Page 72 of Date with Destiny

Mikey has been nothing but lovely to me. Nothing but sweet and adorable and kind and brilliant. He’s showered me with affection and compliments – he even sent me flowers! Meanwhile, all I’ve seen of Shawn is crappy mean-spirited spite and jealousy. He’s petty and small and unkind. Plus, I’ve actually technically known Mikey for, like, ten years! Of those two people who am I going to believe?

Shawn looks back at me, pre-wounded, ready for me to accuse him of lying. Ready to attack, ready to shout and scream and tell me how much his ugly shoes cost.

And I believe him.

Fuck. I hate myself but I believe him.

Which means Mikey is a complete and utter –complete and utter– bollock-headed bastard of the worst order. And I’m SO done with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The next morning, Myfanwy is on my doorstep with ice cream.

‘Déjà vu,’ I mutter, thinking of the aftermath of my break-up with Daniel, as she pushes past me and up to my bedroom. I thought things were bad at that point, but the bad has just piled on top of bad since.

‘Toni told me,’ Myfanwy says, flopping onto the bed, lobbing Ben & Jerry’s at me. ‘Mikey is a piece of shit scumbag. He’s completely undone all the calm I felt after I went to Reiki yesterday. What are we going to do to destroy him?’

I shake my head, feeling defeated, and place the ice cream on my dresser. ‘Nothing.’

She blinks. ‘What do you mean, nothing? He tried to get you into bed, with a poor unaware girlfriend at home! He’s a pig and needs telling off.’

‘What’s the point?’ I say listlessly.

She narrows her eyes. ‘What’s thepoint?The point is to make sure he knows he’s hurt you.’

‘He was going to take me back to his,’ I comment distractedly. ‘Last night. We were in a taxi heading back to his flat. She must’ve been away. But how disgusting is that?’ I furrow my brow, thinking about how he must’ve carefully hidden away her things before our date. I picture him stowing away any photos of the two of them, concealing her toothbrush, hiding her shower gel. The deception itself is disgusting, but that level of effort somehow makes it worse. I can’t understand, it just doesn’t make anysense.

I try to believe people are inherently good, I really do. I have always wanted to see the best; I believe people are a product of where they’ve come from and mostly deserve pity when they mess up. Because how else do you get through the day?

Am I really this stupid? This naïve?

I thought I knew Mikey. He knew me before Mum was on TV. We dated for, like a year, and it was good… wasn’t it?

But I thought everything with Daniel was perfect. I am an unreliable narrator of my own life. I look back at things with rose-tinted specs and with too much hope.

I try to remember my time with Mikey again now with clear eyes. My early twenties seem so long ago, so fuzzy. I was a different Ginny and yet, when I recall specific moments, I’m looking at everything with the same eyes; the same brain.

I remember laughing a lot with him. About stupid stuff and serious stuff. I remember having loads of fun. I remember going to clubs and dancing until the early hours. I remember constantly drinking and constantly eating pizzas.

But some of the bad stuff comes back now, too. There was fun, yes, but also lots of arguments, now that I think about it. He was flaky, not showing up to dates when he said he would, not texting me back, always commenting flirtily on Instagram photos of women he said were just mates. But we were all so young and immature back then, none of it seemed like red flags.

Oh god, I bet he was a cheat back then, too.

I feel like such a fool.

‘He is gross,’ Myfanwy wrinkles her nose. ‘And we have to do something. I’m too angry to figure out any option beyond murdering him in cold blood right now.’ I stay silent, feeling detached, so she continues. ‘Obviously we can’t really kill him. But could we just kidnap him for a bit? It would barely be a crime! We don’t have to tie him up or anything, just lock him in a basement or something for a week or two. A month tops.’

I smile weakly. ‘He would deserve it.’

She looks at me impatiently. ‘You’re going to at least let him have it, right? Tell him he’s a fucking louse and you hope he gets syphilis?’ Her face lights up with an idea. ‘Maybe we should contact the girlfriend on social media, or something? She deserves to know.’

I slowly shake my head, feeling far away from this conversation, from this room, from Myfanwy. ‘I can’t,’ I tell her simply.

She stands up, looking infuriated now. ‘What do you mean, youcan’t, Ginny? You can’t just let him get away with this.’

‘What’s the point in confronting him?’ I say, feeling desperate. ‘He’ll just laugh at me, then saunter off into the night and do it to someone else.’

‘He might not!’ she says with frustration. ‘It could actually get through to him that he’s been a dick and that he needs to change. If he hears it enough, from enough people, he might try and work on himself. You could be the final voice that pushes him to be a better person. But even if it doesn’t have any impact, don’t you want to tell him how much he’s hurt you?’

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