The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

If you feel the same way, meet me under the mistletoe at 8 p.m. I’ll be the one in the pink dress. And also the one who is Izzy the receptionist. I don’t know why I said the pink dress thing.

he is just the sort of guy who would put me on edge if I weren’t there already.

I’ve always been partial to an exclamation mark. Full stops just seem so . . . grown-up. When I stop wanting pick-and-mix for dinner, that’s when I’ll start using full stops. That’s real adulthood.

We are all misled and misdirected from time to time. Perhaps there really is no shame in that, as long as we wake up to it before it’s too late to change.

I am a careful man by nature. But Izzy makes me feel reckless.

There’s a reason it’s harder for women to approach men than the other way around – when the world tells you your worth is about men desiring you, it’s hard to take it when they don’t, and we’re scared to be rejected.

‘You’ll know what to do. If you really like her, it’ll come to you, because if you’re made for each other, you’re made to heal her when she’s hurting.

(Why is it that when men sweat, it’s sexy, but when I sweat, I look like I’ve been crossbred with a tomato?)

‘Smoothies are just juices you aren’t sure whether to chew or not.’

‘A gym friend?’ I guess, taking in Pedro, who just glows with good health. Sickening, really.

How did you get from strangers to this, where you’re like one person split in two?

‘Maybe he’s passed out somewhere?’ ‘God, maybe,’ I say, heading out of the bathroom to check for collapsed Lucases behind sofas and doors. My flat is small – this doesn’t take long.

‘Not if I drive very fast!’ I call, pushing through the door, wincing at the blast of freezing air. ‘And I always drive very fast!’

As far as I can tell from googling while driving (do not recommend, extremely dangerous)

‘Oh my God, Jem, there’s a fucking pony in the way!’

she’s currently hiding in her parents’ spare bedroom with the disgraced Piddles, feeling (as she put it) ‘about the size of a frickin Borrower’ after a lunch with her overachieving cousins.

‘These animals have no respect for an epic love story!’

‘I wish I’d gone to the gym more than once in the last six months,’

‘Hi! I don’t have a ticket! I’m here to tell a man I love him!’ She eyes me. ‘Roger,’ she calls, without looking away. ‘We’ve got another one!’

Sometimes everyone’s a bit of a bitch, aren’t they?