Category Archives: A to Z Challenge

Bonnie

Posted on by

2

Bonnie likes to flirt with other people’s boyfriends. It’s just another boundary she likes to overstep, the same way she could never stick to her curfew or hand in her homework on time.

She always did the homework – eventually – and she never stayed out all night. She just wanted to see how far she could push things. And the same is true with guys. She doesn’t need to fuck them to fuck with them – she can do it with just words.

First, she befriends them, makes it clear that she understands they’re not single, that sex isn’t on the cards. She goes drinking with them, buys the beers, wins at pool, darts, mini golf. Then gradually, she stops hanging out with them. Instead, she stays home and sends message after message after message.

No sexy talk.

No nudes.

Perhaps the odd ‘x’.

And just enough messages to know that whoever picks the phone up first will never have quite the same confidence in their relationship again.

Amelia

Posted on by

2

Amelia is content. It’s been a long time since she felt that way, a long time since she’s been free of the urge to do something – anything – to jeopardise her own happiness.

She’s good at jeopardising her own happiness. She’s always been best at working independently – never was a team player – and this is no different. She doesn’t need to kiss other boys or fuck around on Tinder to throw a perfectly solid relationship into disarray: all she has to do is retreat into her own head.

With Will, she hasn’t had the urge to do that and it makes her feel … good? Does she trust him more because he’s less attractive than other guys she’s been with? Because he’s older? Or because he wears baggy Y-fronts that have gone grey in the wash?

Yeah. One way or the other, he makes her feel safe.

She can hear him now, upstairs in the shower. He’s singing something she can’t quite make out, although listening more carefully, she decides it might be Lana del Rey.

Adorable.

On the table beside the sofa, last weekend’s newspapers – and the ones from the week before – are still piled high. She reaches across to extract one of the glossy supplements, but then she realises that his phone is sitting atop the stack. It would be just like her to send it accidentally crashing to the floor and then have to explain to Will that the cracked screen was the result of her clumsiness, not a fit of jealousy at seeing a message from another woman.

Except. When she picks up the phone to move it, it’s not a message from another woman she sees, but messages. Plural. Ten, at least. Maybe even a dozen.

All from Bonnie.

Whoever Bonnie is, she thinks, she’s verbose as fuck.