They say everyone has a story to tell. I am a writer. Ben is not my real name.

I have a story that I want to write, that I need to write, that is my story that is inside me waiting to be told.

But I do not want to write it.

I do not know whether I should write it.

And I do not know whether I can write it.

But it is preventing me from writing anything else. All the other stories are lost behind it. It consumes my attention.

Here is a rough draft of the first chapter… the concept is Dangerous Liaisons meets Bridget Jones’s Diary, wrapped up in a snapshot of 21st century technology…

We have all been told the perfect love story. And the myriad of not so perfect love stories that still, somehow, always, have a happy ending. Because that, of course, is the point of a love story. The happy ending. You see the sweet beginnings, maybe a little mistake or two, and then the happy ending. Simple.

It started with “Hello”, naturally. “Hello”, and “Happy Birthday”.

But that was years ago, and this is the middle of a love story. And the middle is not so simple.

July 14

I think it may well be be your birthday today. If so, then Happy Birthday. If it’s not today then Happy Birthday for whenever it is or was. And apologies for not knowing the right date…

P.S. For our holiday we are going to Istanbul. 22 October. Two weeks. Be there or be square.

But the beginning is not the important part. The important part started with an aeroplane, just over one month before the realisation that even something as important as a birthday had escaped into the mists of memory.

June 7

It is seriously raining now here. Like the proper tropical rain that brings all sensible cities to temporary standstills. But not this mighty metropolis, where the mad dogs and Englishmen wade the streets grumbling with gay abandon. I hear the sirens starting up already.

To be fair though, it is the kind of rain that is just begging to be danced naked in. Or at the very least stood outside in. I am of course at work though, so I don’t really want to spend the rest of the afternoon soaked through. I hate being so grown up.

Maybe it is raining because you are leaving.

I am bored already and demand that you return home immediately. I have replaced our communications with eating.

Well good luck, good bye and bon voyage my friend. I’m not angry with you for going to see her of course, that would be somewhat hypocritical of me. I’ll be mad if you marry her…

“I’ll be mad if you marry her.” Ha. Ironic. Of course, if I knew then what I know now then that particular aeroplane would never even have featured in either of our lives.