I will never say his name again.

I don’t need him.

I find some of his friends down here and dance like my feet are burning, paste on my party face and revert to Sophie of the city. The one who spent two years coping with her heartbreak alone. Able to function while a black hole overtakes my soul, smiling and acting like nothing fazes me. I chat to people I recognize and run into a few faces I know. A good little act at being okay while the wall of mirrored glass above my head conceals the man who’s taken another huge dump on my heart.

Pushing through the crowd to make my way to the ladies’ room to cool off, I get into the quieter, closed off hall of the corridor to the bathrooms. Glad of the air and contemplating getting a cab home. I have a key card to his apartment and bed is calling me, along with solitude to put this to rest for a while. Gone is the girl who used to use booze as a crutch and mindless overuse of it to get through her woes, I just want to up and leave, like a boring, mature asshole, with a heavy rock in my stomach.

“Sophieboo?” A familiar female voice is suddenly loud in my left ear, and I spin rapidly, instantly hauled into an over-enthusiastic hug by Camilla, and almost choke on her sickly perfume when her throat is shoved in my face aggressively. I flinch a little at the sudden embrace and totter on my heels when she lets me go again, surprised to see her, or that she’s even acknowledging my existence, considering the bitch has never gotten back to me. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I ran into you, here of all places.” Camilla gushes at me, clearly drunk, and completely ignorant of her wall of silence until now. I stare at her blankly, feeling nothing but mild irritation and no real desire to hang around and chat.

apart so I can smooth down my dress that

You up and left after I sorted out a new pad for us, and I’ve been sulking my tiny little bottom off. I’m such a baby when I’m hurt.” Camilla leans in, swaying on her shoes dramatically and gets a little too close to my mouth for comfort. I lift my hands to her bust defensively and stop the ascent of smudged red lips on mine immediately. Suffocated by her behavior and needing space from

her, something that has most definitely changed in me of late. I never used to care how drunk people around me were, used to find it amusing, but I guess Arrick is right. You get to a point where this shit is

really trying to keep control of it. She leans in again and this time narrowly misses bumping noses

my friends. I haven’t been upstairs in a while and they’ll be worried.” I try to extricate myself from Camilla’s sudden grasp on my arms,

little bitty, dance, with your most favorite girl.” She giggles, an attempt at cute, wiggling her eyebrows at me and pouting seductively. Her weird, snooty, baby language has me frowning at the spew of childish shit that’s just poured out of her mouth and find myself sighing in resignation. Knowing I’m not going to get out of this with any peace unless I relent a

his magnificent reunion with his girlfriend upstairs. Right now, for all I care, he can go fuck himself, and her

me back to the dancefloor with a little bouncing wiggle, catching time to the music and leading me away from the long row of bathroom doors and back into the noisy bustling club. I glance up at the windows above us absentmindedly, but I can only see that mirrored glass shining