#463 The Cupid Effect

His light eyes sparkles as he said, 'Hi, you must be Ceri,' and grinned. His whole face relaxed into that grin and I fell instantly in like with him. I was a relatively simple creature like that. You were nice to me, I liked you.

*

He must have been muscle and bone, rather than skin and bone as he looked.

*

They didn't simply finish each other's sentences, they knew what the other one was thinking; they actually voiced each other's train of thought. That's not normal. That's not 'living with a boyfriend for two years'; that's not 'seeing no one special'. That's, 'I'm involved with the person I'm sitting next to'.

*

I always quite liked the idea of being an academic. That was why I'd applied for a PhD all those years ago. I wanted to carry on learning while helping with the teaching process. I liked lecturing, enjoyed the power it gave me. You stand up there, in front of people, you tell them what you know, they interject with their theories and together you helped to build a new theory, a new understanding.

*

Students had changed. 'They don't have a thirst for learning like they did when you were a student,' she said. 'They're more interested in what they need to know for the exams than in expanding their minds.' I suppose that was part of why I wanted to do this as well. I wanted to see if I could help turn back the tide. Stop students being simply fixated on the exams. When I was a student, we - rather sadly some might say - used to look forward to certain lectures when we could debate stuff. There was so much to think and talk about we'd often overrun. Or we'd stop at the end, go get coffees, come back and debate some more. I wanted that with my students. I wanted them to be so into my lectures they didn't mind if they overran.

*

I needed company. Someone to fret at. I didn't know Jake and Ed well enough to unravel in front of them. It didn't work down the phone, so that ruled out most of my London friends. The only person it could be was Jess. She was my surrogate boyfriend in such situations.

*

Elephants stampeded across my stomach as I walked around before the lecture started...

*

Total peace descended upon me. At the very core of my soul, a celestial being touched me and I felt peace. I was peace. Pure peace. Suddenly I was flooded with power and joy and happiness. All I'd yearned for when I'd accepted this job. I was complete. Whole. This was it. I was there, on the brink of it. On the brink of a life orgasm. I'd only ever felt this sense of pureness when I'd orgasmed. Right in the middle of an orgasm, you are nothing pure emotion. Nothing else exists except that one moment of sheer, unadulterated bliss; when your body and mind give themselves up to immaculate pleasure. That's what I'd been chasing when I gave up on my life in London. For that moment, sat on the desk, I felt it. How life was meant to be. How life could be if I carried on with this.

*

On the other hand, nothing happened. Ever. I sometimes got the feeling that he was thinking about kissing me, thinking about taking our relationship to the next level, particularly when we were lying on my bed watching something he'd taped, but it was all just think with him. He never did anything. I did consider kissing him, of course, but I was never sure how it'd be received. You see, if there was one thing I'd learnt about men, it was that if they liked you enough, nothing, except possibly an act of God - and even then it was a close-run thing - would stop them making a move. So, why did Drew never just lean down and cover my lips with his, even when his arms were holding me close to his chest? Because he didn't like me enough.

I'll never forget the sudden horror that rushed through me when I heard Drew's words. It'd hit me, right then, that we weren't eventually going to end up together. That maybe, if I'd told him earlier how I felt, things would've turned out different.

My brain kept dredging up examples of his caddishness any time 'but I love him' thought of rearing its pathetic head..... He'd get me all whipped up, let me believe that some way along the line we'd be together. It wasn't his fault, though, I'd been led on by all those movies and books which propagated waiting it out. Which told you that if you just hung in there long enough, he'll realise that you're the one for him and give up going out with supermodel-types who'll smash up his car windscreen because he didn't call.

Suddenly, I realised he'd been a bastard to me but because I thought I loved him. I hadn't wanted to see it. And this falling for The One was the final act of treachery as far as I was concerned. It was all right for him to go meet his perfect woman, all right for him to fall in love, all right, even, for him to realise he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But why the bloody hell was I the first person he called up about it? Because he had no respect for me or the feelings he'd nurtured in me.

When you're so infatuated with someone, like I was with Drew, it's very difficult to see them for what they really are. But once I'd made that desert crossing, Drew stopped being the man who could do no wrong. He also stopped being the man who would one day wake up and find he loved me, because it was not going to happen. Once I could see him clearly, he became a good friend. A proper friend with no undercurrent of 'What if?' He became a friend because, well, I can forgive my friends most things, but I couldn't forgive the man I was supposed to love for not even liking me enough to make a pass at me.

If he'd loved me, even a little, he wouldn't have emotionally teased me.

'What if?' was no way to live a life.

*

It was the way people looked at each other in unguarded moments. The way they didn't look at each other in guarded moments. Despite what people pretended, despite what people said to my face, they couldn't stop those tell-tale signs showing through.

*

This was a proper library, even though it was in a college. People actually came here to work and they expected silence with it. When I was a student, the library was an extension of the common room. Here, these merchants of no fun wanted to study.

*

I love conditioning my hair. Knowing that with every stroke I was making it shiny and soft. I got a real sense of joy from squidging it into my hair and running my fingers down from the roots to the tips, feeling my hair soften under hand.

*

The fact your life can change in the blink of an eye; the misunderstanding of a phrase; the kissing of someone you shouldn't. The pain of wanting something you simply can't have.

Wanting something so much that you make yourself and everyone around you miserable because you can't have it. It was madness quite neatly. It was a shite film, but I remember one of the main characters saying something like, 'Why do people love those who are not in love with them? Is that not madness? Does a man go to the airport to pick up his brother when he has no brother?' It was madness, but we all still did it. Even when I could see the hopelessness, when I knew there was no chance whatsoever of getting what I wanted, I craved things, made myself sick over things. Even when I knew, no matter what I did, I couldn't have that thing.

*

I didn't disturb him, didn't want to add to any anxiety he might have with anxieties of my own.

Visualising the result you wanted from a situation, seeing it in your head helped it to come true.

*

Just like I didn't particularly like girly girls; girly girls didn't particularly like ungirly girls. Which was cool. As long as we both stuck to our respective areas of expertise - her: hair, make up, boys, me: science fiction, psychology and using my brain.

*

The route to Jess's forgiveness was, like mine, through her stomach.

*

She gave Ed a loving look, the kind of sweet look that diabetics would need an insulin overdose to get under control.

*

You're very popular with students. Although, that's not always a good thing. You're there to assist their learning, not befriend or entertain them. Students need someone to look up to, to respect, they can't do that if they think of you as nothing more than a buddy.

*

It's like everything is good underneath even if it's bad on the surface. There are lots of good vibrations.

*

I suddenly knew what it felt like to not be able to wear skirts or shorts. How much self-disgust went into bathing every day and seeing your skin marked like that. The non-physical pain of knowing that if you went out without tights everyone would stare at you in horror and fascination. No one would skip over your legs, see it and accept it. There'd be pity or disgust, never indifference. This was part of Gwen's problem. She never felt normal. She couldn't be.