The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) Read Online Free PDF Page A

other, whatever the
hell that meant. “I’ll take it from here,” Stacey said. Sophie cut
me one final look, and I met her gaze full on. She then squeezed
Stacey’s hand as a way of telling her to be strong. Sophie moved
away from the door but couldn’t help herself as she mouthed the
words, “I’m watching you”, pointing at her eyes with her two
fingers and then pointing them back towards me, before returning
back to the darkness from whence she came.
    It was at this
point I was able to really look at Stacey for the first time. She
had her brown hair clipped back away from her face. She was wearing
the Little Miss Naughty T-shirt I’d bought her. Her eyes were red and
puffy, and she looked like she had been crying all night. My heart
sank. Despite everything, I still had feelings for her and didn’t
want to see her like this, especially when I knew that I was the
cause of the hurt.
    “ You’d better
come in,” she said avoiding eye contact. She led me upstairs to her
bedroom. She sat down on the bed as I closed the door. I turned
back to her. The TV was on in the background, but the sound had
been muted. The clothes she had been wearing from the previous
night were strewn across the floor.
    “ Are you
okay?” I hesitated to sit down on the bed next to her.
    “ What do you
think?” She sniffed, wiping her nose with a tissue. “You left me
alone on New Year’s Eve.”
    I was willing to let that one
go, deciding it would be best not to drag up the who was right and
who was wrong argument.
    “ And you
obviously never gave me a second thought by the smell of you,”
Stacey said wrinkling up her nose at me. “You smell like a brewery.
I hate it when you get drunk and turn into that person.”
    I bit my tongue to stop myself
responding with what I really wanted to say. I didn’t want this to
descend into a slanging match at such an early stage. I sat down
beside her on the bed and took her hands in mine.
    “ I’m sorry for
what happened last night. The last thing I wanted was for us to end
up having a row.” I stroked her hands.
    “ It’s a bit
too late for that now,” she pulled her hands away from me and
stared me straight in the eye for the first time as her tone
reverted to one of bitterness. “You made the choice to go and hang
out with your friends without me.”
    She really knew how to push my
buttons. She had this annoying habit of being able to lull me into
a false sense of security and just when she had me where she
wanted, she would unload. I felt the rage slowly start to build up
inside me, but again I took a deep breath.
    “ That’s not
really fair,” I tried to reason with her. “I tried talking you into
coming to the party. You were the one who told me to go. You said
some pretty harsh things. What did you want me to do?”
    “ Not leave me
on New Year’s Eve,” she snapped back. “It doesn’t matter now
anyway. What’s happened has happened. You had a good time – at
least one of us did.”
    “ But you were
screaming at me to leave you alone,” I could feel my voice starting
to rise. “What else was I supposed to do?”
    “ Don’t shout
at me. This isn’t my fault,” she paused. “You did this,” she said
jabbing her finger into my chest, her eyes narrowing at me
accusingly.
    At that moment I could have
exploded. I think the only thing that stopped me was that I was
still nursing the hangover from hell, and didn’t physically have
the energy to rise to the bait. However, Stacey obviously had no
problem forcing the issue.
    “ You don’t
give me the same level of attention like you used to,” she
continued with her verbal attack. “But you have no problem spending
time with your mates.”
    “ That is
ridiculous,” I protested. Stacey had unrealistic expectations that
our relationship should continue in the same vein as it had done
during the first 12 months; an expectation Sophie had no doubt
drilled into her to create this wedge. But I managed to restrain
myself