Free Beautiful Mess by Lucy V. Morgan

Chapter One

    Four days, three hours and approximately forty-seven minutes. That was how long it’d been since I got dumped by Craig.
    It’s just not working anymore , he said.
    I stuffed a teddy bear into the box--the one holding the red satin heart from our first month anniversary. Bleugh…dust. That’s right, you prick. I’m choking on the memories. They taste like your mother’s cooking, by the way.
    I can’t give you what you want , he said.
    How did he know, exactly? How did he know when he never even asked me? Smash! In went the painted glasses and the empty Champagne bottle from last Valentine’s Day. I never liked them anyway. They were tacky.
    I’d really like for us to stay friends --
    We were never friends in the first place. Opportunistic twat. Crack. There went the picture frames. Come to think of it, his face looked better like that--
    No, no it didn’t. Oh fuck. He was out of my league from the beginning.
    “Bailey!”
    The door trembled as Tom thumped it, and I sprang up from the bed.
    “Don’t come in yet!” I screeched, lunging for tissues. He wasn’t going to see me crying. Again. Nuh-uh.
    “We know you’re mooning,” he called. “The pizzas just arrived and we bought Jägermeister.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    The handle creaked, and his shaggy mop of hair appeared around the door. He spotted my wet cheeks immediately, and there it was, the sucka-punch combo of lip-pout and eye-roll. Pity and sympathy. Eugh.
    “You can‘t mope about in here forever.”
    “I’m not. Look.” I rattled the box full of broken crap. “I’m already on to the angry stage. I’m making good progress.”
    “Still crying, though,” he said.
    I made a sad attempt at a clawing motion. “They’re tears of…y’know, rage.”
    “Hell hath no fury, eh?” He nudged a large, beheaded Winnie the Pooh with his foot. “What did this poor sod ever do to you?”
    “It’s from our trip to Euro Disney. The one where I thought he was going to…you know…pro-propo…” No, it was no good. More tears. Possibly snot. This was just embarrassing. “I’m sorry!”
    “Jesus, Bailey.” He passed me another tissue and then hauled me up. “I’d give you a hug, but we both know I’m shit with the comforting. Besides.” He looked shifty. “I’m on a new obstetrics rotation and I haven’t washed my hands yet.”
    I winced in disgust. “Because nothing cheers a girl up like eau de split vag.”
    “Precisely.”
    “Pervert.” I sniffed. He went to tap my nose and I lunged away.
    “Come and have a drink. You’ll feel better.”
    “No, I won’t.”
    He dragged me by the wrist. “Have one anyway.”
    Tom deposited me in the kitchen next to a horrifically large pizza box and then wandered off to shower. I peeled the lid up with a fingertip; the rich, yeasty stench of it turned my stomach.
    Maybe just a glass of water, then.
    “Bailey! You’re alive!” Olly pulled me into a rough bear hug. “We thought you’d been eaten by the gnomes of self pity.”
    “There are gnomes of self pity?”
    “Mmph.” He chomped pepperoni. “They ride on owls of despair.”
    “Are they from your videos?”
    “No. But they should be.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Your grief is inspiring, Bails. I like that.”
    I would have punched him, but it never seemed to do anything. He enjoyed it, actually. “Glad I could be of service.”
    Olly and his friend Linc were internet heroes. They started doing paranormal parodies on YouTube just before I moved in--demons, vampires, that kind of thing. It blew up like crazy, and all of a sudden, they had advertising contracts and people made covers of their songs. They were currently designing a new line of metrosexual werewolves.
    That’s right--my flatmate was a pseudo-bigot Z-list celebrity. This was possibly the only thing I had going for me. Must. Not. Cry. Again.
    “Having a drink?” Olly waved the Jägermeister in my face. “We bought it just for you.”
    “No, you