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.

and push us apart so I can

the ascent of smudged red lips on mine immediately. Suffocated by her behavior and needing space from everyone. “Please forgive me for being a complete bitch, I mean, you obviously needed to go, but I was soo tantrummy. I miss you so much.” She tugs at my hair with red talons and smiles at me widely, all seduction and Camilla poise lacking while she’s so obviously smashed. Up close, even her immaculate makeup is

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 old and no

you were even a teensy bit mad still.” Her heavy English accent is even more drawn out and precise in this state, as though she is really trying to keep control of it. She leans in again and this time narrowly misses

while and they’ll be worried.” I try to extricate myself from Camilla’s sudden grasp

her eyebrows at me and pouting seductively. Her weird,

I really do have to find someone.” I lie; I have no intention of looking for him and interrupting his magnificent reunion with his girlfriend upstairs. Right now, for all I

lifts my hand over her head and pulls 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