Bad Bad Decisions

Oh god, worst thing to happen ever. I feel.....oh god I’ll just tell you.
I blame the entirety of what happened on alcoholic beverages in general and vodka in particular.
I went out shopping, mainly to avoid thinking about all the Arthur stuff going on. I stopped for a rest and had stashed my things under a table in a pub because I thought I deserved a drink after the last few days of total misery. I ordered my first vodka and coke (the first on many) and was about halfway through drinking it when someone sat down in the chair opposite mine. It was Daniel Shield.
“Hello again.” He greets me before I can pretend that I was just leaving.
“Hi” I reply, awkwardly, taking another gulp of my drink.
I have never liked this guy, I realise I only met him once in person, but still there are some people, in fact, most people in my case, who I hate on sight. Daniel Shield looks like the kind of person most people detest. Clean cut, organized and successful overlaid with smugness because he knows how clean cut, successful and etc he looks.
“Everything going well I trust?” he asks, as if he’s a minor royal talking to a shrimp factory owner.
“Excellently” I reply shortly
“No problems with the locals then? They can be rather...off-putting.”
“And you would know this from your long years of study” I can’t help retorting. I instantly regret it. There are some people you can banter with, arguing lightly and insulting them a little just for the fun of the confrontation. Mr Shield didn’t exactly look like one of these people; he looked like someone who had their lawyer on speed dial just in case someone mocked his one sixteenth Norwegian heritage.
“I actually come from Ilensay, I grew up there.” He smirks, knowing that he has pinned me conversationally, as the mental comeback count begins I realise that I have nothing suitably cutting to say.
“I had heard that there was a slight problem with Arthur, he holds quite a prominent position as the head of the council there.”
“I know” I snap, resenting his patronising tone.
“So punching him was, you agree, a fairly foolish idea?”
Bastard
“Do you want another drink?” his sudden offer catches me off guard and he takes my silence for a yes, plucking my glass from my hand and heading for the bar.
My mind is working furiously. Why would he....? Then it hits me like a cold sheet of water thrown up by a speeding hearse. He can’t be...flirting. The thought makes me want to laugh out loud, but also makes me almost sick with dread. So this is it, after all this time, and the only person who finds me attractive is a patronising stuffed shirt who thinks of flirting as verbally subduing your quarry and making them feel inadequate. Wonderful.
Ok so I have a teeny confession to make, I have never actually been in a relationship. Scratch that, I have never even been, almost-very nearly-potentially-possibly in a relationship, full stop, which makes this cosmic joke of a “date” even more humiliating and awful. Even more awful is the fact that this guy is my age, or very nearly my age, give or take a year. As opposed to he who I’m not even mentioning, who is my age give or take a decade and who I actually might have considered possibly liking. But look which one I end up with. Typical.
So I sit and drink my drink, convinced that I should be mildly grateful for the long overdue attention. I allow alcohol to slowly dull the receptors in my brain that are screaming, “Push over the table and run you idiot! This guy is awful and so not worth your time.” I just sit there, aware that I have been defeated, listening to his long winded and one sided conversation that I suppose is intended to put me in awe of him, but instead leaves me with the strange impression that he wants my vote in the next general election.
When he offers me a lift back to the boat because he is staying on the island overnight at, “the old family stamping ground” – which I assume means “house”, I accept. When we are on the boat and a sudden lurch pushes us together I don’t pull away fast enough to make it perfectly crystal clear that he should not be that close, which is why his hand ends up on my leg, and why I end up in the "old family heirloom" which I presume means bed.
So in conclusion, I wake up with a pounding headache and a dry throat, in a strangers house. Looking at my clothing strew across the floor and wondering why everyone thinks teenagers love one night stands, because it is certainly not an experience I will be repeating.
I hastily shove on my clothes and tiptoe downstairs, where I see one of my shoes in the middle of the living room. I hurry over to grab it and jam it onto my foot. I feel awful, cheap and disgusting and just…awful. I never did anything like this in school, I never got drunk or did…other stuff.
But that’s not the worst part.

“Emma?”
I turn in disbelief to see Arthur standing in the doorway in a rumpled T-shirt, jogging bottoms and sleep tousled hair. He puts his coffee on a little side table but continues to frown at me.
“What are you doing…?”
“There you are!” Daniel breezes in with another cup of coffee which he presses into my hand. “Oh, hi Dad”
No, please no!
“Daniel” Arthur say’s evenly, still looking at me.
“Dad this is Emma, but then you already know her.”
Ha bloody Ha!
“No I really don’t” murmurs Arthur, before saying, louder “I actually have some things that I have to do, I’ll see you later Daniel.” and then he’s gone, just like that. Daniel turns to me.
“Just us then, listen I was just…”
“I have to leave, actually” I thrust the coffee at him briskly, striding out into the hallway.
“Right, well, maybe we can…”
“Daniel, no, just no.” I sigh, jerking open the door “Nothing, again, ever.” I stress the last word, stepping out into the cool morning air and shutting the door behind me.
Of course then I tiptoe through the shrubs to get to the back door. I need to talk to Arthur, I need to explain. The door opens onto the kitchen, floored with fat terracotta tiles which make my shoes clack. The hall is carpeted and painted the same bland cream colour as the kitchen, though it is livened with a few pictures in gold frames. I hear sounds through a partially open door, a peek through shows me that it is a study, and Arthur is there, staring blankly at a computer screen.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room is slightly modern with blue walls and a chocolate brown carpet. The shelves are filled with novels, mostly Stephen Kings and detective thrillers. It’s oddly endearing, to see that he is a little less grown up than he thinks he is. I push open the door and step inside.
“Arthur?”
He spins round in the squishy beige chair, bare feet steadying him on the carpet. Now that he is actually looking at me, it makes things harder, all my words are sticking in my throat.
“Emma” he replies evenly.
“I wanted to…explain, about Daniel and everything.”
“You mean you didn’t sleep with him?” I can see now where Daniel gets that cold voice and glare from.
“Yes, I mean, I did, but I didn’t…”
“Emma, you don’t need to explain, because there is nothing to explain, I don’t owe you anything and you certainly don’t owe me anything. So there is nothing to talk about.”
I’m totally stunned, he just cut me off, right there, like everything is suddenly meaningless. I nod mutely and manage to walk out of the room and out of the house before my eyes start to burn. Perfect. Well if any future hope of a potential relationship was still flopping limply, beached on a far off shore, this was pretty much a rock to its head.
I make it back to the site in time to make a vat of porridge for the campers, then I have the longest ever shower and bundle up in fluffy socks with an enormous mug of hot chocolate. My head is pounding, I literally feel like I’m dying, how do people do this every weekend? I dig in my cupboard for a forgotten packet of liquorish allsorts, if I’m going to do this kind of thing regularly then I think avoiding sugar is a lost cause as well.
How could I behave like such a slut? Arthur thinks I’m too young for him, so my solution is to act like the typical irresponsible teen? Very mature. I can’t even bring myself to go and see him, to try and explain. Everything is ruined, my bright shiny new life is just a joke, a stupid little fantasy for the stupid little girl. I pick the packet of sweets up and throw them across the room, followed by the mug and a shower of magazines which slither down the wall into the steaming puddle of chocolate.
For a while I just stare at the mess, then I get a cloth and wipe up the liquid, tossing the broken china into the bin, followed by the damp magazines. I feel embarrassed by this tantrum, as if it proves all the bad things my mind is saying about me. I get the little pie plate from it’s place above the stove and start to make pastry with the ingredients still strewn across the table. Adults don’t sit around in pink fluffy socks eating sweets, they carry on and make do. Just because this life is fractured doesn’t mean it’s not worth living, people have to stick with their choices.
I spoon bruised and bleeding berries into the lined dish, slowly flattening them, watching the juice squirt out under the spoon. This so isn’t helping, of all the things I could have baked, why pie? Arthur was right, the whole island is too small, all my memories of it bleeding together so that every place is inhabited by Arthur. It’s ridiculous. I slash pastry ribbons to cross over the top of the fruit. Totally stupid, I’ve been with him (not even with him) for a grand total of about an hour, and for half of that he hated my guts. That’s not a relationship, that’s not even a long lunch.
But still, as I begin to work on my second pie mechanically, I can’t help but see him in my head. Ok, so and hour isn’t that long, but I spent more than double that with Daniel, and that doesn’t mean we got any closer. I met Vikkie on our first day at school, within the first fifteen minutes, and we’ve been friends for nine years. My hands still over the floury table, the pastry falls into a tangled lump. Maybe, sometimes, when you meet someone, it’s not about time spent together, or age or anything else for that matter. Perhaps it’s about meeting them, and that’s it.
But it doesn’t matter does it? I could have realised this days ago, I could have made him see. Now he hates me and nothing matters anymore.
I notice yesterdays clothing, rumpled and discarded on the floor. The thought of wearing it again makes me feel slightly sick; as if it’s a skin I’ve discarded which is slowly putrefying. I pick up the shirt and the shoes and go outside, the skirt trailing from my arm. I reach the curved wall behind the house and look down at the dark points of rock standing out in the churning froth. I throw the bundle of soiled fabric as hard as I can, watching it tumble over and over, the wind shredding it into it’s components and then strewing them over the waves.

So I decided that I need a holiday from everything, a little break to remind me that there is life away from the island. The campers have decided to cut their stay short because of a weather warning that’s been issued, a storm approaching. So I’m free to do as I please. I’ve decided that I should visit Glastonbury. A couple of days of vegetarian food and interesting shops and I’ll feel more myself again, I’m sure.