Love Offline

by Olivia Spring

  It was funny as, not long after that, as if the universe was giving us a taste of what was to come, when we’d stopped for a quick kiss, we’d spotted a guy in the distance taking a photo of us.

  ‘Paps,’ tutted Josh.

  ‘Wow, really? You must be famous now if you’ve got them following you!’

  ‘Nah. They probably just think I’m someone else. Thankfully, my life isn’t what the magazines would consider exciting enough to be interested in me. I just make music, do gigs, and apart from the occasional party that I’m persuaded to attend, I go straight back to my hotel. Hardly front-page news.’

  ‘Probably a good thing. I’d hate to be famous. All that scrutiny and people picking you apart. Imagine not being able to pop outside for a pint of milk or go to your local coffee shop without having to spend hours getting dolled up just in case some stranger takes your picture and posts it online.’ I winced.

  ‘Oooh yeah, imagine! That’s why I wouldn’t dream of stepping out without my lashes and lipstick on,’ he joked.

  ‘Very funny! You know what I mean!’

  ‘I do,’ he said as we linked arms. ‘And I totally agree. I’d hate that too.’

  We’d ignored the photographer and continued walking through the park. We’d gone to the Empire State building, then taken the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty. I’d seen it all before, but it was different with Josh. Seeing the sights hand in hand, kissing, cuddling and laughing—it was so romantic. I’d felt like I was in an American romcom. It really was the perfect day.

  And then in the blink of an eye, it was Monday and the fairy-tale weekend was all but over. After we’d woken up early to have breakfast and spent a few amazing hours together, Josh had left to go to the studio to prepare for his big recording session with Sasha. I’d packed my case, jumped in the taxi to catch my afternoon flight and was now on the plane, London bound.

  I would sleep well tonight. With all the walking, the farewell sex sessions we’d had last night and this morning and generally a full-on few days, I was shattered. Probably wasn’t a bad thing, as I was already missing Josh, so at least if I was sleeping, I wouldn’t be thinking about him and feeling sad.

  I would text him when I got home to let him know I’d got back safely, have a shower and then go straight to bed. A long, blissful sleep was exactly what I needed to ensure I woke up feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to face the world in the morning.

  I smiled to myself. What a wonderful weekend I’d had with my wonderful boyfriend. I thought back to that singles’ party and how I’d believed that all men were dogs. How embarrassing. And now look. Since then, Kat had met a decent man and so had I.

  At last I was able to think about planning a happy future with someone special. I was a million miles away from the boring existence I had before, where I did nothing but stare at my phone and stay cooped up at home all day. I had new friends, new hobbies and had met the one. My life was finally exciting. Like a beautiful love story, in a sweet romance novel. And I couldn’t wait to turn the page to find out what happened next.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It’s too early! I moaned, putting my alarm on snooze for probably the tenth time. 9.30 a.m. meant it was 4.30 a.m. in New York, so technically I should stay in bed for another five hours, right? I just wasn’t ready to get up and return to real life yet. Just ten more minutes…

  I was about to close my eyes when I heard a noise.

  What was that? Sounded like someone was trying to open my front door.

  Shit.

  Josh! Maybe it was him. He had a key to my flat. No. He’d given it back before he’d left because he didn’t want to lose it. Said he’d like to have it again when he returned. And hello? He was in America right now.

  So if it wasn’t Josh, then who the hell…

  ‘Chloe?’ I said as she peeped her head round my bedroom door. ‘You frightened the life out of me! What are you doing here? Not that I’m not pleased to see you. It’s just you haven’t been here since…you haven’t used your key for what? Nearly seven months? Not since, in your words, I was a quivering mouse crying over Eric! Well, I’m glad you’re here.’ I sat upright. ‘Actually, it’s quite poignant that you are. Or should that be ironic? I always get those two words mixed up. Anyway, you’d be so proud of me. I went to New York and had an amazing time with Josh. I was fearless! I didn’t overthink—well, not as much as usual anyway—and I even acted calmly and left him to hang out with Sasha—yes, the Sasha—at some showbiz party whilst I went back to the hotel. I mean, talk about progress. Especially as she’s ridiculously beautiful and lovely. She seems so cool and…’

  I paused.

  Why wasn’t Chloe talking?

  Why was she staring at me like that? Perhaps she was overwhelmed with my rambling?

  Still in silence, she reached in her bag and took out a container filled with cake and placed it on my bedside table.

  Chloe had bought cake. And she’d come to my flat unexpectedly at 9.30—in the morning, when she knew I was positively not a morning person at the best of times. Never mind after an eight-hour flight, when I’d be suffering from jet lag.

  Chloe had come to my flat after staying away for months. She hadn’t rung the doorbell either. She’d let herself in. Something she’d only ever do in an emergency. And she hadn’t said a word. Not even hello.

  Something was wrong. Chloe only usually brought me a lot of cake if it was my birthday, or to cheer me up if there’d been bad news, and unless I was more jetlagged than I thought, it was definitely not my birthday.

  And she never brought a container that big. Or that much cake. There was enough there for ten people. This was bad.

  Very, very, very bad.

  ‘Chloe? What’s wrong?’ I jumped up out of the bed. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything? Is there something wrong? Has someone died?’

  ‘I think you’d better sit back down.’

  ‘Why? Did the world come to an end whilst I was asleep and we’re the last known survivors?’ I chuckled. Her expression turned to stone.

  ‘Sit down, Em, and here, have some cake.’ She opened the box. There was chocolate cake and carrot cake.

  Oh Jesus.

  Code red, people. We have a code red.

  If a problem was low to medium on the disaster scale, then Chloe would bring a simple Victoria sponge or banana loaf. But chocolate cake, with her salted caramel icing? She hadn’t even pulled out that showstopper when I’d seen Eric’s proposal on social media, and in my eyes that was at the severe end of the shitty scale. This could only mean World War III is about to erupt. Imminently.

  No. It must be worse than that, because I spotted brownies too. Whatever it was must be so bad, she needed to bring extra backup.

  Shit.

  ‘Seriously, Chloe. You’re really starting to freak me out. Chocolate cake, brownies and carrot cake? What’s going on? Please, can you just tell me!’

  ‘Okay, okay, but please sit down,’ she said softly. ‘You’re really going to need to.’

  ‘Fine.’ I climbed back onto the bed. ‘I’m sitting down.’

  ‘Good. Good. Um…well, I was dropping Archie to school and you know kids, heads always buried in their phones. That’s why I don’t like technology. Damaging in so many ways. But he was the one that saw it. He showed me briefly, you know, on his phone whilst I’d stopped at the traffic lights, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I had to pull over. But then I was worried that we’d be late, so…’

  She’s waffling. Chloe doesn’t waffle.

  ‘Chloe! Can you just get to the point, please!’ I snapped, terrified about what she was going to say next.

  ‘Okay, okay. Do you have your phone or the iTablet thing in here, or maybe we could go to the computer in your office and we can—’

  ‘I’ve got my phone, right here.’

  ‘Okay. But before you do a search and look, I just want to say that maybe it’s a mistake. This is what I mean about technology. It can be so�
��’

  ‘Chloe!’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, type in Sasha kisses new mystery man…’

  I felt my heart stop.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I think you heard what I said. Would you like me to do it for you?’ she said, reaching for my phone.

  ‘No!’ I said, snatching it back. ‘I’m perfectly capable of typing a few stupid words into Google.’

  My hands started shaking as I punched in the letters. I honestly don’t know what Sasha’s love life has got to do with me, I lied to myself as I started to put the pieces of the puzzle together and understand why Chloe had felt the need to race round here.

  As I pressed the ‘go’ button, my stomach churned and my heart began beating faster.

  I clicked on a link and there it was.

  Oh my God.

  That’s Sasha.

  With Josh.

  Kissing.

  I dropped the phone on the floor and got to the bathroom just in time before I threw up.

  The whole room began to spin. My heart was now beating out of my chest, my stomach was pulsing as another wave of nausea rose through my body.

  Then came the tears. Chloe came and sat beside me and stroked my shoulders, then held my hair back as I threw up again.

  ‘Here,’ she said, taking a tissue and wiping around my mouth before pulling me into her so I could cry on her shoulder.

  ‘Tell me this isn’t happening, Chloe,’ I pleaded. ‘Not Josh. Please not Josh too! Please! No!’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you through this.’

  ‘But why again? Why does this keep happening to me? What did I do wrong? I thought he loved me. I really thought this was it. That he was the one. And then he cheats on me? I hadn’t even been gone five minutes and he does this? Why?’

  ‘You’d really have to ask him.’

  ‘And here I was just telling you how brilliant I’d been by trusting him and leaving him alone with her! What a joke. Maybe that’s when it all started. After I left the party. Maybe Bruce and Adrian went home and she invited Josh back to her place to talk and he was so in awe of the woman he’d had a massive crush on for decades that he jumped at the chance. Oh my God! How could I have been so stupid! Maybe when I woke up and he was in the shower he’d only just got home from screwing her. It was about seven a.m. I was so out of it I didn’t even realise!’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I was sure Josh was one of the good ones.’

  ‘So was I! What a fool. And can you believe it?’ I said, jumping up from the floor and storming back into the bedroom. ‘That first night in the pub, he told me he’d never cheated on a woman, never ever in his entire life. Can you believe that? Mr Hotness had always been faithful? Likely story! I knew it sounded farfetched. “I would never cheat on my lady,” he said. What a load of utter bollocks! And I fell for it! Hook, line and sinker.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can! I should have known not to trust him. I can’t trust anyone. Not Eric, not him. In fact, Josh is worse than Eric. Josh pretended to be nice and that he loved me more than anything in the world. He made me fall so deeply in love with him. He knew what I’d been through with Eric and then he went and did this!’

  ‘Have some cake, it’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘The only thing that will make me feel better right now is a heart transplant. This one I’ve got right now is well and truly crushed. Dead.’

  ‘Oh, Em. Don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s true! Look!’ I said, picking up my phone again. ‘That’s supposed to be my boyfriend. So why is her perfect face pressed against his? Let’s see what it says shall we?’

  ‘Don’t. No good can come from doing that. You’re just torturing yourself…’ I started talking over her as I read the article out loud.

  Sasha Smooches with New Mystery Man

  The world’s most successful female artist of all time was spotted getting up close and very personal with her handsome new man at New York’s Owl in a Tux bar last night.

  Sasha looked smitten as the pair whispered sweet nothings in each other’s ears all night before leaving the club together at midnight.

  Sources say the mystery man, believed to be British breakthrough artist Josh Carter, have become increasingly close in recent days, since he came to the States to begin his first US solo tour. A friend said: ‘They met at a party after one of his sell-out shows and instantly clicked. They couldn’t take their eyes off each other and things escalated from there…’

  ‘Oh, I can’t read any more of this, Chloe.’ I tossed my phone on the duvet. ‘It’s too much!’

  I collapsed on the bed sobbing again. My phone started ringing.

  ‘I think you might want to get this call.’ She passed it to me.

  ‘I can’t speak to anyone right now!’

  ‘But it’s Josh…’

  ‘I definitely don’t want to speak to that lying, cheating bastard. He can sod right off. Go and live in Hollywood with that bitch.’ I sobbed. ‘That’s what makes it even harder. I thought she was nice. I’m so gullible. At least that Nicole was a bimbo. But this was Sasha. Voted the most beautiful woman in the world a zillion times. I don’t know if that makes it worse or better that I’ve been traded in for her. I suppose he’s human after all. Why have plain old me when he could have the woman every man fantasises about?’

  ‘Stop that right now! Just because she’s famous, that does not make her better than you! Being rich and selling lots of records doesn’t make her some kind of superior species. She still shits and farts like the rest of us. The only difference is that she wipes her bottom with more expensive toilet paper! Don’t you ever put yourself down like that again. If Josh has done something with her, then just like Eric, you’re better off without him. Rather you find out now than waste years of your life like you did with that other tallywag. Come here,’ she said, pulling me to rest my head on her shoulder again and stroking my hair.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Chloe. To break the news to me.’

  ‘I wish there wasn’t a need for me to do it, Em, but as soon as I saw it I had to come. It was going to hurt however you found out, but I hoped that at least by being here I could help soften the blow a little.’

  ‘I probably wouldn’t even have found out for ages. I don’t watch TV, I listen to Spotify all day rather than the radio and I hardly use social media anymore.’

  ‘Good. Definitely keep it that way. Especially for the next few days. Definitely stay off social media. You really don’t need to read that vile flimflam.’

  I paused.

  Was she speaking generally, or about something she’d seen or heard specifically?

  ‘Chloe? Is there something else you’ve seen? Something else you’re not telling me?’

  She bowed her head. Not like her to be lost for words.

  ‘Yes. There is. But like I said, it’s best you don’t see it. It will only upset you unnecessarily…’

  ‘What? Upset me more than I am already?’

  ‘Yes. Quite possibly.’

  I picked up my phone. It had been ages since I’d been on Twitter. Not since last week. Or maybe even the week before? I did a search for Sasha. A flood of tweets came up. I scanned them quickly.

  @Sasha’s new man is hot…

  @Sasha—yes Queen!

  Clearly from fans. Then I came across a post from what looked like a tabloid

  @Sasha’s new man dumps girlfriend to be with her

  Then underneath there was a photo. The photo of us in Central Park. I was in the photo. The post that included my image was on social media with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments. I clicked to read them.

  He definitely upgraded!

  No wonder he left her ugly ass. Aint no one who can compare to Sasha! #Queen

  Damn! Look at the size of her butt! Maybe if she went on a diet, he wouldn’t have left her.

  Look at her frizzy hair. Lol!

 
; The insults went on and on. The tears streamed down my face.

  When I’d said last night that I wanted a good sleep so that I would be ready to face the world in the morning, this was definitely not what I’d had in mind.

  I’d thought I’d experienced pain when I’d gone through the break-up with Eric. But that was nothing. That didn’t even register on the scale of complete and utter heartbreak I was feeling now. Even if you laid me down on a bed of a million nails, then got a hundred people to jump on me, set me on fire, then left me to burn a slow death, I could never feel as horrendous as I was right now.

  Not only had the love of my life cheated on me and ripped out my heart in the process, but an army of evil trolls were picking away at every part of me. Laughing and ridiculing me and how I looked for their own entertainment. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I couldn’t delete the image of me and retouch it before posting again. I couldn’t decide to delete the photo altogether. It brought back all of the insecurities I’d worked so hard to fight. I was vulnerable. Powerless. Chloe was right. Social media could be toxic.

  Oh my God. My parents! What if they saw this?

  And my clients!

  Shit.

  Josh called again.

  I cancelled the call.

  He called back.

  I pressed cancel.

  He called again.

  Cancel.

  Then he texted.

  Josh

  Em, answer your phone. Something’s happened that I need to explain.

  Me

  Fuck off, Josh!

  Me

  I hate you!

  * * *

  ‘What are you typing?’ asked Chloe.

  ‘Nothing important. I’ve just told Josh to sod off, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should talk to him?’

  ‘Why? That’s the same thing Eric wanted to do after I walked in on him. Talk? What the hell was there to talk about when Eric was there naked inside another woman? Same thing with Josh. I’ve seen the pictures. He told me himself that he thought she was hot. What else is there to say? He idolised her, they kissed and goodness knows what else.’