Cherry Coloured - Alex Turner

18. Model of A Charmless Man

Leaving it to the poets was easier said than done. By Monday, Alex had thought about driving off a bridge five times. Not even Vienna could fix the gaping hole in the centre of Alex's chest that threatened to suck him in whole. Each time he told himself it was best to keep himself away from Maeve to prevent him from hurting her any more, the edges of that hole would crumble inwards and leave him struggling for air.

Alex's life seemed impossible to live. Wherever he went, regret and shame would follow. The last time he'd felt so low was when Vienna broke things off with him a mere few nights before he first met Maeve. If anything positive could be taken from it, Alex was somewhat relieved that he'd managed to find someone that wasn't Vienna that could make him feel such deep rooted emotions.

"Alex."

Thursday had rolled around and preceding it were endless sleepless nights where Alex had forced himself to stay awake working to avoid dreaming of Maeve. Vienna could pull him to bed and instead of his usual excitement to be spending any time with her at all, Alex found himself zoning out until it was over to avoid ruining things again by thinking of one woman when he was with another.

How had he managed to destroy so quickly something he had put his all into fixing? Haunting him was the betrayal in Maeve's expression like a ghost glued to the backseat of his car. He had a miraculous knack for complicating things and unfortunately for the both of them, Maeve had fallen victim to his curse, now, on multiple occasions.

  The only way you can do right by her is fucking off out of her life, Alex said to himself as he stared blankly at his computer screen. But I don't want that. I want to fix things. Properly. But what if I hurt her again—

  "Alex!"

  He jumped in his seat and quickly looked over his shoulder to see his boss Raymond standing over him. Shit, how long has that twat been standing there? Alex groaned internally.

  "Yeah?" he responded instead.

  "You've got to go on lunch now," Raymond said.

  "I've just got to finish this up and then—"

  "Not what I asked," Raymond interrupted, "you need to go now or else we get in trouble for making you work too long without a break."

  "Oh," Alex said and cleared his throat awkwardly. He checked the time and somehow the day had flown by, it was a quarter to three already. "Right, yeah. Sure I'll go now."

  "Good," Raymond said and began back to his desk, "make sure you get that finished when you get back."

  Alex looked back at his computer and rolled his eyes. With a deep sigh, Alex stood up and grabbed all he needed for his hour break and headed out of the building; still oblivious to the attention his coworkers invested upon his rear.

Having missed high noon's universal intrigue for food, Alex was left to eat on his own, everyone he could've asked to join him would've already had their break long ago. There was an upside however, missing lunch rush hour meant Alex didn't need to queue or so much as wait to grab a bite and a coffee to propel him through the day.

"What can I get ya?" the uninterested cafe worker asked him at the till.

"Just one of those rolls, toasted if you can, love," he requested politely. He wasn't exactly spoiled for choice. It seemed the cafe hadn't restocked their glass cabinets since lunchtime and all Alex had to choose from was a meat and salad roll, a pie, or a slice of carrot cake.

"Anything else?" the lady serving him sighed after putting the sandwich in the toaster behind her.

"Large flat white," Alex said. His eyes travelled along the confectionary in front of him, decorating the frame of the till like it was the house in Hansel and Gretel. "And one of those smarty cookies as well."