How To Catch Your Best Friend “Having It Off” With Your Ex; Stalk Business Conferences
Tales Of Week 8 Of The Andie Chronicles And Her Breakup
Day 50: Tales Of Sick Notes And Plans For A Comeback Queen
“I’m sick,” read the message from James. “I can’t get out of bed. Are you ok without me?”
Considering he had spent most of last week either preoccupied with GG’s party or recovering from it, my best friend and business partner being sick wasn’t an ideal situation.
But when life gives you lemons, you make the biggest fucking jug of lemonade imaginable.
“Babe, rest up. I got this.”
What we had set on our work agenda I could do in my sleep; building a mood board for a website designer wasn’t exactly rocket science. I could do that at night.
During the day, I would use this time to find out exactly why Douglas was suddenly meddling in my business. And how he knew the name of our little venture considering I hadn’t told him anything.
The most likely person to have told him would be Taylor, his brother, GG’s boyfriend. GG was a partner in this as well, but she was excellent with this whole keeping up appearances post-break-up thing.
Her ex-husband was a twisted man, who used any piece of information against her to make their divorce that little extra messy.
GG understood full well the perils of my ex finding out something I didn’t want him to know.
If Taylor didn’t know much then, it couldn’t have been him or GG. And Sophia’s current preoccupation with having a threesome with Malcolm was turning her into a missing-in-action friend.
Not that I minded. We both had a lot going on.
Yet, Sophia knew all about the friendship dramas I had when we both left school. She knew firsthand what gossip will do to someone’s sense of self.
And between us four friends and business partners, we vowed to keep the details of our progress on the business quiet until we knew what we were doing with it.
Grow in private we all said. Until we gave the word.
No one had given the word yet.
No one had even mentioned having the conversation about possibly giving the word yet. But someone said something to Douglas.
And there was only one person I couldn’t account for; James. And he wasn’t here to defend himself. I would have to find the next closest person to the source; Douglas himself.
But how?
Day 51: Tales Of Two Different Lovers With One Thing In Common
I spent last night trolling the internet for information.
I had to find Douglas and somehow confront him. Casually. Like a chance encounter.
This wouldn’t be easy. There was no chance encounters with a man like him. He moves in different ways from us normal Melbournians.
He gets someone to go out and get him coffee. I take pride in power walking my way to the coffee shop and knowing the barrister behind the machine. I like to smell the beans ground in the morning.
He liked to begin his days with early morning meetings and managing reports from the US market overnight. I did spin class and gossiped with my friends.
I loved his world when I was a part of it, but I loved mine too. It’s another reason I didn’t quite fit in.
During my hunting, I discovered Douglas would be speaking today at a conference in the city. At the Sofitel, in the Grand Ballroom.
I had been there once; it was a large room, enough to hold hundreds of people. And by the looks of the other names on the program, he was among very prestigious company.
He was scheduled to speak tomorrow, at three. But the conference started today. Douglas should be there for all the schmoozing and obligatory ass-kissing, I thought. Perhaps this would be a good chance to casually run into him.
The best part was that I would have a plausible excuse for being there; it was a self-made conference, focusing on people who had gone from zero to hero without nepotism to back them. I was hoping to become one of those people myself. That was what I was doing every single day since I quit my job to start this business. You could argue they made this conference for me.
And with a stroke of luck, James called in sick again. Another message.
“I’m not much better today, love. Heading to the doctor. Feel free to email anything you want me to look at.”
Why people offered to help when they were too sick to go to work always baffled me.
But he was being a good friend.
Once I saw he wouldn’t be in the office again, I jumped onto the conference’s website and bought myself a ticket.
A two-day pass.
If James was well enough to work tomorrow, I would fake a sicky. I had all my bases covered.
With as much speed as I could muster, I found my most beautiful yet professional dress, a pinstriped a-line with a matching blazer, made myself up, and ventured into the city.
I was on a mission. No one was going to stop me from figuring out why I couldn’t quite get rid of my ex in my life.
Day 52: Tales Of Stalking The Ex And Zero Regrets
It wasn’t until I stepped foot inside the conference yesterday that I realised this was the first official day of breaking my own pact to lay low until I figured out my break-up feelings. Until I felt like I was over Douglas and ready to move on.
If anyone I knew saw me here, they would raise an eyebrow at my behaviour.
Surely this was the opposite of being over him.
I was stalking him.
I was actively putting myself in front of my ex in the hope of seeing him and getting information out of him.
As I stared at the room full of faces I didn’t know, I wondered if this was a good idea. This wasn’t the actions of someone who was over their ex.
Quite the opposite.
No, these were the actions of someone who cared way too much about what someone else thought, felt, and their intentions toward them.
On Sunday night when I went hunting for this conference, I had convinced myself this was me sorting my shit out. Now, in the reality of what I was doing, I was completely screwed.
That’s when I caught his face on the front cover of one of the conference’s programs and felt a rising anger. Despite my position in this, he was still inserting himself into my business somehow.
Sure, it was only liking our nonexistent Instagram page. But it meant he knew something I didn’t want him to know. And it meant he would be watching me when I didn’t want him to.
And I had to stop that.
The ballroom was lined with rows of white chairs, all pointed toward a makeshift stage set up with a big screen behind it. A man was already addressing the audience as I took my seat in one of the last rows.
Unknowingly, I joined the single women section of the conference.
I looked at each of these women with the same wonder; were they here to tell a man where to go like I was? Or were they here to make something of themselves?
Probably the latter. These women looked like they had it together.
I couldn’t see much of who was directly in front of me. But as I looked ahead of me, to the faces I could see, there he was. In a navy suit. Douglas, sitting with his leg crossed showing just enough argyle sock.
He was seated in the middle of the row, prime position.
To one side was a woman with an iPad. She was furiously taking notes. Every now and again he would whisper something to her and she would write it.
I guess he was allergic to taking his own notes.
Yet, that wasn’t the shocking part.
The fact that the man on his other side was James was.
Day 53: Tales Of Watching First Dates And Losing The Plot
As my alarm went off this morning, I knew what I had to do. Without hesitation, I furiously typed a message to James telling him I was the one who was now sick.
It wasn’t all lies. What I had seen the last couple of days had made me sick. Right into my core.
And I needed a moment to collect my thoughts before I lost the plot, completely. For all my irrational behaviour the last few days, I was thinking more clearly than ever.
Yesterday was the last day of the conference. On the first day when I saw James sitting next to Douglas, I couldn’t pick my jaw up off the ground.
But as I came to realise what I was seeing in front of me, I had to take swift action.
There was no way I could confront Douglas with James standing right there.
And I couldn’t confront James with Douglas right there.
How would that look? My life would look more like a shambles than it already was.
When I saw them together, I started to regret my decision to come. That was until I thought about the alternative.
Was James going to tell me about this? He’s been faking sick days so he could come to this conference. And god knows what else. He’s meant to be my best friend and confidant, and he’s behaving the exact opposite way.
I didn’t like the feeling rising through my body at the moment. I wanted to shut down, pack myself away and never return to the world again.
These were the times in my life I felt so angry at the people of this world. How could I trust people when they acted like this? How can I trust people when they abuse my trust?
And when I returned the next day to hear Douglas speak, I couldn’t believe James was still there, by his side until the moment Douglas took the stage. Then they followed each other out at the end, crossing the road and into one of the little eateries on Collins St.
Like a date.
If were a betting woman, which I am, I would have my money on those two having an affair. Is that why Douglas dumped me? Because he secretly wanted my gay best friend?
Tomorrow would be here soon and James would come to my house for another work day. Should I tell him? Should I confront him about what he was doing with my ex?
No, I won’t tell him I saw him there. Not now, anyway. Not until I really had my head on straight.
Day 54: Tales Of Bold Face Lies And Enthusiasm For The Truth
“Ok, so I was lying in bed dying and coughing stuff up, and I had some really good ideas.” He pauses and fakes a cough before opening his mouth to continue.
James arrived at work like he had an energy stick up his ass. He was so full of vigour and pace, I couldn’t keep up with him.
On the whiteboard he bought from Officeworks on the way to work, he started scribbling all his rambling thoughts.
“We could look at doing a soft launch, then find other investors after Q1.”
He drew some circles on the left-hand side of the white canvas and wrote down a handful of names of people who would be ideal moneymen.
All those names were speakers at the conference, I privately noted. No prizes for guessing where all these ideas came from either. They had Douglas’s name written all over them.
“Where is all this energy coming from?” I asked James, who hadn’t stopped for a breath in over ten minutes. “I have never seen you so spirited about this for a long time.”
I wasn’t lying in my assessment of him. It had been a long time since either one of us had felt so enthusiastic about pushing forward.
Probably because it had been a long time since we had something to celebrate.
Small business milestones are tough to come by, especially during the planning phase.
I was always grateful we had each other. We could pull ourselves up when the other wasn’t feeling it. But after seeing James with my ex, and him lying about where he was so he could sneak around with my ex, I wasn’t quite so sure I was grateful anymore.
“Perhaps it was feeling sick. It gave me new life.” More lies, I thought. He couldn’t even tell me the truth.
He lied so cooly, so calmly about the lie too. Without any hesitation. I hated how good he was at it.
If I didn’t know the truth, I would assume what he was saying was true. How blindsided I would be.
For all my irrationality, stalking my ex, it sure wasn’t something I wasn’t regretting right now. Knowledge is always power. Sometimes you can’t apologise for how you get it, either.
Hours passed, and it was nearly the end of the day, when James returned from the bathroom. He was holding a lanyard, which had been in my bedroom.
“What is this?”
It was for the conference. I looked at it, dangling from his fingertips. I could have lost my cool, but I didn’t flinch. He was as busted as I was.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Day 55: Tales Of Mexican Stand Offs And Friendship Fights
Most Friday nights in our little office are spent having drinks. James and I message GG and Sophia and see where they are and meet them for cocktails, wine, and dinner.
And if we can’t all be there, it’s ok. We get it. We all have lives.
But I doubt GG or Sophia wouldn’t have expected James and me not to send a group message lining up drinks.
I’m sure they thought we were dead. We were never missing in action like this.
But if they had ventured to 1 Lovelock Drive, they would have discovered James and I engaged in a Mexican standoff.
Him on one side. Pretending to have never heard of the conference before and accusing me of covering up what I was doing whilst he was “sick”.
And they would have discovered me on the other side, stubbornly digging in my heels, refusing to answer questions he already knew the answers to.
By the way, this lasted until around nine before I told him to get out of my house.
I had never done that to him before. I had never pushed James out of my home in anger or confusion. Nor had I ever withheld the truth when he asked it of me.
Every moment that passed since he left, right until GG knocked on my front door on Saturday afternoon, I justified my stubbornness. And as we walked down to Candy’s Bar at the end of the street to get a late lunch, I told her all about my justification.
“I know he’s lying to me,”
I said, feeling myself marching rather than walking. “I haven’t lied about what I was doing. Fuck, he didn’t even ask me what had been happening in his absence. He didn’t give me the chance to lie or tell the truth or anything.”
As we walked, I felt GG’s shoulders hunch.
Stupid me, I thought.
Of course, she knew all about James going to the conference. If Douglas was there, Taylor would know and then GG would know, too.
“But as you knew he was going to the conference, I guess you’re on his side, right?”
GG stopped walking and grabbed my hand. “I didn’t know James went to that thing until last night, I swear. If I had of know ahead of time I would’ve told him to pull his head in and tell you. Or include you. But James has his reasons and they aren’t for me to say.”
Why do friends do that?
You can see someone suffering in front of you, and you can end their suffering, but you side with the person inflicting the pain? All in the name of keeping secrets? It doesn’t make sense to me.
It all didn’t make sense to me.
“How can I make this better for you?” GG asked. Make it better?! Really? For a woman with a level head and a sixth sense for solutions, she was asking the wrong questions.
Or perhaps it was the right one. Perhaps this would be the only way to return the group's status quo.
No, GG, I thought. You can’t fix this one.
Day 56: Tales Of Packing Up The Friendship And Overreactions
Boxes. Piles of boxes everywhere.
Archive boxes I had to assemble myself late last night after I parted ways with GG.
We didn’t spend long at Candy’s Bar. There was nothing more to say about this situation. All I could do was follow the writing on the wall.
Everything was clearly messed up. My best friend was sneaking around with my ex-boyfriend. My friends felt conflicted about how to handle it. And I was a mess.
I wanted to hide like never before.
When I came home and saw our makeshift office, my dining room, with all our business spread across it, I knew it was over.
We had piles of fabric books, samples, and pictures littered across the space. We had stacks of notebooks and sketch pads that we had filled with ideas.
We had even invested in a Cricut machine to play with design print so we could see firsthand what our unisex fashion line could look like.
And without much hesitation, I took each bit and started to pile it into the boxes. One after the other.
I wanted to regain my dining room table. I wanted my life back. Right now building a business with my friends was becoming far too complicated for me to sustain. Or enjoy.
I felt empty, unloved, used and chewed up, spat out. For all I did, for all my trust, this was how it would end.
Packing it all away would seem like the right thing to do. I had no other choice, right?
I sat there with the boxes around me and I stared. Then I felt the tears pour down my cheeks. Flooding my face harder and harder.
I hadn’t cried like this in a long time. I didn’t even cry like this when Douglas and I broke up. What was this? What was all this emotion?
Silly me for asking. I knew what it was.
I knew packing up the business wasn’t the right thing to do. It was an immature, woe-is-me reaction. I was indulging in unhelpful, righteous self-pity.
And that wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
It wasn’t going to make me a success. It wasn’t going to explain why Douglas and James had been colluding. It wasn’t going to help me get on with my life.
This was all way too much self-realisation for a Sunday than I could take. I was over it.
As I looked at the boxes, I contemplated putting each piece back where it belonged. But something inside me told me not to.
Perhaps the business was all over in the name of saving friendships.
I didn’t know.
Yet, I knew who to ask to find out. I had to ask James. I needed to hear it from him. And Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough.
You’re reading a recap of The Andie Chronicles, the 2023 romance-fiction series from the 1 Lovelock Drive (1LD) universe.
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