Chapter 13
TOM
I’ve somehow ended up on a three-week bender of dates with Pete. Not a bender in the “ten pints of cider and a bad kebab” sense (though, to be fair, one of the dates did involve ten pints of cider and some questionable 2am moves on the dance floor at the King’s Tuppence). No, I mean an actual, proper run of dates. Like we’re teenagers who’ve just discovered holding hands is a drug.
It’s weird. I keep seeing the same man on purpose. Multiple times. In a row. Without being ghosted. Honestly, if there was a Guinness World Record for me, this would be it.
Pete plans actual dates.
Not “come over, watch Netflix, accidentally on purpose have sex while ignoring the film” dates. Real ones. With activities. I didn’t even know those still existed outside of straight people’s Instagram feeds.
Date one was a coffee at Boston Tea Party, which sounds casual, but Pete managed to make it feel like a Michelin-star event. He asked me questions. He actually listened to my answers. I nearly spat out my flat white when I realised halfway through that I wasn’t rehearsing what to say next—I was just… talking. Unheard of. Normally my first dates are 80% internal monologue about whether my fringe looks greasy and 20% pretending to like craft beer.
Date two was a walk around Brandon Hill. Cliché, yes, but lovely. Picturesque. Except I was wheezing like an asthmatic pug after three minutes. Pete pretended not to notice, pointing out squirrels like David Attenborough.
Date three, and I still wasn’t ghosted, which was suspicious in itself. Pete took me bowling at The Lanes. Bowling! Considering my “bowling technique” is a health and safety risk, this was high stakes. I once managed to flip the ball backwards and nearly killed a pensioner. That said, Pete was equally as useless, and we embraced the gutter as a collective.
By the end of week one, we’d already eaten our way through Gloucester Road, pizza at Flour & Ash, tacos at Cargo, and one absolutely catastrophic attempt at ramen where I basically wore the broth. Pete handed me napkins like he was proposing marriage.
And during all this: no Daniel. Not a text, not a “we have to meet”, not even a ghost of him in my head. After weeks of obsessing, I realised that he hadn’t popped into my mind for at least a few days. Like he’d stopped existing. Or maybe I had stopped existing to him. Either way, it was bliss.
It made me reflect on how different this all felt. Normally, dating is an exercise in humiliation. Don’t even get me started on the hookups. There was the dentist who made me brush my teeth in front of him “for hygiene reasons.” The guy with the ferret (yes, he wanted it to join in). And then the bloke who whispered “call me daddy” mid-kiss, and when I refused, sulked like a toddler denied an ice cream.
By comparison, Pete felt… safe. Not boring-safe. Fun-safe. Like being on a rollercoaster with a bar that actually clicks down properly, not one where you spend the whole ride convinced you’re about to be flung into the car park.
And yes, we had sex. A lot. Obviously. I’d love to say it was all cinematic, candles and Marvin Gaye. In reality, it was me tripping over my own jeans, Pete elbowing me in the nose and my cat watching us from the corner with deep moral judgement. Still—pretty great. At least he didn’t give me a PowerPoint presentation about his kinks like one bloke I hooked up with in Bedminster.
The only problem is the elephant in the room.
The elephant has a name: James.
I try not to think about him, but I do.
I try to humanise him. Imagine him as just a man: maybe he gets nervous ordering coffee. Maybe he snores. Maybe he cries at Pixarfilms like the rest of us. But every time I picture him, all I see is the shadow looming behind Pete’s smile.
It’s all too good to be true. Which means it probably is.
I’ve lived in Bristol long enough to know that happiness here is usually followed by rain. You’re sipping cider by the harbour, and suddenly the heavens open, and you’re drenched, mascara running, trying to convince yourself it’s “romantic.” That’s what this feels like: sunshine I don’t deserve, with a storm cloud waiting to dump on me.
Still, I can’t stop basking. Two weeks of dates. Two weeks of laughter and sex and feeling like maybe, just maybe, I’m not broken beyond repair.
Tonight, we’re lying on my bed. He’s half-asleep, one arm slung over me like a seatbelt I don’t want to unbuckle.
But then reality hits.
Another text from Evelyn.
I can’t bring myself to open it.
But I know what it will say.
The blood.Always about the blood.
I swore I’d never talk to her again after that night. After everything. My guilt is like a splinter: you learn to live with it, but then it snags on something and suddenly you’re bleeding all over again.
I shove the notifications into a box in my brain markeddo not open unless apocalypse.
But it reminds me to leave the past behind.
