Of course, I did not steal my best friends' girlfriend. Sparkie and Michelle had a short lived relationship and were rarely in contact with one another for most part of it. Their coupling ended in a fairly amicable way, mostly due to the fact that, on the whole, people find being angry at Sparkie a strangely difficult thing to sustain.
Months after the break-up Sparkie and I met a girl with extremely short and bright red hair in the nightclub Plush. The girl seemed to talk in a way that suggested that she knew us fairly well and that she had not seen us for quite some time. We talked and joked along with her, said what we'd been up to in the most vanilla of terms and then we parted ways. Sparkie and I walked back to our seats, and when seated Sparkie turned to me with a familiar smile, a kind of awkward/confused almost grin, and said "Do you have any idea who that was?" Sparkie has a terrible memory and I have on many occasions had to prompt his memory about the people that stop him to say hello, but I had to admit that on this occasion that I shared his confusion, I had no idea who the red haired girl was.
My memory at this point is quite hazy on details and so I may be condensing the happenings of a week or two into this single night. I do know that it was that same night that Sparkie or I worked out who the girl with the bright red hair was. In fairness, it was dark and the hair kind of held your attention, so you'll forgive us for connecting the girl in front of us with girl we had known with black hair highlighted with blue streaks months before. As I said I can't quite remember the details of the night from that point, whether we purposely sought out Michelle or if we just bumped into each other again I'm not a hundred percent sure, but we did meet again.
My next immediate memory of Michelle sitting outside The Victor chip shop on Conrwall Way facing the East Kilbride Bus Terminal. We sat on the ground with our backs against the window and the shop had shut making it at least 4am but most likely later. Sparkie had long since wondered off into the either of the night as he so often does, I had met some work mates from my then place of employment McDonalds (my first job) and they, along with some of Michelle's friends and probably some other stragglers, laughed and joked their way through replays of that night and many others while Michelle and I sat and talked and watched. I always loved the aftermath of the dancing in those days; it was my favourite part in fact.
At some point, sitting on the cold ground with the sun fast approaching Michelle put her head on my shoulder. Not an extraordinary thing to do at all, but the strange thing was that I was fine with it, I even liked it. I never liked to be touched much, I'm not as bad now, back then a touch could burn right though me, but with Michelle, as it had felt when we first talked, I was comfortable. It was then that the possibility that I might be with her entered my head. Before that I may have considered that I would like it if she were with me but I was bound by honour to my friend. You don't go out with your best friends ex. That's the rule. That night she took my arm, and her best friend that she had introduced me to that night, Laura, took the other and we danced to the taxi rank singing New York, New York in a way that kids do when you feel alive and that you own the night. As we danced and I sang it was the rule that that kept the smile from my eyes. You don't go out with your best friends ex taunted the rule, but worst of all, I knew it was right.
To be continued.
THIS WEEK
I Watched: - The 40 Year Old Virgin, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Crimson Tide.
I Read: - Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre.
I listened to: - N/A
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