Nothing ever really happened between me and Spence even though I longed and dreamed about it for years.
He is now happily married. We are still in contact but don’t get to see each other that often any more. It’s hard to make time for each other when you’re in a relationship, work full time, have a house, but I knew if I needed him, he would be there. We have both seen each other through heartache, break ups and deaths in the family. He has always had an opinion on my relationships and my bad habits; smoking was one of them. I have been smoke free now for three years, other than the odd occasional drunken slip up so he couldn’t moan at me about that any more. But we were similar, I guess. I nagged him too, about his partying ways, but it was only because I wanted the best for him. I did try and set him up with a few girls over the years hoping he would say it was me he wanted before he met Sarah, but he never seemed interested in anyone. He seemed extremely picky. There was a point in time during our clubbing days where we had a drunken moment and almost kissed and, for a second, I thought maybe we could be something more and maybe, just maybe, he felt the same as me.
That night was one of those random unplanned nights that were always the best it was only supposed to be a quiet couple of drinks with my sister but ended up into an all-night bender. We ended up in the one and only nightclub in town the only place open past twelve other than the kebab shops and we bumped into him not long before closing. He was clearly pissed as he was dancing and when I walked in his face lit up like he hadn’t seen me for years. I couldn’t help smiling as at that moment I felt beautiful something I had not felt since the abuse. My tummy was doing somersaults and definitely had a flutter in my lady parts I often felt this when I was around him. No one else had ever made me feel like this until I met Edward. He pulled me into one of the grotty burgundy velour covered booths that surrounded the dance floor usually the place you would go for a grope or a snog towards the end of the night or the place to leave your drunk friend looking after coats and bags while you enjoyed your night. He looked right into my eyes and said, “I really wish I could kiss you right now.”
If I had the confidence, I would have grabbed his face and rammed my tongue down his throat as I had always imagined doing ever since I was eleven. But I brushed it off, even laughed at him and told him don’t be so silly. I can still picture his piercing blue eyes staring into mine. I wanted to tell him so much how I felt but something held me back, I was scared of ruining our friendship when to him it may have just been a one-off drunken kiss as he had, had a skinful. I always think about that night and wonder what would have happened if we did kiss? I spoke to my sister about it in the way home and she said I should have just kissed him. What did I have to lose? Would we be together now, would it be us that was married? We never spoke about it; I don’t know if he remembered he had even said it and not long after that he met his wife.
I remember the first time he introduced me to Sarah. Mrs perfect, I thought, straight away. I was instantly jealous. When he called me not long after they had been together and told me he had proposed, I wanted to be sick. I felt like my heart was going to break. It was lucky he told me over the phone as he would have known by my facial expression and the tears that instantly fell from my eyes that I wasn’t exactly thrilled. That was it. I could never tell him how I felt now It was too late. It was so hard at the time I couldn’t look at any posts he put on social media of them together and I had to pretend to be interested when he would call me, to let me know of the latest wedding plans, when inside I was crying. The hardest thing was seeing him at the altar. I had dreamt about this in my youth, but in the dream, I was the bride. It was then the realisation hit that nothing other than friendship was going to happen between us. I went off the rails a bit during that time, going out and getting pissed Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, sleeping with any men that would pay me attention, regardless of what they were like. I had sex with more men during that few months than I had in my entire life. Sex was meaningless to me before Edward I didn’t enjoy it would just do it because that is what the bloke
