Page 72 of Not Falling for the Forward
“Who’s with Emily now?” Aimee asks slowly. My head snaps up and I meet her gaze. My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach as I realise what I have done.
“I just walked out on her.” It comes out as a whisper.
“Just like that ex you said you were nothing like.”
The comment knocks the breath out of me. I franticly pat my pockets down, finding my phone I dial Emily. It rings out to voicemail. “Shit.”
Aimee sits and watches next to me as I dial again.
And again.
And again.
She doesn’t answer.
Chapter thirty-one
Emily
I call in sick to work for the next week. I spend most of it under my duvet. My phone died five days ago and the best thing I did was decide not to charge it.
It took twelve hours from the picture of me kissing Jack being released, for the press and the general public to identify me. From that point, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Friends and family wanting to know if it is true and what Jack Cartwright is really like. One particular number lit up my screen almost non-stop from the moment he left. But I’m not ready to talk to him.
I have had thousands of ‘follow requests’ onInstagram, so many that I just deleted the app off my phone.FacebookandTikTokhave become my worst nightmare, with people I met years ago sharing the articles claiming we were best friends in high school. No, Thomas, I sat next to you in maths, and you always copied my answers.
Four days ago—after I decided a glass (bottle) of wine would be a good idea to take the edge off (drown my sorrows)—I decided to do exactly what Jess told me not to and picked up my laptop to read the comments on the stories about me.‘Fat’, ‘Ugly’, ‘Gold digger’, werejust some of the lovely things people had to say about me. I closed down the pages soon after reading those.
I have never been insecure about how I looked before, but these comments have me noticing things about myself that I had never picked up on. For example, I always used to like that I was starting to get laughter lines around my eyes, they mean I’ve spent most of my life happy. But no, apparently crow’s feet arehighly offensiveand any woman that has them needs to spend the rest of her life locked away where no one can see her horrible face crinkles.
Eight hours after my doom scroll, someone knocked on my door and requested an interview. On my doorstep. When I was hungover. I slammed the door in their face, closed all the curtains and I haven’t answered the door since.
It was around that time that I built a lovely little nest in my bed to curl up in. I have only left it to get more snacks or to pee.
Now, I am dangerously low onDiet Cokes, my hair tie snapped and is somewhere tangled in my hair, and I can’t remember the last time I showered.
I’m a fucking mess.
Jack left and took my heart with him. But he didn’t take my feelings like Chris did. When Chris left, I was numb. Scarily numb to the point that something was wrong with me. I should have been upset that my fiancé decided one day to leave me and never come back. But I could feel nothing.
That’s not a problem I have now. No, I’ve actually managed to cry about losing Jack. A lot. Like a whole fucking lot. Like an I’m not sure how I haven’t died of dehydration level of crying.
“Why don’t you fuck off and find someone else to harass!” The shout and slamming of my front door startles me from one of my many daytime naps I must have drifted off into.
“Oi, newly off grid, Emily. Where the fuck are you?” I roll my eyes but can’t help but smirk at Jess shouting for me.
“Upstairs,” I call down.
“What the fuck happened here?” she gasps as she opens my bedroom door.
I sit up and fully take in the scene she has been welcomed with. There are emptyDiet Cokecans and crisp packets piled up on the floor, a mass of used snotty tissues next to my head and a half-eaten jar ofNutellasat on my bedside table. I lost the spoon somewhere on my floor yesterday. That is all before I even know what I look like.
“This is worse than last time,” she whispers in horror.
I roll my eyes at her, “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’mbeing dramatic?” She laughs, “I’m not the one that has called in sick to work because they had a fight with their boyfriend.”
My boyfriend? Oh Jack. “I don’t even think we’re together anymore,” I say quietly.
