Brave: How I rebuilt my life after love turned to hate

‘So I was just standing there having a fag and then he came over …’

‘And then what happened?’ Laura said.

I told her everything, all the little details, how he looked, how he said it, how he smiled as he did.

‘Do you think it’s too soon to text him?’ I said. ‘I mean, I could just say thanks for the fiver.’

Laura checked the time on her phone. ‘It’s 12.30,’ she said.

‘You don’t think I’d look desperate?’

‘No, I think it’s OK.’

So I tried various different messages, some with questions, but that did seem too desperate, others with kisses – too forward – before finally settling on this:

Hope you had a good night, thanks for the fiver. Adele

Friendly, not too keen. And now I just had to wait. Laura and I sat up for a bit longer, both of us taking it in turns to stare at my phone. I picked it up, turned it over, waiting for it to bleep a reply into my hands, but nothing. Eventually we went to bed.

There wasn’t a reply the next day either, or the next.

‘Do you think he gave me the right number?’ I said to Amie and Lauren during lunch break at college on Monday.

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘So why hasn’t he replied?’

I felt like I wasn’t that bothered on Friday night, I kind of liked him, but I wasn’t that keen. But a weekend spent staring at my phone had left me with more questions than answers. I’d tried switching it off and on again, but texts from my other friends were still coming through.

‘Do you think I should text him again?’ I asked the girls.

‘No!’ they replied in unison.

And so I waited. And waited. And waited.

And just as I’d managed to distract myself on Tuesday, and while we learnt that there are 27 bones in the human hand, my phone beeped in class. Amie shot a look over in my direction and when I saw the name Riley I nodded back to her and felt heat rush to my cheeks.

Sorry, been on a bender all weekend. How are you?

And there it started, right there in my college classroom. I didn’t leave it days or even hours to reply to him, not now I had his attention. I wanted to keep up the momentum.

I texted him back, I can’t remember what exactly now, I must have made a joke about him being on a bender because he replied straight away, and then I replied back, and it went back and forth like that for days.

I sent the girls a group message on MSN Messenger.

We’re texting all the time!

I felt different even then, perhaps because I knew he was friends with my brother, perhaps it gave it that added element of excitement, that bit of rebellion, and mostly because this guy was new. He wasn’t like the other scruffy 16-year-old boys that we hung around with, who were only just getting to grips with shaving. Anthony was 19, he was a man, he didn’t hang around parks convincing people to buy him a bottle of booze, he was old enough to buy it himself. He didn’t live at home with his mum, he lived with his friend, Scott Tarrant, ‘Scotty’. OK, he lived with Scotty’s mum, but it wasn’t the same as being stuck at home with your parents. He had a job too – or at least he’d had one before: he told me during one of our text messages that he’d been made redundant from his scaffolding job. And he could drive, well, he couldn’t at the moment because he’d got a ban for speeding, but he was different, he was interesting, even a speeding ban only made him more exciting and dangerous.

And with that accent Anthony felt exotic compared to the lads around here, not just because of his age, but because it felt to me like he’d just appeared out of nowhere. In a town where I pretty much knew most people my age, or certainly knew of them, Anthony had never been anywhere on my radar before – or that of any of my friends – and I liked him for that reason if nothing else. I didn’t know where he’d appeared from, I just knew that I liked him, and over the days as we texted and bantered and he made me laugh, I liked him more. And then finally …

Fancy coming round tomorrow night?

OK.

I told the girls that he’d asked me round to Scotty’s place, and as Remi knew Scotty she decided to come too. Not in a double-date way, because this was going to be my date and Remi didn’t fancy Scotty, but just so I could get to know Anthony.

The next night I told Mum I was off out with Remi, and then I heard a beep outside the house.

‘Take care, Adele,’ Mum called after me as I slammed the front door shut behind me.

Scotty had arrived in his green Punto to pick me up, and there in the passenger seat beside him was Anthony.

‘All right?’ the boys said when I got in the back.

We went from mine to pick up Remi, and then when we got to Scotty’s house Jade texted saying she wanted to come over too.

‘We’ll go and get Jade,’ Scotty said, gesturing towards Remi. Did I see a look pass between him and Anthony?

The next moment Anthony and I were alone in the house and all at once the space in the living room between us felt like a mile.

‘So … er …’

‘Yeah,’ Anthony replied.

We’d been texting for days and yet suddenly neither of us knew what to say. We were glued inside an awkward silence, made worse by the fact that I realised in those moments just how much I fancied him, and seeing this soft side – this shy side – made him seem even more attractive.

And I think, after a while like that, we both just looked up and fell about laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. And that just made me like him more.

Anthony got me a vodka and coke and I gulped it down to take the edge off my nerves, and so by the time Scotty came back with Remi and Jade we were laughing and messing about. We put some music on, I remember Kings of Leon’s ‘Sex On Fire’ and feeling slightly drunk and very excited just to be in the same room with this older guy with his Scottish accent and his charm and those eyes.

‘Shall we watch a film?’ one of the boys suggested after a while, and they put something on – not that any of us really watched it as we sat there drinking and laughing across the sofas at each other. At some point, I felt Anthony slip his arm around my shoulders, and my skin prickled under his touch. And later, when the others had gone into the kitchen to get another round of drinks, I looked up at him, and he looked down at me, and suddenly I was lost inside his kiss and we broke off, laughing, just in time for the others to catch us.

And that was it, my first date with Anthony Riley, if you can call it a date because it all felt pretty casual right from the start.

Scotty wasn’t drinking so he offered to drop us girls home that night, and back in my bedroom, as I took my make-up off before bed, I got a text message from Anthony.

Really nice seeing you, we should do it again some time.

I texted Remi and Jade.

But why didn’t he suggest when?! xx

Adele!! Stop worrying! xxx

A few days later, Amie and I finished college and headed back to mine together. She’d been texting Scotty for the last few days, and we had a plan to see the boys.

We did our make-up together at my house and I packed an overnight bag.