It was gone four a.m. on the morning of December 31st, less than eight hours to go until the bells chimed in another year. Emily was walking home from the boys' house and her thoughts flickered and danced with what the 2008 might bring. In truth she was trying to make this the first walk back without tears since the break up, but as all the possibilities laid themselves out like rosy apples in the Tesco's fruit section it became easier to hold her head high. The mist evaporated from her eyes and a smile played around her lips.
Emily knew that the year ahead would bring several inevitable consequences. Her grandmother wasn't going to get much better. Neither would the kids at her school. Her car was on its last legs and her little flat would need lots of love and care before the February winds whipped through the cracks in the windows. There would be travels in the summer and probably a move into a house with her friend Amy. There would be parties, pay rises and Ofsted.
Emily imagined these events slotting into the diary pages of the year ahead, but there was one yawning gap which hovered and vibrated in the pit of her stomach. What about the men in her life? Men, plural, indeed. Emily needed to think seriously, sensibly, about the way things were going to be. Pulling her grey coat close around her, she thought about each one in turn.
The first was of course Robin. Tall and strong with a soft voice and eyes that could see into her soul, Robin had been Emily's love for five years. She loved him passionately, and, since he broke her heart three months ago, almost violently. As his father died proudly and silently Robin's heart had turned to winter and he had stopped caring about the way things were going. Instead he had thrown himself into studying and sport, refusing to open up to anyone. His eyes had developed a haunted look and it had broken the smallest shattered fragments of Emily's heart to see him so disconsolate again tonight. It would always be Robin's, but he was no longer the answer. If Emily was honest with herself she knew that Robin's eyes were a mirror of her own, and that the events of the past three months had been her own desperate attempt to shake off the despair and bitterness that clung to her like a leech. She didn't cope well with heartbreak, it got her into all sorts of trouble.
At this her thoughts wandered to two evenings ago when she had found herself drinking swiped amaretto in her mother's Surrey kitchen discussing old times with a man who had shattered her heart once before.
"Ten years ago in September I first fell in love with you," she slurred.
"Oh, I don't know. It was probably lust or something." Alex's voice was as soft as butter as his bitten fingernails tapped the edge of his glass.
"That's what people always said to me Alex, but it's just not true. I loved you, and ten years later there's still a chemistry between us."
The more sober Emily knew better. She shouldn't have started down this path. Alex was trouble. He had fucked her best friend while Emily travelled India at the age of seventeen. Or so his best friend Mark had claimed shortly before sinking his cock deep inside her at a vodka fuelled welcome-home party. After that Emily and Alex had spent several years punishing one another; declaring love in private but war in public, and dragging their friends through a catalogue of revenge. Now their meetings were annual as their friends travelled home for Christmas.
Alex was looking at her intently now.
"I wish I'd fought harder for you. I hadn't learned how to open up then, and there was so much I wish I'd said."
He leaned forward and she could feel the stinging warmth of the amaretto on his breath.
"Remember when we fucked in this kitchen and your dad walked in on us?"
Emily giggled and rested a hand on Alex's hot thigh.
"I couldn't look him in the eye for weeks!"
Alex stood up and moved in towards Emily. He put his soft, warm lips on hers and pushed his hot tongue into her mouth. She felt the shift of his hips against her body and gasped as his hands worked up to feel her breasts. His thumb teased her nipple as he expertly undid her bra.
Emily was drunk, but still her head told her this was a bad idea. Her body, however, had other plans. She felt her clitoris tauten as she pushed her body towards his and arched her back to let him kiss her neck. He was breathing hard and the heat of his mouth on her skin was almost too much to bear. Their fevered eyes met for a second before she dragged him into the lodger's bedroom.
"He's gone home for Christmas," she breathed as Alex slipped her dress off and looked at her naked body.
Soon they were rediscovering parts of each other that they had forgotten for the five years she had been with Robin. His cock was smaller than she remembered, but she longed to feel it in her mouth, between her breasts, inside her. She felt his hot tongue licking her pussy wet before he rose up and entered her. They moved together and looked into each other's eyes. Emily knew how wrong this all was, but after all the years of love and hatred it just seemed, well, inevitable. After climaxing they had slept like lovers; exchanging soft, sleepy kisses and holding each other closely. As the light filtered through the window she murmured in his ear;
"When is this ever going to end Alex?"
"Give it time," he whispered. "It's only been a decade."
In the morning he had slipped out of the window: gone for another year.
Emily half smiled at the memory. She still had feelings for Alex but they were like scars on the inside. They made up part of her.
As Emily neared her little flat's front door, she decided to make some solid decisions.
"New Year's Resolution One," she said aloud, fumbling for her keys. "No more Alex or Robin. This is going to be my year and I will make choices about my heart, not them."
"And as I've been dictating to myself in the third person the whole way home, maybe I'll start writing a blog. It'll help me keep Resolution One and give me a chance to get a bit of typing done."
Emily smiled. 2008 was going to be an excellent year. And she hadn't shed a single tear the whole way home.