I’m having a lot of days right now where I’m just really sick and tired of bloody life. This is yet another of them.

In general I could talk about my overly strenuous job and the way Alex is being insanely pushy about this promotion offer. The fact that I would have to rearrange my entire plans to stay in the country on a more permanent basis and sort out a new work permit and all that seems to have completely passed him by; it’s a bigger decision than he seems to think it is. I could also talk about the way I’m fed up of all the rude people I seem to attract in this city – most of them working in the same building – but mostly I’m pissed at Justin. What else is new? Between stupid banking lines and blowing so sodding hot and cold, Justin could set a new world record for pissing me off.

We slept together. We were drunk, we’d both had a shitty night out which only got better once we’d managed to find each other and leave that godforsaken party, and we fell into bed. I don’t understand why he is turning this into some huge deal, or freaking out that I suggested hooking up. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t we spend a good deal of last summer in bed together? That worked just fine, no strings and no commitments and no stupid head games or making it into something bigger than it was, so why one year later does it have to be any different? If I had known he was going to go all 90210 about it then I would never have asked (what can I say, a big part of the original attraction was him not behaving like a teenage girl about it - it’s only sex).

Sure, my ego was momentarily bruised when it became clear that he was avoiding both me and the issue afterwards. My anger’s about way more than that though; I count on Justin to be the one uncomplicated thing in my life. With Justin there’s supposed to be no stress, no drama, only two people who have a good time together hanging out and occasionally taking a little moral support from each other. Even if he was going to turn down any future bedroom action, all he had to do was tell me no and forget about it. Instead, he’s rambling about bubbles and expiry dates and where he lives and I had not a single bloody clue what he was going on about. All I know is that he was very high pitched and has been very standoffish ever since, and I resent it.

I mean God, how many men would kill for some no pressure hook ups?

In fact, you know what, I lied; my ego is sore right now. We get along great, I know he’s attracted to me, we had good sex, and not last summer he was telling me that if he didn’t have to go home then we could have had a fun time seeing where things went. Well… now’s your chance, kiddo. Nobody’s putting any stress on it, this time we have time and there’s not thousand of miles between our places of residence any more. He was the one who apparently has me on the brain so hard that he inadvertently cast my lookalike in his stupid music video. So what gives? Where the hell is this inexplicable and irritating attitude coming from? Am I all of a sudden not good enough because I’m actually here and available?

“Addy, does this give me cankles?”

I have no idea how an item of clothing could give you cankles, you either have those or you don’t, but I shake my head at Lily as she steps out of her dressing room and models for me. I suppose I really ought to concentrate on the friend I’m here with and who isn’t currently behaving like a total stranger.

“No, but I hate the ruffles.”

“You hate the ruffles?” Lily picks at them with one hand. “I was going for girlish.”

“Yeah, but it’s too far into girlish. Like, we would have thought it was the shit during our legwarmers phase girlish.”

“Oh. Enough said.” She rushes back into the changing room to remove the offending garment and try on the next.

Lily is another thing annoying me right now. The topic of Lily, not Lily herself – if that sounds contradictory then let me explain. Lily herself is trying ever so hard to make up for that weird little period of estrangement. Between the party and all the places she’s dragging me out to she’s trying way too hard and totally misreading the situation, but I couldn’t possibly be irritated with her for it because clearly she just loves me and wants to fix things. That’s not annoying, it’s sweet – though in a slightly hopeless ‘what am I gonna do with you’ way. The topic of her frustrates me though because even though we seem to be talking more, we’re communicating less than ever. I feel like she and I are two totally different tracks right now and though we may seem to be moving towards each other, what we’re actually doing is setting ourselves up to speed right on past without ever actually meeting in the middle.

She wants to go left, I want to go right. She wants to go shopping and to dinner, I want a movie and a takeout. We used to be incredibly in sync without ever having to try to be; we could be apart for months at a time while she was in England and I was on Adora, but two minutes in the same room and it was like we’d both been there the entire time. Lately, it feels like we’re struggling even to get in the same vague area and it’s incredibly frustrating. I miss how natural it was. It’s not for lack of trying, but we don’t seem to be talking each other’s language at the moment and it kills me because Lily’s like a sister to me. Not breezing through friendship with her is like… like forgetting how to use a knife and fork. Incomprehensible and unthinkable, and yet you don’t realise how much you need them until you’re stuck trying to cut a sirloin without cutlery.

“How about this?” Lily saunters back out and she knows without me telling her that she looks great – hence the sauntering.

“Perfect. Very Victoria Beckham.”

“Does that mean it makes me look really skinny?”

That wasn’t what I meant, actually, but truth be told it is very slimming. “It gives you a nice shape.”

“Done, I’m having it.” She sweeps back into the changing room and pulls the curtain shut with a flourish. “So what do you want to do now mission’s accomplished? Shall we see if anything worth watching’s on at the flicks?”

I consider this for a moment. Personally my feet hurt and I’m bored and want to go home already, we’ve been out all day and I’m knackered, but then sitting in the dark for two hours would I suppose be as much a rest as sitting on the couch back at the apartment. It would also make Lily feel more like we’d been out and done something than if we stayed in.

“Works for me.”

“Wicked!” Even without seeing her, I can tell she’s smiling brightly. I do love her and want to make her happy, I do. I want to be social; I want to be a good friend. It’s only… sometimes it feels like a hell of a lot of effort for something that used to come as second nature. Is this merely a phase or am I changing, somehow? “You want to invite Justin?”

This is another way in which she’s annoying me right now. In a bid to be welcoming and accommodating of my new friends, she keeps offering to invite Justin along everywhere. Problem is I haven’t exactly told her that I’m narked off with the little git.

“Oh he’ll be in meetings or photo shoots or some boring thing like that,” I say airily. “Besides, I’m in chick flick mood.”

I thought I’d done really well with the breezy tone, but she’s poked her head around the curtain and is gazing at me through narrowed eyes. I’d forgotten that she’s Lily and impossible to hide things from.

“I detect a tone.”

“There’s no tone.”

She disappears again, clearly mindful that she needs to get out of there because the attendant’s glaring at us. We have been in here a while; though I’m hoping Lily remembers not to say anything which would tip her off that we’re talking about a famous Justin and not just any old guy who happens to be named Justin.

“There is so a tone.”

“Is not.”

“I don’t care how childish it is; I will say ‘is too’ if you keep that up.”

“Gah. I hate you.”

“I love you too.”

Finally she emerges, ignoring the death ray stare from the attendant and pushing me back out onto the shop floor. It only takes five minutes to pay for her purchase and leave the shop, which is five blissful minutes free from the Lily Inquisition – which I’m willing to bet is far more effective than the Spanish variety. It’s this freaky ability she has to prise anything out of you. I’ve often wondered why they don’t make her a spy; she could extract state secrets in no time.

“So what’s with the tone? Boy issue?”

“Oh, he’s just being… blah.” Futile though it is, I’ll attempt not to give all away too easily.

“What’s he done now?”

“Oh, he’s being… I don’t know. Standoffish.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“That was not very convincing. You know and you don’t want to tell me. And if you don’t want to tell me, that either means you did something bad that you feel guilty for or you had sex and you’re embarrassed.”

“Huh… wha?” As hard as I’m trying, I can’t seem to complete any words or phrases.

“You had sex then, okay…” I have to say, for such a revelation she does seem to be treating this in a very matter of fact manner. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say she’d been expecting this… wait, do I know better? Was she expecting this? I’m so confused. “So what’s the issue?”

“Fine, I give up, you win… we had sex and he seems to think it’s some bad thing that’s going to totally change our relationship in a bad way.”

“Well will it?” It’s a sensible question I suppose, but the way Lily’s watching my face lets me know that she will be reading into whatever answer I give her.

“I don’t see why. We’ve been involved before and it was never heavy or some big deal. It’s not like we don’t like each other. You’d think it would be easier not having some deadline over your head knowing it’s a holiday romance and you have to go home soon, but he was talking about bubbles and best before dates and I had a really hard time following him.”

“What if that’s the problem?” Lily asks. “Maybe he just found it easier to deal with knowing there was an end to it and the idea that if it happened again it might be something more is freaking him out? You know how even the vague spectre of commitment scares boys.” She loops her arm through mine before shrugging. “Did you tell him about Alex’s offer?”

“More or less, in among the whining about how Alex is a total pain who expects a decision too quick.”

“Well maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s scared that it’s going to get into the dreaded ‘exclusive’ territory or something and he doesn’t want it to go that way. Or maybe he’s just worried that if he gets attached and you then decide not to stay he’ll be all heart broken.”

My brow furrows and my lips purse. “You do realise those are two pretty opposite things? One being about not wanting a relationship and the other about wanting it?”

“Well now you mention it… yeah, I guess they are.”

“So really, you’re about as helpful as a chocolate teapot.”

“Hey.” She smiles nonchalantly. “A chocolate teapot may be no good for making tea but it’s still damn tasty. You got to think of other possibilities.”

“Like the one where you’re insane and I should really have you committed?”

“If you haven’t done it by now you never will.”

“Only because they’d probably take me in too for being friends with you.”

“You know what they say.” An evil grin comes over her face. “Good friends post bail but best friends are in the cell beside you asking how the fuck you got yourselves into this one.”

“Pah.” I just have no comeback for that one, and I’m trying not to giggle at her because then she’ll know she’s won.

“Seriously though…” She squeezes in next to me to avoid hitting a passerby with her bags. “It’s always weird emotionally when you mix yourself back up with an ex, even if it’s an ex you’re on good terms with. And this time you’re here in his town shaking up his little status quo that he’s used to. He’s worked you into things here as his friend, and now things are getting mixed back up with how you guys were on Adora. He’s probably being a dummy and freaking out that things aren’t all going to plan and staying in whatever neat little box he’s mentally shoved it into, that’s all.”

“I just…” Lily’s words do hold an air of plausibility to them, but I’m still not satisfied. “It makes no sense. Even here, we’ve always been really laid back and kind of go with the flow about each other. It’s weird that he’d freak out.”

“In which case maybe it is that he likes you and doesn’t want to get burned?” Lily suggests. “Though to be honest, I’m surprised you say that.”

“Why?”

I feel her body stiffen next to mine, and it makes me nervous. A glance at her face and the awkward expression tells me she’s let slip something I’m probably not going to like. “It’s just that… well…”

“What?”

“Ugh, you know when you have something to say which isn’t a bad thing but you know if you say it wrong it’ll sound like it?”

“Lily…” My tone tells her that delaying is not a good idea.

“It’s just that since we’ve been in LA, laid back is not a word I would use to describe you.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“See, I told you it’d sound bad!” There’s a whine in her voice which reminds me of when we were kids. “I think it’s just the pace, like you’ve said everything happens so much faster here and you’ve been so much busier. But… yeah, you just seem to be a bit more stressed here. Or at least more vocal about it. Which, like I say, isn’t a bad thing, it’s just different, and I can totally get it. Especially coming from a place like Adora where it’s impossible to get stressed out and people aren’t so abrasive as they can be over here. Like Alex, I mean, you’d never find an Alex type on Adora.”

Hmm. This is one of those things where I don’t think she’s really said anything that bad or that gives me proper cause to be pissed off with her, and yet still I am. “And that has what to do with Justin?”

“Nothing,” she squeaks. Clearly she’s worked out that she should have kept quiet. “All I meant was that if you guys have been so laid back about each other and everything’s been going one way, a sudden change like sex coming back into it would be a reasonable explanation for him flipping out. Have you talked to him about it?”

“He’s avoiding me.” As quickly as I angered, I deflate again. What’s the point of being mad with her? It’d only undo what little good work we have managed in patching things up and besides, she’s probably right as usual.

“Persevere. He’ll quit being dumb eventually.”

Maybe she’s right, maybe she’s not. But now I’m bothered less about Justin than her assessment of me.

Thing is, I don’t feel like I’m a different person than I was on Adora. I feel like all this shit is happening to me that never would over there and I have no clue how to deal with it. My internal world’s the same, it’s the external one I can’t handle. How exactly does one manage to be laid back with fifty people all wanting different things out of you at the same time, and being pressured to make huge life changes on short notice, and having a confusing relationship with a member of the opposite sex? I mean, I do think of myself as laid back, but I’m still only human. Why should I know all these answers?

Maybe not though, maybe it is me. Other people seem to love this city and thrive in all this. And heck, nobody’s life is ever going to be all smooth sailing so shouldn’t I be able to cope under heat? I took this job to branch out and travel and to do something other than take the easy road and stay in the same place doing the same thing all my life. What’s the point of experiencing nothing beyond your own front door, right? So why is it that I can’t cope with something that thousands of other people do every day? Why is everything suddenly wrong? If I’m not flying by the seat of my pants at work I’m screwing up with Lily or I’m scaring Justin away… and both those friendships are supposed to be solid. Yet I’m even making a mess of those. Whatever I try to do to fix things just seems to make everything worse.

I really don’t know what to do or think about anything any more.