Say It Ain’t So.

During London Fashion Week there are only two things to do: work like a donkey and drink to celebrate no longer working like a donkey. Though my involvement in LFW has, until recently, been fairly minimal I can’t refuse a party with free booze and so it was at one of these strange sleep deprived designer and half starved model filled do’s that I saw him: Brody. Until that night he had been someone I had googled, who’s picture had lurked in a folder to peek secretly at when I was bored, and who I had stared at blissfully across party after party. It was time to make this real. High on sugar and rum I shambled over to say hello and told him I was a friend of his friend Audrina’s. We chatted until everyone sane had left then stumbled upstairs to his car. Foolishly we drove around all night until 5.30am when we found ourselves alone in Hampstead: too far for me to go home and too close to his house not to pop by…

When I woke up from my couple of hour’s sleep, and some sloppy drunken making out, I was dizzy with excitement. This guy, the same one who I’d been dreaming about for months, was here with me and mostly naked! I leapt on top of him and kissed him, grinning from ear to ear like a maniac. He just lay there. Last night’s sugary drinks had made me insane and I bounced up and down gleefully as if two hours sleep was no thing. In my head fireworks were exploding by the dozen: me! him! here! together! Everything was going to be amazing!! As I darted around gleefully putting my clothes back on Brody stared silently. Just as I was about to leave I asked for his phone number. He looked confused but gave it anyway. I chalked it up to tiredness and walked to the tube station high on alcohol and seratonin.

A week later I was sitting at lunch with Audrina discussing what would happen next with Brody. He had been in touch yet only seemed faintly interested in meeting again. Audrina shrugged, “I don’t know what his problem was. He really liked you when I showed him your picture.” My fork stopped in mid-air. “What? You know I did this! You told me to!” The fork was stuck there. “You said you liked him, so when I ended up back at his house I told him, do you remember when I called you all drunk?” I remembered. “And you told me to tell him you liked him.” Did not. “So he asked what you looked like, and I showed him a picture …” Oh god. “… and just to be sure he wouldn’t forget you I gave him your number.” It’s all a dream, a horrible dream. “You asked me to help set you up! I was helping!”

I sat there thinking while Audrina fiddled with her phone. A man, a quiet, shy man, is accosted by Audrina who is a ditzy, babbling, girl. She tells him her friend fancies him and shows him a grainy picture, then proceeds to save the random girl’s number onto his phone. Later, while standing soberly at a party, said girl comes up, blithely introduces herself, then goes home with him, and proceeds to deny him sex but be happy to roll around in her underwear. The next morning she leaps around like the Tigger of romance and giggles like a giddy teen. It’s mind boggling just to think about never mind live through.

Audrina shrugged off the silence easily and we wandered to the video shop when she darted down an alley saying she’d meet me in a minute. Two doors later I ran smack into Brody and his best friend. We exchanged awkward hugs and I asked what he was doing so far from home. “You should know,” he replied curtly, “Audrina asked me where I was having lunch then said you might both pop by.” Brody looked over my shoulder. “I think she was hoping we could all bump into each other by ‘accident’.” He looked back over his. “That would have been brilliant.” His voice was becoming steadily more monotone. “I’d have really enjoyed something as unexpected as that.” After scanning the street comprehensively he looked back at me. No matter what I said he would never believe I hadn’t followed him here, or asked Audrina to paint me as a desperate harpy, it was pointless. While I gawped, trying to find the right phrase, he squeezed my arm and said goodbye. Then he, and the friend, ran until they were out of sight, never looking back.

Photos by Terry Richardson, and Alex Prager.