Page 70 of Tipping Point

IRISH (18:50) Can we talk?

Shit.

The way my stomach swoops. Ridiculous.

I tried to call him many times after he walked out on me. He had completely and utterly ghosted me after going down on me.

I feel my cheeks warm up with embarrassment.

I lock the screen and shove my phone back in my pocket. I browse through a couple of stalls and end up with a little more food than I had planned. Everything is so fresh I can’t resist. I’m making a baguette packed with all this delicious goodness tonight.

Then I’m watching my favourite rom-com on the hotel television, badly dubbed in Italian.

Amy video calls me shortly after I return to the hotel. It’s late where she is. I can tell from the slight slur in her speech she’s buzzed.

“I miss you!” she drawls. “When are you coming home?”

I laugh. “That depends on Dixon.”

“Right. How is he?”

“Not doing well, I think. He avoids the question when I ask.”

“That’s so sad.” Amy gives a hiccup. “But then again forever love was never your style.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know.” She sighs. “You will never put a guy before work. Since uni you’ve had a one-track mind.”

I knew Amy in university, but we weren’t as close then.

Our Media Studies professor had been an avid journalist all his life. Now, retired, he taught with fervour and passion, something that really resonated with my young mind.

“The stories we tell matter.” He slammed a fist onto the desk. “You get to be a voice for the voiceless, and it is both a burden and a treasure, and you need to handle it with the respect and dignity it deserves.”

And that weekend, I had broken up with my very new boyfriend, because he wanted to spend his time at uni partying and having sex, and I had this calling inside me that he would never understand, and thus never respect.

I had stories to tell.

“Amy, you need to go to bed.” I laugh.

“I saw Marcus.” She laughs. “He’s not looking too great.”

I frown. Me and Marcus had been seeing each other for mere months before I came to film High Velocity. Surely he couldn’t have been serious about us.

“What does that have to do with me?”

Amy shrugs. “I think maybe he thought it was serious.”

I snort.

“Like Calvin before him.”

I laugh. “Calvin was years ago!”

“Yeah, but you left him to go film that lighthouse keeper in France.”

“It was never serious.”