Do not date a writer. Do not date a writer, because she’ll fictionalise everything. She’ll write about things you've done, things you've never done, things you never did on matter how much she asked. She’ll write about how you never bought her flowers. Not once. She’ll say in well-constructed prose how the whole time you were together, she never came home from a long week to see a vase full of roses, or daises, or anything; she'll say you never bought her chocolates, or toys, or jewellery, or anything even close to a present.

She’ll continue this emphasis on what you had done to her, by describing things she had found, but said nothing about; not ever, not at all. She’ll talk about the note she found from a girl she didn’t know-but you did- because in the scribbled handwriting she could make out your name. You were asleep on the bed and she was on the floor. She’ll tell the reader how she held her legs and tapped her chin against her knee. And she decided that it’s not wrong for men to have friends, because all men have friends, so she closed the wallet and slept without a blanket on the floor.

She’ll later describe the moment in the bedroom when she sat at the foot of the bed and you knelt in front of her. She’ll give you short choppy dialogue, tempered with a sneer, so that you sound distant, and tense, and cruel. She’ll tell the reader how you said it’s not that you didn’t love her but you couldn’t be with her and that it’s more your fault than hers, except she’ll tell it much more compellingly. She’ll describe how she choked on her tears, how she held her head up high, how she couldn’t move because her legs were welded there and she could only listen to you and watch the colours of the room turn grey, and faded, and the sounds of the world became a distant roar.

And she’ll send you a manuscript and you’ll be on the couch where you both had sat and you’ll read every word. You’ll notice she didn’t tell things, like the time you had to see her because she had been sick with the flu and unable to get out of bed. And you ran to her apartment to make sure she was okay. You ran in the dark and there was so much snow that your legs began to freeze. And she won’t tell the reader how you didn’t have gloves, or a good coat, and you couldn’t see the patch of ice, and you slipped. She won’t tell them you slipped. You twisted your ankle and your face landed in a snow bank. She won’t describe the taste in your mouth, how you pulled yourself up and limped up to her apartment. You used the key she’d just given you and she won’t say how nice it was being able to just...slip in. And she won’t say how good it was to see her asleep and that all you did was kiss her on the top of her head, and then stagger home, every step exquisite agony. She won’t move into your head and explain how much you really loved her. How you almost started to cry when you walked, how much it hurt to put weight on that foot. You shook from the wind but felt safe because she was.

You’ll sit alone on that couch where you made love to her, and you won’t move and the glass of whisky on the table will not be touched. You won’t get up to turn up the lights. You’ll sit in the dim of your living room. And you will read.

And by ‘you’, I , of course, mean ‘me’. But then, that was obvious already, I guess. It’s true, though- never date a writer. Don’t even think about it. Don’t even consider the idea, or you’ll end up like me. Buried in the corner of a couch, eyes fixed on a manuscript, barely moving, except to flick a page, not making a sound except a muffled sob. It was amazing, how something typed so neatly in Arial, size 12, could lay bare everything I’d known. There were a hundred, thousand things she’d never told me, that she’d kept secret. That I’d never known. There, for anyone to see, were things I’d done, twisted and screwed by emotion, warped by her memory into things that made me seem some kind of monster, some drunken manchild who had the emotional depth of a mattress. But she’d never know the things I’d put up with from her, she’d never know why I did what I did. Of course she told people how I’d become withdrawn, how she’d worried, how she’d cried herself to sleep.

But would she tell them why? Would she tell them I’d caught her writing stories with characters suspiciously like her, and our neighbour, having an affair? That I’d heard her making calls to someone she’d called ‘baby’ when she’d told me once that she only called people she really loved that? That she’d been cold and distant herself, and I was only hurting her because I didn’t want to be hurt myself?

Little hint: no, she didn’t.

It took me a long time to read those words, to read the truth masquerading fiction, and by the time I was done, all the light had gone, save for a single lamp behind me. My eyes were tired, my back aching, my arms and hands barely able to grip anything- but what I read woke me up, all thoughts and feelings of fatigue gone in an instant.

‘Tommy’, it said, and I felt a tug in my heart that reminded me of just how much I’d loved her ‘Tommy, I’m sorry, for everything. I wanted you to read this first, to see what I had to say. It’s done, and I’m ready to send it off, but if you don’t want anyone to see it, just tell me. Talk to me, Tommy. Call me the second you’re done with this. Love from me’ That was just like her- never signing anything with her name. She always said it was bad luck, and it was one thing I loved about her. One of many things I loved about her.

I read over the note again, written in that curly way she’d always had. My eyes fixed on it, I reached out, grabbed the whiskey, downed it in one gulp, gasping at the fiery warmth that slid down my throat. Fighting down a cough, I raised my eyes, studying myself in the murky light, my eyes fixed on the mirror I kept on the wall, my reflection staring back at me like a mocking doppelganger. Ice blue-grey eyes met ice blue-grey eyes as the reflection raised a hand like I did, running through black hair turned white at the temples. I stood after a moment, half-stumbling my way towards the mirror, my eyes fixed on the reflection with all the wide-eyed intensity of a madman. How had I let myself get so bad? Sure, I'd never been the best-looking guy in the world, but now I looked awful; I'd always been a little too skinny for my height, but due to far too many liquid lunches (and breakfasts, dinners, brunches, midnight snacks...) I was insanely slender, almost- but not quite- to the point of looking like a strong breeze would have blown me away. I'd always had dark skin- a throwback to my Mediterranean roots- but now it was tempered by red patches on my face, on my nose, on my cheeks. I'd somehow gone from being a pretty lithe, athletic guy who liked a few drinks and never looked drunk, to someone who wouldn't have looked out of place huddled in rags on the side of the road. Jesus, I was barely into my thirties, and I looked like Hell.

I'd never really known what she'd seen in me, when we'd been together; I'd already been in my late twenties, and she'd been a college girl, several years younger than me, but oh so mature for her age (whereas arguably, I'd been insanely immature for mine, so we sort of matched). I'd been blessed to know her, and have her, and despite the problems we developed, I'd loved her, in my own way- even if I'd been too fucking paralytic to tell her, most of the time.

I snapped myself out my nostalgia, out of my revelry, and concentrated on the phone on my hand, staring at it through slightly bleary eyes that seemed to see it as some terrible thing that would steal my life away. Slowly, hesitantly, I reached out a finger for the keypad, and started to dial her number from memory, before I stopped as a sick knot in my stomach reminded me that I really didn't need to do that at all, did I? I hesitated again, pressed the button to cancel the dialling, then pressed my speed dial- number one, which would connect me to her, unless she'd changed her number. Which I had a pretty strong feeling she hadn't. A moment passed, and then the phone began to ring; I relaxed immediately, although all it meant was that the number existed, not that she'd be on the other end of it. I listened to the ringing of the phone for what seemed like forever, the tones stretching into something that started to drive me insane.

They stopped suddenly, and I heard a sleepy breath as she started to draw in breath to speak. Quickly- before she could get a word out, and before my nerve failed me and I ended up just breathing heavily and making some sort of dirty phone call- I spoke. Just five words, which I spoke in barely a whisper, not trusting myself to say any more, or to speak any louder. I could see her in my mind, picturing almost perfectly the way her hair would be splayed over her pillow, the way her body would shift as she moved to answer, the way her breasts would roll as she turned over to reach out. I could almost feel the way that she'd end up pressed against me a little whenever she'd answered the phone whenever we'd been together. Another second passed, and I could sense her just starting to wind up to complain- so I interrupted her, gently, with a simple "It's Tom. I read it".

And then, I waited.

Alright, so there we have it. In the interests of full disclosure, part of this is based on a post I read online a while ago, but the majority of this is original.

I'm not sure where we go with this; reconciliation, perhaps? Maybe one of her friends recognises him from the writing, decides to get his point of view? Maybe there's an agent, or a publisher involved somewhere. The possibilities are sort of endless yet not.

Send me a reply, or a message to discuss it, or whatever your heart desires.