My best friends girl

Waking up to the sound of the Pre-dawn chirping of the robins, blackbirds and wrens I looked over to the right side of the bed expecting to see the tattoo’d shoulders of my husband that I had been so used to seeing beside me every morning. But my bed was empty and cold. I looked over at the bedside table to see the time on the little old clock I’d had since being a child “5.51am” I sighed flumping my head back into the pillow, this was not the relaxing lie in I had promised myself on my first Saturday off in over a month! I had been working as a cleaner in a car showroom in the early mornings, running my own small cleaning business through the day and a cleaning manager in the evenings at a large national trust property, I usually started work around 5am which made sense as to why my body clock had adapted to waking up soo early. After the evening shift had finished last night at 7.30, I had run home showered and gotten myself ready to meet the girls at the pub for what was supposed to be a “quick” drink. I should have known better it’s never just 1 or 2! With a mouth as dry as the Sahara dessert I dragged myself out of bed, thudding down every step on my way, mustering up some speed as I ran to the tap glass in hand absolutely gasping for water. Dribbling down the sides of my face as I slurped water into my mouth like a student on a beer keg. I fumbled around through my clutch bag and clothes from the night before in search of my phone, after a long cold shower, I emerged finally feeling somewhat fresher to find my phone pinging incessantly from the group chat. 84 messages total. I started to scroll through them chuckling to myself. The pictures of last nights drunken antics staring to emerge. Jen coming in with a start to finish collage including a well timed toilet selfie with a big round circle drawn around what appears to be Reginas arse c***k in full view as she’s regurgitating what she had for breakfast into the toilet like a mother bird. This had me dying with laughter! Jennifer “only known as that if it’s serious, otherwise” Jen, was the funny one. She always found a way to take the piss out of everyone, weather it be a picture of you sitting in the bath wearing a shower cap, cropped to just the head and placed on the Eiffel Tower or sarcastically mocking the way you held your finger out “accidentally might I add” while drinking a cup of tea. If you wanted a laugh she was your go too girl. During the day Jen was a stay at home mum of 3 she had 2 gorgeous boys, Simon who was 8, Fin who was 5 and 1 beautiful little girl Whitney who was 2. All 3 children I considered to be like my own. Her Partner Mat was a deadbeat. He didn’t have a job or any aspiration in life, and honestly she only stayed with him because she feared that he wouldn’t stick by the children if she left. She did all the heavy lifting with the children, day and night so when she finally got an opportunity to head out with the girls which were few and far between, she made sure she yanked out that hairband and let it down with style. I continued gazing my way through the messages Regina attempting to defend her throwing up “I hadn’t had any dinner” she said and Marinda doing the usual moan that she was boiled like an egg for coming in so late. Jen hysterically mocking both of them. Regina or Reg as we called her. Was, well if I’m honest.. the stuck up one. She was also the moody one. A complete and utter control freak but that’s how we knew her and one of the things we had all come to accept and in some ways love about her in the 20+ years that we had been friends. She had recently returned from a trip to see her surgeon out in Turkey who had fixed her up with a brand new set of boobs and was already thinking about her next procedure 100% high maintenance and photos of her could only be posted if they where 100% perfect. She had a partner Charlie who had a bit of a drinking problem which was regularly one of the main topics in the group chat, like the time he had hidden his beers outside in the barbecue so that she wouldn’t know he was drinking again. We couldn’t understand why if she was so unhappy she didn’t just leave, she didn’t have any children to keep herself stuck there for and her parents would happily take her back in for a while with the 2 dogs that they had together. Marinda (mez we called her) was the gossip of the group, you knew anything you said to her would inevitably end up being spoken about at the other end of the country. Again we had all been friends for soo longs that ignoring one and others flaws came naturally. She would tend to go with the flow when we were out, almost the goofy one of the group but in a funny way. She had been living with an older man who had a fair bit of money for the last few years, he had been buying her things and giving her his bank card to go out and treat herself with whenever she liked. This was also a reoccurring theme in our group chat as every single one of us aside from her could see how strange the situation was and that she should detach herself from it and find somewhere more suitable to live with her son Gus who was 1. She was always adamant that she was not romantic in any way with this older man that she lived with but would never tell anyone who her baby’s father was. Around 3 years ago I had introduced her to someone I had been dating seriously and around 1 month after our split it emerged that she was sleeping with them. My friendship with Marinda from that point had been somewhat on the rocks, I hadn’t felt comfortable going to her house or seeing them together. This was her way out of the house that she had been living in, she couldn’t afford a home by herself and she needed someone to help provide for her and her child before she would leave. Knowing all of this made the pain of seeing them together hurt more. Our split was premature and based solely on a lack of communication, I hadn’t realised how deeply I felt and had run in the opposite direction, at the time it had felt heated but looking back on it, I feel like it was due to the level of passion we had felt for one and other and on some level perhaps I still did. But that all had to be behind me now, she was with them and there was nothing I could do. There is no way to turn back the time, my only option was to live with the regret of not airing my feelings properly. “Well.. who’s up for a Maccy’s breakfast then” I said as my first response from the now over 100 messages that I had just spent the last 45 minutes trying to catch up on. “Oi Oi good morning then sugar t**s” replied Jen. “Ahh look who’s finally joined the party” Regina replied. Joined the party? I think I was the party last night if I’m correct? I said. The antics had gone as follows.. 9.pm meet at pub for 2 or 3 drinks (+ 5 shots each) 10pm get taxi into town for another 2 or 3 drinks (+ another 3 or 4 shots each) 11.15pm Regina throws up in toilet while Jen takes selfie and Marinda chats guy up in the smoking area and I hatch elaborate plan to get the party going. 11.30 taxi arrives to ‘take everyone home’ organised by yours truly - except home was a nightclub that I absolutely knew they were to drunk to notice we were going too and not nearly as boring. 11.55 we stand outside in a queue for the club that the girls absolutely did not want to go too. 12.15 everyone is dancing and having a fabulous time, Regina is ready to go and drinking again after the spew session, Jen is snap chatting herself in the club having what appeared to be a dance off and Merinda is between the dance floor and the smoking area chatting to and dancing with the guy who had mysteriously turned up at the same club as we had come too, I am dancing around feeling relatively smug that I had made a great decision on behalf of everyone. Sometime around 3am the taxi arrives to take us all back to our actual homes. “P I can’t believe you kidn*pped me” slurred Reg “bloody cow bag, I’ve got to get up at 6 don’t you know, with the bloody kids” Jen projected at me. “I didn’t see you moaning when your were doing the bloody cha cha slide across the dance floor” I chuckled back at her. “stop it! I’m going to wet myself” she screamed at me. “Ohh Rae is going to go ballistic at me for coming home this late” moaned Marinda “Don’t you mean this early” I sarked back at her. “Don’t take the piss P, you don’t understand how pissed off she will be” she said seriously with a huge frown on her face. “Ok I’m sorry, you should have just said no and gone home if it was going to be this big of a problem. We all have homes and responsibilities to get back to Mez” I replied. I was cross that she was insinuating that I was responsible for her behaviour. “Everyone had the choice of actually going home, no one was ever a prisoner” I told them. “Don’t worry Perri, we were just joking, I had one of the best nights I’ve had in a couple of years, definitely since being pregnant with Whitney” Jen responded. “Well I wasn’t” barked Marinda just because you and your husband have split up doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have homes to go back too on time” barked Marinda. “Wow Mez that was harsh, we’re all supposed to be friends here and we’re definitely supposed to have each others backs after a nasty break up, you know exactly how awful he was to her!” Jen flared at Marinda. “I agree that was too far” said Regina. The rest of the journey was spent quietly and uncomfortably for everyone, including the driver who broke the silence when he shouted “first stop ladies”. He dropped Regina off first and we all gave her a hug goodbye. 5 or so minutes later her broke the following silence with “stop 2” this was Marinda’s stop, we gave one and other a hug and I apologised for any problems I might have caused her at home, I didn’t get much of a response just a “no problem” and then she shut the taxi door and walked inside. As soon as we drove off Jen started talking again “that was completely out of order what she said to you P, but don’t take it too seriously, we all know why you had to leave him and you did what was right for you and your daughter. No one should stay in a marriage where you are treated in that way and the fact that you have come out of the other side of it just as fun loving, crazy and amazing as you went into it is exactly why we love you Perri Roberts!” She assured me. “I told you from the start that you should never have married that arse whole” she began to slur at me again, she loved reminding me that she was right all along and knowing that she always had my back always made me feel so much better. It wasn’t long before we were at Jens stop, she jumped up, pulled me in for a big hug and shut the door before heading inside. For some reason I was always the last one left standing after a night out, the one that you would call the wild one off the group. Prone to doing wild things and being a little outspoken, the nickname P wasn’t short for Perri it was originally short for Pitbull as fun loving and always up for a laugh as I was, i was always the one that would be brought in as the back up if trouble erupted, which fortunately as we got older happened less and and less, the youngest of the group by 1 month but the protector of the group, I was the first one and so far only one off the girls to get married and I was now due to be the first one to get a divorce.