Looking for Love by Kathy Bosman

ripped out and stomped on.”
    “ But that’s what makes it all beautiful.”
    “ What are you talking about?” She
shook her head. Ross had changed. He’d become way too deep and
overbearing. And argumentative. Before, he’d confide all his hurt
in her. They’d bear the burdens together. Now, he had this
strange…bossiness. Had hurt made him too cynical?
    “ If everything went so smoothly, we
wouldn’t appreciate the right one. If we had to step straight into
a perfect relationship first time round, well, there wouldn’t be
anything special about it when we do find the right
one.”
    He looked at her, his pupils
large, his eyes intense, prying right into her soul. She had a
feeling he meant something more directly related to them about what he said,
but couldn’t think what. All she could work out was that he
criticized her again and she’d had enough.
    “ Look, Ross. This is my decision. I know I
want to do this. And so do Andrea, Carol, and Pauline. You’re not
going to stop us this time.”
    He stood up and closed The Album as if to shut out
the offensive sight from his mind. “Your friends are great, El, but
this time, they’re wrong. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
He shook his head. “I’d better be going.”
    “ Okay.” Get rid of him. Maybe their friendship was doomed to
die now with her dream coming true. Could it be he was jealous of
her dream finally happening?
    “ See you, El. Look after
yourself.”
    Sounded like a
final goodbye. Her heart lurched.
    “ I’ll see you again, won’t I?”
Her voice shuddered a little.
    He spun round.
“What? You think I’d cut myself off from you completely because I
don’t approve of what you’re doing?”
    She shrugged
and held her quivering lip from wobbling stupidly before his
gaze.
    “ I’d never do that.” He pointed
his finger at her in a skewed way. “No matter what, El, I’m always
on your side. You can come to me any time.”
    His face softened and something
stirred within her. Something she violently rejected with her mind
and heart before he picked at her feelings. He was out the door before she
had a chance to respond.
    Her hands couldn’t text quickly
enough to let her friends know it had worked. She apologized
profusely for trying without them, saying Ross pressured her, and then waited.
A slew of messages arrived, questions flowing like water down a
waterfall.
    “ Come here & I’ll tell you
everything. Better still. Come & watch. I have another pair of
photos to try ,” was her last text.
    While she waited for her friends
to race over, she prepared a quick lunch and sat down to read
through a blog she followed on the RSS feed on her phone. Her mind
annoyingly replayed Ross’s last words to her. Firstly, that he had
a bad feeling ‘about this’ and secondly, that he would stand by her
no matter what. Who said that nowadays? Even her other friends
didn’t say things like that. They showed it by their actions, but
saying it? With such sincerity and seriousness? Ross acted so alpha
all of a sudden. He didn’t accept her decisions like he used to. He
seemed too invested in them now. Odd! What to do? Would their friendship
last?
    Why did it bother her so much? She had a
dream to fulfil and the best girly friends in the world. She didn’t
have to have a male friend, too.
     
    ***
     
    A few minutes later, Ross sat inside his
car on the driveway of his house. His legs didn’t want to budge and
neither did he feel like facing the empty dwelling again. Why had
he bought a house?
    Why couldn’t he tell Ella he loved
her?
    For the last few weeks, every time
he’d gone over to her place, he’d planned to let it out, but each
time, something happened to sway him. He clammed up and lost his
nerve. Today had been the absolute worst. He’d planned to go there
to tell her he loved her but instead had climbed into her about her
new business and dream. Yeah, he was wary of it. What if things
didn’t go how she planned and