Sorry if this is badly written or rushed, my house if very noisy at the moment and I couldn't get a proper clean focus of conversation.

I woke up on a bed, which did not look my own judging by the lack of food stains and popcorn shells loitering around on my duvet. Instead this bed looked perfectly made and I was wearing a very creased market dress. Why couldn't I remember anything? Maybe I had Alzheimer's, or that disease where you just passed out all the time, or did I really get drunk with that bum? Then everything came flooding back with foggy clarity.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" I shot up from my laying position, darting my eyes around the room.

I wasn't alone, my sister stood by the door, arms folded and smile set in place and I would've slapped it off her face if Angelo weren't sitting beside my bed. The shards left of my heart began doing its little moshing routine, bruising my chest in the process.

"You can go back to the party now," Angelo was addressing my sister, "I'll take it from here. Thanks for keeping me company."

My sister's smile was a little too friendly as she addressed Angelo, "it's no problem, since the separation I've missed a good conversation with the opposite sex."

No problem? Conversation? Sex? I felt my face burn with anger. Was Angelo trying to get to me by getting into my sisters pants? Or was that my sister's motive? My feet itched to make a hasty exit. I shouldn't have come in the first place it was a big mistake. Tears burned in my eyes as I watched Angelo and Ellen-Rose smile on each other like I wasn't in the room, I had no right to be jealous he wasn't mine anymore but it still hurt the same, worse than when I found out about his… profession. Instead of leaving the room I sank back onto the bed and willed myself to make like the Grudge and sink into the bed, but if they realised I was out of the room they'd probably take advantage and have kinky, revenge sex on the bed.

I shuddered and turned my face into the pillow… wait they actually separated? Wow Gregory wasn't kidding around! I would've laughed at this if I hadn't remembered that I wasn't alone in my flat but was in fact laying in a cheap, crinkled dress on bed probably bought with my sister's money. Somewhere through my depressed musings Ellen-Rose had left the room with a wiggle of her pert, little, surgery bought bum, and once the realisation kicked in I found myself wanting her back in the. I could feel my tormentor's eyes burning into the back of my head yet I still refused to face him… I just couldn't. I was scared of what would come out of his mouth and I was petrified at how I'd react to it. I'd probably grab the nearest object and attempt to strangle myself with it.

"Sophie-Anne."

A random burst of shivers wiggled their way down my spine and my gut tightened. God the way he said my name was like melting honey.

"Please," he took a breath, "Look at me."

I shook my head a voice in my head screamed for me to just run!

"We must talk about this."

"No," I protested, the tears finally making their mark on my cheeks.

I felt his fingertips touch my shoulders and I crumbled. I removed the pillow from my face and wiggled myself up into a sitting position.

"What do you want?" I sobbed, "are you here to embarrass me in front of my family and their ridiculous friends? If so go ahead because I don't care about them, the only way you could really hurt me anymore is if you physically cut my heart out of my chest and even then it would be some form of relief."

Where the hell had that come from? Forget Alzheimer's I quite obviously had schizophrenia! Throughout the whole of my little speech I hadn't made any eye contact with Angelo and I refused to make any post 'heart-pouring'. I focused on the embroidery on the sheets of the duvet and wondered how little the poor, poverty child was paid for such intricacy.

"Sophie…"

"Please stop saying my name," I begged helplessly, still not looking at him.

I heard him sigh, "I'm not here to destroy you… I was mad at what you did, the way you pried into my life"-

-I winced.

"But I would never do something like that to you. I'm here to save you from your mother, I knew telling her that we- we'd… broken up you'd get a hard time so I came."

Finally I looked at him, melting at his words that resembled nothing that I thought they would. He was being so nice to me after everything and he'd remembered my mum's dinner party!

"Annie, How could I forget? It's a landmark occasion," he chuckled.

I blushed realising that I'd said the last part out loud and also at the fact that for the first time in ages he'd called me Annie and not by my full name.

"Everyone who's anyone will be here," I nodded enthusiastically, "I'm gate-crashing."

Angelo chuckled like he did in the old times making my heart twinge with nostalgia. God I'd been so stupid to let someone like him slip through my fingers.

"So," I shifted on the bed feeling as awkward as I did when Ellen-Rose had told the whole class that I'd started my period (I'd been an early bloomer… well my boobs hadn't got them memo actually, they still hadn't.) "Are you still… working?"

It was Angelo's turn to feel uncomfortable. Great going Sophie-Anne, making the man you love feel awkward around you… wait love? Do I love him, well it has to be because my heart has never beat this fast or hurt as badly as it does when I'm not around him. But is that love?

"Well, you caught me during a job when I ran into you the other day."

He wasn't helping in the way of distinguishing the fire on my face. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, we're not together," I squeaked out.

Angelo turned his face away from me to stare outside the window and nodded tightly. "Yes, indeed we're not."

I wanted to tell him how much I'd missed him, how much I still do even though he was in touching distance, all I had to do was reach out and stroke back a black tendril from his forehead…

If I let him know how much I needed him I'd only scare him off so I turned from him also, focusing on a crack in the wall which mommy dearest would not be happy with. Maybe I could fit through that crack…I shook the idea off remembering that the month's I'd spent Angelo-less I'd filled with various snacks including whole birthday cakes and daily doses of family pack ice-cream.

"I'm grateful," I broke the silence suddenly, "b-but you don't owe me anything, I don't deserve it. You said you'd call… and you didn't so I get the point and you d-don't have to be here out of pity."

I rubbed away the tear with the grubby sleeve of my worn down coat, god I was embarrassing myself.

"So please, just leave and I'll let them all know that we're not together anymore. Plus," I bared my teeth; "I've already geared myself up for a public flogging."

I chuckled, the laugh empty sounding in my throat… it was almost hysterical but I just couldn't stop. Through my hysteria I hadn't noticed Angelo's eyes on me, just watching.

"So," I heaved myself off the bed on shaky legs, "time to go and face the mob!"

I teetered over to the door, thinking I was being the brave heroic yet still single heroin of my story. Instead that all deteriorated like Michael Jackson's nose as my legs gave way as soon as I touched the handle of the door. I closed my eyes and waited to hit the floor but instead I was stopped by a pair of strong, familiar and very missed arms. I fell into the embrace, my eyes shut so I remembered this moment before I left through that door and never saw Angelo again. This couldn't keep happening, at this rate I'd have a nervous breakdown and be sharing a room in a mental ward with Lindsay Lohan.

"I'm not here out of pity," Angelo growled into my ear, "how could you think that? I would never pity you Annie."

The tears wouldn't stop coming and I kept thinking that I'd never cried this much, not even when Ellen-Rose had fornicated with my first boyfriend.

"Let me go now, I can stand."

I felt Angelo bury his face in my hair and inhale deeply. I sighed, my hands tightening on his as my legs lost the little strength they had left but he didn't let go of me, not once.

"I thought I could let go of you," his laugh rumbled through his chest and onto my back, "I immersed myself in work but it only made it worse." He was rubbing his check against my hair now and how I wished it wasn't such a grotesque orange, it seemed to ruin the moment just a tad. "… When I saw you in Starbucks that day I wanted to run after you, I felt so ashamed that you saw me with a client."

"Don't feel ashamed," I begged, "not because of me, it doesn't matter I promise. Plus, after today you won't ever have to see me again." I made myself stand up and tried to prise his arms from around me.

"Don't you understand," his grip tightened around me, "I want to see you again I want to see you everyday! I want things to go back to the way they were but better."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, it couldn't be real I was definitely dreaming. I tried to make myself conjure up Johnny Depp, or even the troll getting tortured but none of them appeared. This was all very real.

"You can't mean that. I'm a frumpy, bitchy, nosey librarian whose hair looks like it was attacked with a tangerine Crayola. You could have anyone, you're around such beautiful rich women everyday you can't want me," I took in a breath. "And even if you did you'd get bored and I'd constantly feel inadequate."

"That's not a problem… I quit a month ago, I'm trying to set up my own Italian restaurant, it was what my dad dreamed of."

Angelo turned me around in his arm and I saw nothing but want in his eyes, he probably saw need in mine but he obviously didn't give a rat's arse because his lips crashed onto mine. His hands were at my hips while his tongue caressed my lips for entrance. I opened up willingly and my hands slipped into his hair, pulling at his head to increase the pressure. I rubbed my now sensitive nipples against his hard chest, his hand kneading my bum with expertise, our mouths hungrily working at each other's. Angelo pulled my bottom lip into his mouth and suckled on in and I went weak again. His greedy lips abandoned my own and found my neck instead, sucking and biting until I knew I would have numerous love bruises, the best kind of bruises you could get. Some kinky version of myself in the back of my mind noted that this was only the second time Angelo and I had been properly intimate, this thought only made me want to rub against him even more.

I couldn't believe my luck; someone like Angelo wanted me in all my freak, cheap arse librarian glory. Whilst I was thinking this I faintly heard the door opening behind me.

"Angelo darling is she- AHHH!"

Angelo and I jumped away from each other like teenagers who had been caught fooling around… which we were, minus the adolescent part. Goddamnit! My mother had just walked in. Buzz kill much?

thanks to nevermore, mixed signals, Queen of Laughs (btw I love your story!!!), Black ennui and Raised with Fangs for reviewing. Please be bruitally honest with me and don't lie. I'm kinda desperate to get to the end of this story, it'll be my first completed on fp.

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