p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"Episode 1: The Gingerbread incident/strong/span/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"So this is me./strong/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"I've been told it was good to start writing when your life turns into a burning ball of flames… Since mine is an utter train wreck at the moment, I figured sharing this mess could be beneficial. At least it can't hurt. I guess./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Funny how things turn sour so quickly. One month ago I remember, I was buying some amazing cupcakes at the Broadway Market and sipping hot cocoa as I wandered in the alleys of that Saturday's Wonderland. I was happy and peaceful, life was smooth and sweet as the toffee buttercream. I ran my little tea house, came back to this beautiful old Victorian mansion I called home to lay in the arms of the beautiful Irish baker I called my boyfriend. There was em style="box-sizing: inherit;"literally/em not a single bump in the road./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Maybe that's where it all went wrong. I mean, something that goes so well has to crash and burn at some point. Look at Icarus. strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"Look at the Spice Girls/strong. One can't fly so close to the sun for so long. But I had imagined Tone and I would split by our late 40's, after our middle-lives crisis when I would have shamelessly shagged a hot young stud in a back-alley… or something approaching./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;" /p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;" /p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Yes, I always thought I would be the one bailing on the whole monogamy ever-after thing. Tone never seemed like the cheating type, with his ginger beard and pretty freckles, and those big hands shaped by hundreds of hours kneading breads. He was quiet and loving. Simple, true, down to earth. Always had the sweetest smile, sparkling green eyes and this warm embrace that made me feel like I was in the safest place in the world. I mean, the man has baked me a special elephant-shaped bread for each of my birthdays, for the last 6 years. Need I say more?/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Turns out all this time he was doing something else than kneading bread in that warm kitchen of his. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 a.m., cinnamon rolls raised in the oven and he brought the baguette to his French whore of an apprentice./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Oh, well./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"You should have seen his face when he finally had the buns to come clean. I remember I came home that Thursday afternoon and sat on the couch to snuggle, but he was still covered in flour and sweat./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;""em style="box-sizing: inherit;"We need to talk/em" he said./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;""em style="box-sizing: inherit;"Go take a shower first/em" I replied. "em style="box-sizing: inherit;"The house looks like someone murdered a bag of flour./em"/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"He chuckled and walked to the door without a word, then dropped it like it didn't matter anymore:/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;""em style="box-sizing: inherit;"I had sex with another woman/em."/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;""em style="box-sizing: inherit;"What was she made of? Short bread?/em" I replied, but he didn't laugh along, and stared at me instead with those big puppy eyes. That long sorry face./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;""em style="box-sizing: inherit;"You're… You're not kidding…/em" I realised, way too late./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Queue the most pathetic argument of my life, filled with all the words I had sworn myself I would never say like/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: center;""How could you?",/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: center;""why would you?",/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: center;""you said you loved me",/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: center;""who is she?",/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: center;""I want to know"./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Why do we even say this? Nobody fucking wants to know. Why would I want to know who was the woman he screwed twice a week for seven month? So that I can go and bang her stupid French nose against a wall? So that I can give her the "I am better than you, bitch" look every time I see her in the street? So that I can avoid her altogether, like the sad, shameful ex girlfriend she helped me turn into? She didn't matter then and doesn't matter more now. But at that moment, I thought she did. I thought it was her fault. Had she never stepped into his bakery, maybe my sweet, funny, kind-hearted boyfriend of six years wouldn't have committed such a despicable betrayal./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;" /p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Truth is, and you all know it by now, he probably would have. Because no matter how good our lives are, we always feel something is missing. Maybe he wanted to feel that thrill again, maybe he wanted to prove something to himself. To me. To the world. Or maybe not. After all, who cares?/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;" /p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"After spending an entire evening crying and yelling, we called time of death on our perfect relationship, and everything quickly followed it into the grave. That house we had bought together, that life we had planned together. I know he moved in with three friends in Dalston, and here I am, writing this sitting in my parents' bathroom because it apparently is the only place where I can catch a break. You'll understand my pain if you have ever had to deal with an Indian mum whose hopes and dreams for grand-children have been smashed into pieces. It's as if the Destiny of the World lied in the fact of me giving birth to another human. If it does, start investing into the Mars program, people, because we aren't getting salvation anytime soon./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Anyways./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"I feel eighteen again. Back home. Back to Clapton. To Pre-Tonian Times./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Oh my God I will have to find an apartment again!/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"I can only hope that 2016 will be kinder to me, and leave this shitstorm to 2015. You bet I'll survive?/p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Well not just yet, though. First I'll still cry buckets over my cheating liar of an ex-boyfriend every time anybody will mention gingerbread. Or shortbread. Or just bread. And I'll eat tons of breakup cookies, because that's what Ladies do in such desperate situations./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Also, I have a French whore's face to smash to the ground. Because that's what Hackney girls do in such situations./p
p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; color: #777777; font-family: Vollkorn, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;"Damn it that writing thing actually works./p
p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"span lang="EN-US"[the continuation of the story is available at .com]/span/p