Day 18 - April 11th

Day 18 - April 11th
Cried for ages
Blocked Grace on FB
Lost Mél forever
COME ON AIDAN
Won't let it happen again

        In the morning as we were getting ready to drive back to Adelaide, Phil lost his keys. The keyring had a USB stick on it with all his saved work from uni, and he started freaking out, running round the house and yard looking through everything: “THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!”
        His girlfriend, Ruby, was getting angry too, telling him to calm down and that it was just a keyring and it'd turn up, they started fighting as Phil pressed his case: “THIS HAS RUINED WHAT WAS OTHERWISE A DELIGHTFUL FUCKING WEEKEND!!”

        Mélanie was awake before me, sitting up in the bed while I grappled with the realisation of a hangover. She said she had something to show me, but she wanted to wait until we got back to Adelaide and could be alone together, but I was impatient – it seemed important. After pressing her she finally told me that she'd gone through my phone and seen the messages I'd been sending back and forth with Grace while we were at the races. She asked me what was going on, I just froze in front of her, I didn't have an answer. She got up out of bed and ran out of the room, out of the house, out into the paddock, over the hill and into the distance. No one could find her for almost an hour before she turned up crying in the arms of one of the other girls, who was offering to have her stay at hers instead of going back to Adelaide with me. She declined, I guess because all of her stuff was at my place anyway, or because she was holding out hope for a resolution.
        On the drive Mélanie and I sat in silence in the back seat, while Phil and Ruby sat in silence in the front. I messaged Grace to say, “Congratulations, it's over. You won.”
        Mélanie's eyes exploded at me, she whispered, “Are you messaging her?!”
        “Yes.”
        She turned into the car door and her face went red, I stared down at my feet. Years later Phil told me that he had seen this exchange in the rear vision mirror, and looked out of the corner of his eye to Ruby as he drove. They'd shared an uncomfortable smile, nodding back at the mess that sat in pieces behind them, before coming back to each others' gaze knowingly to share a look of, “At least... at least we're not that... right?”
        The drive back to Adelaide lasted for three hours.

Click here to read the next part - Day 19 - April 28th