Lilly counted the days down until Friday when she would be finally free for a whole two months, one of the major benefits of being a teacher. After spending five days a week trying to teach a group of hyper four year olds she felt like the break was deserved. She gave them as much recess as she could get away with; it wasn’t as though she would be teaching anything new in the last week. She brought in board games, DVDs, music, basically anything that would pass the time.

She tried her best not to think too much about Gerard but she seemed to have a one track mind that wouldn’t let her wander too far away from him. She knew she was beginning to care a lot about him even though part of her knew he would bring nothing but heartbreak. He was obviously running from something and when he got his head around whatever was happening he would be straight back to America. A part of her just wanted to end whatever they had now before she got even more hurt.

‘Miss Madden?’

She was brutally taken away from her internal debate as one of the girls in her class claimed her attention.

‘Yes Robin?’

‘What’s twitter pated?’

Lilly looked at the child in confusion, wondering what she meant.

‘Where did you get that word from?’

‘I was watching Bambi with my Mammy and my brother and they all get twitter pated and I asked my brother and he told me they were just being stupid.’ The child rushed her words without taking a breath, rambling the way four year old children do.

Lilly laughed as she remembered the scene from Bambi, one of her favourite movies of all time.

‘It’s what happens when people fall in love.’

‘Oh’ the child looked thoughtful for a second. ‘Miss, are you twitter pated?’

Lilly opened her mouth to tell the child she shouldn’t ask such a question when she closed it again quickly as she realised her answer.

‘I think so.’

***************************************************************************

He was drunk again the next time she saw him on Friday. He had called her from the pub, having made his way there after work with a few colleagues. She had declined his offer of joining them at first, not wanting to be put in a situation she would find awkward and uncomfortable.

Then he started getting pissed off with her so she agreed, angry that she had given in. She dressed quickly and did her make-up, feeling self conscious and anxious. She hated meeting new people, she was always too afraid of what they thought of her.

You could just say no you know Inner Voice chimed in with her motherly voice.

She sighed, knowing it was true and that she was an emotional weakling with no backbone. She made it down to the bar about an hour after he had called. She wasn’t too impressed when she saw how drunk he was already, her heart sinking fast as she began to worry that he may have a problem. She had an Uncle with a drinking problem and it had cost him his family. His wife had left and took the children leaving him heartbroken, miserable and clinically depressed. He drank himself to death a few years later.

‘Hey’ he greeted loudly when he saw her, his accent coming out thick as he pulled her into an uncomfortably tight hug and gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

‘Hey’ she replied, knowing her voice gave her discomfort away. Even in his drunken state he could tell how he she felt straight away as he untangled himself from her arms and looked at her with his piercing gaze. He then gave her a smile that was meant to be reassuring, and it worked slightly as she felt herself relax a little bit.

‘I just wanted you to meet everyone’ he explained, as Lilly took his appearance in. He was wearing a shirt and tie, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to expose his lower arms. His tie was loosened and the top buttons of his shirt were undone, showing the small bit of chest hair he had. His hair had been carelessly pushed out of his face, and she couldn’t deny that even though he was wasted he still looked good.

She just nodded and smiled as he led her up to the bar and ordered her a drink and a shot. She drank the shot without a second thought the moment it was put in front of her, hoping it would take the edge off her anxiety. Gerard then grabbed her drink for her and took her hand with his free hand, guiding her towards a table at the back of the pub. He had told her it was just for one drink so she could meet his friends at work. They were all in a similar state to Gerard when she was introduced to them but she couldn’t help but find them all charming and likeable as she was introduced to the group of five men.

The ‘one drink’ he was coaxed her with turned into at least five and they didn’t leave the bar until it was decided they would all head down to the nightclub a few streets over. By this stage Lilly was plastered drunk and went along with it, clinging to Gerard the entire time. It made her feel slightly better that he had slowed his drinking down when he realised Lilly was beyond drunk, she saw it as a sign that she was overreacting about his drinking.

‘You sure you want to go?’ he murmured into her ear as the trailed behind the group, his voice full of suggestion as she shivered from a mixture of the cold breeze and want.

‘You have another suggestion?’

‘We could go back to my place. The roomy is gone so we’d have the place to ourselves.’

‘What would we do with an empty apartment?’ she enquired, playing coy.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know’ he whispered as he nipped her ear lobe.

She giggled, his breath hot tickling her ear.

‘Think we can sneak away?’ she whispered back.

He thought for a moment, before he smiled and yelled ‘Run!’ on top of his voice, making Lilly stumble for a moment at the unexpected move as he dragged her with him. They ran away from everyone, not looking back to check if the group even noticed they had gone.

**********************************************************************

She woke up hours later with a sore head and a faint ringing sound in her ears. It took a moment for her to register that the ringing was coming from a phone. She heard a groan come from the body beside her and a choice of cuss words as the body shifted, making the mattress move unexpectedly. She whined at the disturbance in her semi conscious state, not fully aware of her surroundings yet.

When the room grew quiet again she finally remembered she was with Gerard at his apartment. She opened her eyes with a squint and they protested at the sliver of light that had entered the room from Gerard’s exit into the living room to take his phone call. She strained to hear if she could catch the conversation he was having, wondering what was so important that they had to call in the middle of the night. It took a moment of concentration before she could make anything out.

‘-don’t give a shit. Stop calling me…No, I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say, blood or not you fucked me over and I don’t owe you anything…well, you should have thought of that before you fucked my girlfriend.’

That was the last she heard before she drifted back into the world of unconsciousness.

Notes

Hi All,
Sorry for the delay in updating, no real excuse really other than I've been concentrating on my other stories a bit more. I shall try and do better! Please, please, please let me know what you guys are thinking. I can't improve if I dont get feedback.

As always, thank you to all the readers subscribers and commetors.

I hope you enjoyed, until next time :)