Miranda froze in her place and turned her face towards the door. Standing there was a hurt and very confused Mike. Like a bucket of water had been thrown over her head, she realised the position her and Gary were in and quickly pushed him away, putting a good distance between the pair. Before she could say anything to Mike, he had already turned around and was making his way down the stairs. She went to follow, stopping only when Gary softly grabbed her arm.

"Miranda?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Let me go. I will talk to you in a minute, but I need to talk to him first." She hissed, pulling her arm out of his hold and following Mike down the stairs.

"Mike! Wait! Please, let me explain!" She called, nearly falling down the stairs as they made their way into the joke shop.

"Explain what? The fact that I caught you almost kissing another guy. Not just another guy, the guy you've been on and off with for ages according to Stevie. Was I just a distraction? A rebound, until you guys got back together again?"

"No! No, it wasn't like that," Miranda sobbed. "I thought it was well and truly over between me and him. He had Rose and I had you. And for the first time, in a long time I was happy."

"So why did you let him get that close to you? Why didn't you stop him, Miranda?" When he didn't hear a reply he scoffed, and tears started making their way down his cheeks. "You know what, you don't have to decide between me and him. I'll make it easy for you. Goodbye Quirky."

At his goodbye, Miranda looked up to see his shadow retreating, tears pouring down her face. "Marple, come back. Please…" Miranda slowly made her way back up to her apartment wanting nothing more than to be alone, only to come face-to-face with the last person she wanted to see. He had moved to her kitchen table and had a guilty look of his face, like a child caught with the biscuit tin. When he saw her, he immediately stood and moved over to her.

"Miranda, I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I think Rose plus the alcohol must have made me drunker than I thought." As he came closer to her, he saw the tears on her face and his heart broke. "What happened with Mike?"

"He broke up with me. He broke up with me because he thought I wasn't over you." She spat bitterly, walking over to her couch and sitting down dejectedly.

"Well, are you? Over me?"

"It doesn't matter if I am or not! What matters is that my boyfriend broke up with me because you couldn't bear the thought of me being happy. Why is it that when I am finally happy you are always the one who ruins it? When we decided to give us a go and then Clive let slip that you were married. When I had moved on from you and met Danny then you decided to come back. And now, with Mike."

In her little rant Gary had moved to sit next to her on the couch and put his face in his hands.

"What do you want me to do Miranda? Turn my feelings off? Because I've tried and it doesn't work. I tried it when you said you wanted to move on, I tried it when you got with Mike but as you can tell, it never works. It just ends with people hating me: Stevie, Rose, your mum and…now you."

"I don't hate you Gary." She reassured him. "I mean I really want to, but I just can't hate you. You're my best friend."

"What a mess we've made of things huh?" Gary chuckled, putting an arm round her and pulling her close. "I don't know about you, but I could really do with some wine right now." He murmured, causing Miranda to chuckle.

"Coming right up."

Miranda groaned as she heard her alarm clock ring. As she blindly waved her arm about to turn it off, she hit a hard surface and jumped as she heard it groan. She opened her eyes and met with dark brown pools.

"Oh god!"

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