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A taste of 'The Better Part of Love'

Here’s a piece from one of the stories in my upcoming second book, a collection of short stories titled ‘The Better Part of Love’. All of the stories in the book deal with some aspect of love or relationships and I think it’s going to offer everyone something they’ll enjoy and hopefully think about.

The story this piece is from is ’ The Lie in the telling’ and this is about a guy called Steven who has, very foolishly, just cheated on his amazing girlffriend, Allie, and now is having an attack of the guilts and isn’t sure what to do. His first impulse is to tell her but he decides to talk to a few people first who will be able to offer him different perspectives.

I had a lot of fun with this one and all the characters took over their bits with their dialogue so hopefully you will all get something out of it.

And was it even worth it? I mean, is it ever?
If you weigh everything you stand to lose up against any possible gain then ‘no’. It very rarely was. You have one drunken night of messy sex with a strange girl which in turn puts everything you have built up with your long-term girlfriend at risk. Not really the smartest thing to do. But it was never really about smarts.
Steven knew it had been a mistake the moment he left the girl’s apartment. The weight of memories of him and Allie overwhelmed him. The girl he had fallen in love with and their first few dates. He remembered them moving in together, those first few incredible nights.
And now he had cheated on her.
All those promises to be true to each other, to be honest with each other.
‘And no matter what, we will always be honest. ‘
‘Honesty is something I take so seriously. ‘
‘Because if we don’t have honesty, what do we have left? ‘
‘ If we start lying to each other, it’s over.’
‘Actually, honesty is something I just peed all over last night. Sorry about that. ‘
Fuck.

Score-Card: Steven’s internal conscience says to tell Allie.

He sat on a rock, overlooking the wooded area of their apartment complex. Allie was gone to work already. Just thinking about her right now made him feel like such a shit.
Actually, there was no feeling. He just was a shit, right now.
Ugh. He was also a hungry shit.
He hated not knowing which way to go.
He felt awful and wanted to feel better.
He wanted to make it up to Allie, but of course that would mean that he would have to make her feel bad in the first place so that he could then try to make her feel better. His head wasn’t in the right place for such torturous circular logic right now