The girl had yet
to reappear with Bonnie's pizza or the offer of more conversation or wine, and
Bonnie's will to write had died the second she'd been questioned on the dire
and inevitable state of her lovelife.
Darren hadn't
exactly been her fault, but what had played out was an occupational hazard.
Bonnie only had to look the wrong way at a woman while thinking of Darren and
if their paths had crossed before, it was game over Bonnie. Since their phone
call she'd found out through her brother that the woman Darren was seeing was
none other than someone who had made an office delivery of flowers on
Valentine's Day. She'd been thinking about Darren, the woman had been looking
at her, by some stupid coincidence the two had met before and then also had
bumped into each other that evening. All of a sudden Bonnie's getting orders to
fire an arrow and staring down the barrel of a lifetime of loneliness.
The system could
grate on her nerves at times.
Sure,
inadvertently Bonnie was the cause, but that was just one more reason to hate
her job. She hadn't bothered to find out about the back-up plan she'd
considered because as yet no orders had come, which meant while they thought
they were falling in love theirs was nothing but lust-fuelled excitement. It
would die off on it's own soon enough. Not that Bonnie wanted him anymore.
She'd already ridden the carousel that was dating him once before and now that
he'd chosen someone else, albeit temporarily, it seemed highly unlikely that
anyone would agree to fire an arrow at them.
Besides, she'd
just fall for him, see a chick he'd screwed, and then have to fire a goddam
arrow, she thought to herself.
It was the one
major hazard of working in a town this size and why so many Cupids opted for
the bigger cities: your one true love might occasionally think about someone else
because the Cupid accidentally had, but the chances of their paths crossing and
your lover being stripped away from you by someone else were significantly
reduced in comparison to country towns. It was the very reason love was so hard
to come by in rural areas. What self-respecting Cupid would want to live
somewhere that they stood no chance of love themselves? Occasionally a young
male would sign on thinking it was guaranteed promiscuity without consequence till
the end of time, but eventually it wore them down till there was nothing left
but an angry drunk who was of no use to anyone. It was at this point that they
were always quietly relieved of their position.
Bonnie's parents
had warned her about settling in a town this size. Though they'd lived here for
her whole life, they'd met early on in their Cupid careers and had opted to
move here together, having had another Cupid shoot them to ensure matrimonial
success. The whole industry was a joke in Bonnie's eyes though. Richard's
admission on Valentine's Day about working in an office full of people who
ignored him had cemented that belief for her.
Then again, she
thought to herself, she had wasted enough of her years resenting what it was
she did, there was no point dwelling on it any longer. She had been the one to
sign on all those years ago, and she had also been the one who stayed even
though her parents had warned her against it.
Instead of
lamenting she stared at the ocean again, wishing it to rise up and crash
against the ground in front of her. It wouldn't. But it didn't stop her wishing
all the same.
She met them. She
liked them. They met someone else. It was a sick circle of life that only the
Cupid lived and Bonnie wanted off the Cupid train. If only there was a way...
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