Chapter 7

RULE #6: AVOID MALLS, FOR THE RISK OF RUNNING INTO YOUR EX WHILE HOLDING BAGS OF LINGERIE YOU FANTASISE ABOUT WEARING FOR HIS DAD.

Presh

"Nine a.m. tomorrow," he says, all back to business.

It's interesting, watching him change from serious to casual and back again. He seems like a man who hides himself behind a suit and a desk. It makes me wonder if he ever lets loose and relaxes. Does he crack jokes, watch rubbish TV, get so drunk he says something really embarrassing? I'd pay to see that.

Bandi is nothing like him. Bandi is unfiltered, real, and raw. He's rough around the edges, and maybe that's what drew me to him in the first place. We met at the coffee shop I worked at, where he also held a job for a short while before something happened at home that he never really told me about. He stopped coming to work and got fired. But I stuck with him. I wanted the broken parts of him, because I thought if I could love him through the storm, I'd be rewarded with a love that was more intense, more intoxicating. I was wrong. Instead of appreciating that I stayed with him at his worst, he blamed me for every little thing when his life started to come right. I wasn't the glue that held him together; I was the glue that held him in his pain and reminded him of it.

After work, I head straight for Gateway, because I don't own a single thing a secretary would wear. I'm imagining a silk shirt and a pencil skirt, so that's what I'm going for. It's actually a lot harder to find than I expected.