Free Confessions of a Serial Dater by Michelle Cunnah Page B

momentarily, barely noticing that his sentence does not include a word of French. And then he drops his bomb.
    “Er, I know this is a bit sudden, and I don’t know the bestway to tell you this, but it’s been on my mind for a while. Rosie, you know I wouldn’t willingly do anything to hurt you, especially at this time of year and all. But I think we should take a bit of a break from each other,” he says, and I’m floored. I mean, I know I was thinking we needed to take a break, but I’ve worked through it.
    Oh, I just bet he’s met someone else.
    “Er, it’s not that I’ve met someone else. Just thought you might want to know that. I’m extremely fond of you, but I think we need to cool things down. Just for a while. Just for a few weeks. Well, take care. Speak to you soon. If you feel you need to, er, talk about it, well, er, I’m here.”
    That’s it? That’s my breakup?
    Due to the suddenly boneless quality of my legs, I slump onto the sofa and look up at my Christmas tree, all twinkly and glittery, and I feel so alone. Everyone deserves to have someone to share Christmas with, don’t they?
    I just can’t take it in. I bet Jonathan will call tomorrow, and it will all be a mistake, and am definitely not going to think about it right now.
    Instead, I load Terminator III into my DVD machine and settle back for some world destruction. And as I watch people getting terminated, I terminate my way through a large pack of tissues and peanuts. Unsurprisingly, the peanut packaging contains the following consumer advice: “Warning: contains nuts.”
    I may have to write a thank-you letter to the consumer affairs manager for that one…just as soon as I’ve scraped my heart up off the floor.

6
Mistaken Identity?
    Rosie’s Confession:
    Sometimes, when things are messy, I wonder what it would be like to be a snail…
    Not because I think that slithering gastropods with coiled shells are particularly attractive creatures but because they can sleep for three years. Can you imagine that? Something horrible happens to you, and all you have to do is take a nice, long nap, and by the time you wake up, you’re well over it!
    Of course, being a French snail is not so attractive, on account of the possibility of being eaten…
    “Jonathan casually broke my heart and dumped me via voice mail yesterday,” I announce, just a bit dramatically, to my friends the following afternoon.
    Oh. I really didn’t mean to sound so melodramatic. It’s just that I’ve been holding this information tightly squeezed up inside my lungs since last night, and it’s grown, expanded,and I have to say something to someone or I’ll burst with it. But I just couldn’t face calling anyone last night.
    Dumped. With only five days until Christmas. I mean, it just sounds so pathetic, doesn’t it? I am so unlovable that my boyfriend can’t even wait until the New Year to get rid of me.
    Jess, who unfortunately has chosen this exact same point in time to arrive at our table with huge Aster stars in her eyes, shrieks, “Well? Well? What do you think? Isn’t he fabulous? Totally fabulous?”
    Poor Jess. Her enthusiasm is totally lost on everyone as they fall into stunned silence.
    We are all sitting in the Duck & Drake, a small, smoky, dingy, off-the-beaten-track pub in Camden. It is so far off the beaten track that I spent half an hour hunting it down, which is fortunate in a way, because I arrived so late that I was just in time to hear Aster and his band brutally murder their second set.
    I briefly considered canceling and going home after lunch at Mum’s, to brood and regain my equilibrium a bit before I told my friends about Jonathan, but I promised everyone I’d be here for Aster’s debut London appearance with Asteroid Attack. Especially Jess.
    When I say everyone, I mean Carmen, Jess, my nice cousins Flora and Philip, and Charlie, with whom I co-own Odd Jobs.
    Philip is the first to absorb my news and recover his tongue.
    “Oh, no.