The Dare Collection: May 2018. Clare Connelly

       PROLOGUE

       In what distant deeps or skies

       Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

       On what wings dare he aspire?

       What the hand, dare seize the fire?

       —William Blake

      SHE HAS GOT to be kidding me.

      I stare at the screen one last time, checking that the Tweet actually exists. And there it is. One hundred and forty characters reaching through time and space to slam me hard over the head.

      I’m getting married! @_TheRealTomBanks asked and obv I said yes!!! Couldn’t be happier! #soinlove #dreamsdocometrue #happyeverafter

      I curl my fingers around my phone, tempted to pitch the damned thing into the street. Only the thought of the personal information I keep stored in it stops me from being so reckless. The press would have a field-day if they found my phone lying in the gutter.

      How can she still screw with me even now, three months after we ‘took a break’?

      Then again, isn’t this so like Sienna? Sienna who’s had six years of my life. Sienna whom I thought I loved. Sienna who is now engaged to another man.

      Fractured memories of our last months together assault me from all angles; they are blades of mirrored glass, shards through my mind, tormenting me every which way, pricking me with exquisite ecstasy.

      It was a nightmare.

      And yet it was my life.

      The nightmare has ended and I don’t know if I remember how to live.

      I need a drink. And I need to get Sienna the hell out of my head once and for all. And I can think of a really good way to kill two birds with one stone.

      The bar is hardly my usual scene. It’s retro, but in an authentic way, which I guess means the décor hasn’t been updated since the early nineties. There’s peeling linoleum in the corner of the bar, where I prop my arms and hunch down, not wanting to attract attention to myself.

      #happyeverafter, my ass.

      I order a beer, barely noticing the recognition that flickers across the guy’s face. I’m used to being recognised. So is Sienna. Which makes it even harder to believe she’s been able to keep this relationship secret. Not just from me, but the world.

      A frown gravels across my jaw. No, she didn’t keep the whole thing secret. They’re friends. Just friends. She’s told me that a dozen times. And I bought it.

      Was she fucking him at the same time she was me? Jesus. Was that why she ended it? She told me she needed space to figure herself out and I bought it. Space? Space?

      After six years together she doesn’t even have the fucking decency to give me a heads-up that she’s with someone else?

      Nausea rolls in my gut.

      I don’t particularly ascribe to the rock and roll lifestyle, but tonight I want to write myself off. I want to get hammered. I want to get drunk. I want to get fall-down pissed.

      I need to forget about Sienna somehow.