Illusive

“So tell me about this dude. He must be hot for you to break that rule. Have you got a photo? I need to see what he looks like!” she exclaimed. I was sure red blushed across my entire face, and it must have because she pointed at me and asked, “Did you take a sneaky photo of a man?”

I covered my face with my hand and nodded. I’d never done something like it in my life, but I hadn’t been able to resist a photo of Griff while he slept the other morning. “Yes.”

She put her hand out. “Give me your phone. I need to see this photo.”

I found the photo on my phone and passed it to her. “See why I broke my rule?”

Her eyes widened and she looked at me in disbelief. “Holy fuck, Sophia, this dude’s way hot. Are you sure he’s not interested in seeing you again? I’d be doing everything in my power to get him if I was you.”

“Trust me, he’s not interested in me. I’ve practically thrown myself at him, and made a fool of myself numerous times, but we won’t talk about that… he’s made it clear he only wanted one night.” A thought hit me. “God, for all I know, he probably thought the sex was bad… I hadn’t even thought of that until now.”

She stared at me for a moment. Handing my phone back to me, she said, “Geez, this relationship stuff never gets easier, does it?”

Laughing, I said, “It probably does for women who have their ‘man-shit’ together, but I don’t, so it’s not getting any easier for me.”

“What is ‘man-shit’?”

I glared at her. “Are you making fun of me?”

She held her hands up defensively and shook her head. “No! You just say the funniest things sometimes, and I don’t always know what you mean.”

“When you’ve got your ‘man-shit’ together, you’re good with men. You know those women who seem to effortlessly flirt with a man and always seem to know the exact right thing to say to them? They’re the women with it all together. That is not me. I open my mouth and the crap that comes out of it makes men run…I’m sure of it. I kid you not, I’ve been in a bar before trying to flirt and after I’ve said something totally cringe-worthy, I’ve watched as the guy’s eyes glaze over and then he excuses himself and I never see him again.”

Her expression had turned soft, and she gave me a huge smile before saying, “I love having you as a sister. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have to teach me about ‘man-shit’ and how to take sneaky photos of men while they sleep.”

I laughed and then she started, too.

And I realised that even on shitty days when nothing seemed to be going your way, it was the little moments with those you cared about that could help pick you up, dust off your hurt and get you ready to go back out into the world.

* * *

The next morning, I dressed to impress for work. I’d slept fairly badly, but I was determined that today was going to be a good day, and I’d always had good days when I dressed well and looked good. So that’s how I decided to start this day. I wore a red pencil skirt that sat just below my knees, a white, fitted blouse that – if I did say so myself – made my boobs look freaking awesome, and red stilettos. I curled my long, blonde hair into soft curls that fell over my shoulders, and paid more attention to my makeup than I usually did for work – almost the same level of attention I would pay to it if I were going out for the night.

I was running on time, I’d made my lunch, which meant I didn’t have to spend money on it, and everything was going well as I headed out to my car. And then everything turned to shit.

As I backed the car out of the driveway, something didn’t feel right, so I pulled up in the driveway, and got out to check my suspicions. I was right – one of my tyres was flat.

Argh!

I had been shown how to change a tyre once in my life, a very long time ago, and I was sure that if I attempted to do it now, I’d screw it up. I recalled something about chocks and jacking, and not much else. Knowing my luck, the car would roll down the freaking street.

I wanted to throw my hands in the air and scream out an obscenity, but instead, I pulled out my phone and googled how to change a tyre. How To Change A Tyre – For Dummies came up and I figured that was as good a place as any to start. I scrolled through the instructions and it actually didn’t sound that hard. Surely, I could do this.

The first thing it said to do was block the wheels at the opposite end of the flat tyre so the car didn’t roll. Bingo! I was on a winner here – my car would not roll while I changed this damn tyre. And luckily, I had some spare bricks in my back yard, so I headed out there to grab them. Everything was going great guns until my bloody stiletto wedged itself in the grass and as I tried to walk, the shoe didn’t want to come with me, and I tripped. And I landed on the mound of dirt I’d recently had delivered. Landed, as in, face first, body flat against the tiny hill of dirt.

I hate my life!

Like seriously, could this week get any worse?

I pushed myself up and dusted off all the dirt I could, but I was going to have to change outfits now because this one looked like it was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. I bet I looked like I was fighting goddamn zombies.

Grabbing the bricks, I carried them out to the front yard. I briefly considered calling the RACQ to come and change the tyre for me, but I figured I could do it much faster.

I placed the bricks where my instructions told me to and then checked what I had to do next. It involved a screwdriver so I quickly ran inside to find one. Five minutes later, I had the wheel cover off the flat tyre, and was secretly proud of myself for getting this far.