“He was hassling Beth at reception. He didn’t believe anyone when they said you weren’t there. You need to set him straight Abby.”

I groan and shift my weight on the sofa, hugging a cushion to my chest. “I thought I did” I say, exasperated. Why can guys not take the hint? Or, more likely than not, they get the hint and think they can ignore it. They think they’re all so wonderful. They’re not. Well, not all…

“Well, tell him harder. Write it on the side of his car with a key, that ought to get his attention!” I stare at her wide eyed as she sits there giggling with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. I think she’s had enough. I reach forward and try and save my sofa from inevitable spillage but she swats my hand away.

I just roll my eyes, there’s really no point in arguing. She stops and looks at me for a moment. “Can you make sure he walks into a door or something? Nothing major, I just want to have a bit of fun.”

“Tina!” Cannot believe she said that with a straight face. I make a mental note to make sure I’m on the other side of the world if I ever decide to get sick. I would not like her for a nurse. “It’s me who should be the pissed off ex. Why are you getting involved?”

She shrugs. “Boredom.”

Oh. Dear. Lord. “Take out!” I practically shout, just to change the subject. I jump up and start to walk into the kitchen to find the menus.

“Sure. Anything to stop you moping. You dumped him remember? Just have a glass of wine.”

I cringe. Every time someone asks me out for a drink after work I feel the same way. I feel like I’m betraying my friends somehow by not telling the truth. I make up some excuse, ‘I’ve got an early shift tomorrow’ or ‘I just want to get some sleep’. I don’t want to admit that the real reason is because I’m weak. I don’t want them to think any less of me. Dr Lockhart, Chief Resident Extraordinaire.

I like to think that my ‘problem’ is all in the past but I know it’s not. It never can be. But I’m not going to slip down that road again. They’ll just have to deal with knowing nothing about me. Hell, I didn’t even tell everyone at County about my problem and they were there when I fell of the wagon. It’s not their problem, it’s mine.

“Pizza or Chinese?” Tina asks, picking up the bottle of wine and refilling her glass.

I turn around. “What?”

“Food. Are you alright? You seem like you have something on your mind.”

I shrug without saying anything and open the kitchen draw by the phone. “Hey, I can only find Chinese or Indian. Will that do?” Tina’s complaining from next door tells me otherwise.

“I could murder a pepperoni right now. Maybe it’s in another draw.” That’s funny, I could murder a certain ex boyfriend. Not that he was ‘the one’ or anything, it’s just the principal. I sigh, deciding to let it go.

I close that draw and walk over to the letter rack on the kitchen table, leafing through the junk mail and unpaid bills. I stop when I get near the back and gently pull out an old photograph. The sight of the gorgeous brown eyes staring deep into mine makes me smile and go week at the knees, still after all this time. Not that I have any right to let it, I left him. Perhaps the biggest mistake of my life.

“What’s that?” Tina appears behind me and makes me jump. I stuff the photo back into the rack and spin around, doing my best to look casual.

“Oh, nothing. I guess I will have that drink.”

* * *

“Hey, Jake’s lost Lenny bear.”

I swing round the corner into our bedroom. Kem’s sitting on the bed with her back to me. The bedside lamp does little to illuminate the room and the moon light’s streaming through the window and falling on her slender figure as she pulls off her casual T-shirt ready for bed.

She turns round when she hears me and grins, rolling her eyes. “I think him and Bobby were playing Hide-and-Seek this morning, he could be anywhere.” She turns around again and continues getting undressed. She’s so comfortable with me, I can tell. And I feel guilty that I don’t feel the same way.

“Moooom! I need my teddy!” Jake’s distressed whimpers are coming from down the hall and I cringe, waiting for Izzy to start crying so soon after she get to sleep. Thankfully, all is quiet again. I look at Kem.

“Oh no, I’m not going!” She winks at me and nods in the direction of the door. “It’s your turn to placate your son.”

“Oh, he’s just mine then is he?” I tease. Maybe I am comfortable with her. Comfortable enough to engage in this flirty banter that so often takes place between us. I confuse myself so much, my feelings never seem clear to me.

I sigh. “Fine. Just get hunting.”

I leave the room, pulling at my own top to try and cool down. “Do you know where you left Lenny bear?” I ask my son as I enter his room.

He’s sitting up in bed with the light still on, tears in his eyes. “No. I lost him Daddy.”

“We better find him then buddy, hadn’t we?”

I go back to my own bedroom to find Kem in the same place she was before. “We better start looking I guess” I tell her. “We’ll never get any peace if he doesn’t turn up.”

She nods, standing up. Her silky slip falls to her knees as she does so and the puts on her slippers. Walking past me and out of the room, she gives me a gentle peck on the cheek. “I’ll check downstairs.”

I stay in the doorway for a moment longer, surveying the room for the lost bear. I flick the main light on, making the impending job easier and I find myself squinting as my eyes adjust to the light.

I look under the bed, in the dresser draws, the linen basket, anywhere I can think of. I’m hardly thinking of Kem of my mixed up feelings. That’s more or less all I’ve been doing for a while. My kids mean more to me than anything, I hate the thought of either of them being in distress.

I finally cross to the wardrobe and open the pine wood doors with the gold handle. I crouch down on the floor, starting to remove shoes and bags and flinging them behind me onto the carpet. I remove one of Kem’s hold-alls and see a rather tatty brown bear, complete with frayed red ribbon staring back at me with his one eye.

I pick him up, smiling. I can still hear Kem clattering about downstairs. “Hey, I’ve found…”

I begin to call to her but stop dead. There’s a shoebox right at the back behind a long overcoat. I must have knocked the lid of in the search. I reach for it and lift it out to investigate the contents, even though the only thing I really care about it right on the top and calling out to me, grabbing my attention.

“Any luck?” I hear Kem’s voice downstairs but ignore her, the words seem muffled in the distance and my brain focuses on nothing else.

I set down the box and the bear next to me and pick up the photo. I smile sadly. Abby’s gorgeous face it looking up at me and I realise I’m stroking her cheek without realising what I’m doing. It’s like an instinct, second nature to me even after all these years. If only it was for real.

* * *

I pick up the two used wine glasses from the side and put them into the sink before tipping the empty pizza boxes in the bin. I groan when I catch sight of the microwave clock but then realise that the time is probably not why my head is hurting. 1:15 am. I have to be at work by 7. The two wine bottles are still sitting on the coffee table, I walk straight past them into my bedroom, not wanting to deal with it.

6 years. That’s how long I’ve been sober. 6 years down the drain in one night all because of a stupid photo of a guy I haven’t seen in half a decade. In all the time I’ve been here Tina hadn’t seen me drink. That’s because I hadn’t. Seeing me downing nearly a whole bottle of red wine, a glass at a time I guess made her realise that she hadn’t. I then spent a good 2 hours trying to convince her that I was fine.

But I’m not fine, and I don’t want to have to face her questions at work today. I walk over to the window. I’m about to pull the blinds shut and plunge the room into darkness but I find myself blankly staring down at t he street outside. I don’t even know what I’m looking at, I don’t think I’m concentrating on anything at all.

Not outside anyway, in my mind perhaps. I finally close the blinds, sitting down on the bed and pulling off my pants. I fold them up and hang them on the chair but stop when I find the photo in the back pocket of my jeans. I pull it out, trying to smooth out the creases and gaze at it the exact same way I did when I first found it. The same way I wish I could face to face.

But I made damn sure that didn’t happen, I left, ran away. I pretend like the decision was out of my hands, he had Kem, I didn’t fit into his life anymore, only as friends. And I didn’t want that. I had to let him be happy, I had to leave.

But I know deep down that that isn’t true. (HIGHLIGHT TO READ - SLIGHT SPOILER FOR 11:1) Kem turned him down. The first time Carter proposed, she said no. I had a chance, but I didn’t take it. I was too afraid of being hurt again, too scared to be happy in case it was all snatched away from me. Turns out it was anyway, before I could really find out what would happen if I’d told him how I feel.

I guess I still could, but even in my drunk deluded state I know I never would. He’s married, he has to kids. If that happy smiley photograph he’d sent last Christmas was anything to go by he was happy. He wouldn’t want me now. I bet he’s only thought of me in passing since I left. He wouldn’t be interested now, why would he?

* * *

I wake up slowly and look around. It’s still dark; the streetlamps are on outside but there is no sound of traffic passing outside the window. I roll over and look at the alarm clock. 2:32am. I sigh, not surprised that I’m awake. ‘You always were a light sleeper’ Kem would say if she saw me now, ‘you must have something on your mind.’

I look at her, sleeping soundly next to me. She stirs with the movement I cause by rolling over but shows no real sign of waking up. She’d be right, I do have something on my mind. I can get the image of Abby’s smiling face out of my head. I stuffed the photo right back into the box but that doesn’t mean I’m not still thinking about it. I can’t remember when that photo was taken, we had so many happy times like that. It would be impossible to pin point a particular time just from the joyous look on her face. She used to smile like that so much in the beginning with me.

I shake my head. I’m pretending like her life was over the moment we broke up. I’d be naive to think that she was still pining after me. She always was stronger than me, even if she didn’t admit it. What would change now? She’d moved away, moved on. New city, new job, new man. She was probably lying in bed right now next to him. And he was probably making her the happiest woman alive.

Just because I’m still clinging to the past doesn’t mean she should be. I stop staring up at the ceiling and close my eyes. I can imagine her right now, sleeping soundly, cuddling up to the man of her dreams. Only in my mind that man’s me. I still imagine her apartment the same, as if my subconscious still believes her to be right across town.

Some days I half expect to see her, even after all this time. I never expect her to come back, she has no reason to. People change, they move on. That’s in our nature. So much has changed in my life, I’m not so ignorant as to expect Abby’s to be the same.

I pull the covers up to my shoulders, despite the heat. It’s a security thing. I take a deep breath and snuggle down further, attempting to get back to sleep. I finally feel fatigue once again envelope my body and I drift of into another fitful slumber, only one thought in my mind.

* * *

It’s been 15 minutes sinse I climbed into bed and I still feel wide awake. I dread to think what I’ll be like at work, I remind myself to brew some extra strong coffee before I leave.

I just keep picturing him in that photo. I put it away in my bottom draw after I’d found it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to be so sad as to sleep with an ex boyfriend’s picture next to me. That would just highlight to the rest of the world how pathetic I am for even thinking about him still, pondering what could have been.

But it’s not. And never will be. I have a new life, I’ve moved on. I love my job, and my friends. I may have an idiot for a man but I don’t need a man to make me happy. I nod defiantly. I can be happy on my own. Damn it, I will. I’m sure Carter is, why shouldn’t I be.

I sigh, over my moment of strength and resign myself to the fact that I will always miss him and will always wish things were different. He was the love of my life, still is. We’re soul mates, I know that. Or were. That idea only works if both parties feel the same right? And he doesn’t, he’s happy with Kem and the kids.

I roll over in bed, hugging a pillow like a security blanket and am suddenly painfully aware of the empty space next to me where Carter should be. One famous cliché is swimming round and round in my mind, but that’s all my life has become, a cliché. Pathetic jealous ex self-destructs because of a man she can never have.

The words are hovering on my lips and I whisper them into the darkness to no one except me.

“It’s better to have loved and lost…”

* * *

“…Than never to have loved at all.”