Chapter Five - Confusion, Cumshots and Emma Stone

You wait a week, but Emma doesn’t call.

The first few days, you try and distract yourself. Reality comes crashing back hard; when you get home, there’s a terse note from your landlord shoved under your door.

Okay, enough already -

Rent’s due. Pay up or get out.

We had this out last time and I’m done fighting you. You owe me $800. If it’s not wired to me by Friday, I got a waitlist of people I’d already rather be dealing with.

-C

You feel genuinely bad, because Charlie’s not a bad guy; he’s your sister’s roommate’s boyfriend from college and he’s been renting you this place as a favour from the start. But this isn’t the first time you’ve been a few days late on the rent, and he’s clearly run out of patience.

So you drive Uber all day – literally all day, from 6am through to midnight – before finally crashing back at the apartment, $150 richer, which just about tips you over into having Charlie’s money. You wire it first thing the next morning, which leaves you about four dollars and eighty-five cents before you hit your overdraft.

There’s not much else to do, so you drive some more – but the problem with driving is that it’s all too easy to switch off and start thinking.

And once you’ve started thinking about her, it’s impossible to stop.

By Wednesday, you’re sprawled out on the bed, flicking through shitty TV channels, because at least that’s easier than staring at your phone like a teenager or trying to sleep and seeing her face.

Then you actually do see her face, and your gut clenches painfully.