"How do you leave the past behind when it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?"

I arrived in London and got my transfer train to Essex for the 21st birthday of a close friend Tess. She'd been in California for the past two years or so and wanted to see everyone before she applied to University. I met with the usual gang: Ashley, Hermione and Adam and Hermione's German friend Martin. The drink was flowing and everyone was having a great time. Adam brought up an incident in October where Hermione and I got drunk and made out. He kept referencing it.

Hermione, Ashley, Adam and I had been in London before our trip to New York, which Hermione didn't attend. Hermione and I were persuaded to go to the noted gay club G-A-Y, after heavy persuasion from Ashley and Adam, and we thought we'd seen Daniel Radcliffe walk past. It turned out to be great fun. Lots of cocktails. Lots of flash photography. Lots of dancing. At one point the barman called me a "beetch" playfully, presumably he meant "bitch", for me not drinking his Bloody Mary's. Then Hermione and I got closer, and as we left for the station to make sure Hermione got her train, there was some sort of lustful chemistry between us. We kissed. And kept kissing at different locations in London until we reached the station, where we kissed goodbye.

Ashley told me, and everyone else later that she found it "so funny that the two gays didn't have as much fun as the two straights."

Since then, Hermione and I have talked and remained friends, no more no less. But the past, and my past actions, always seem to bite me in the butt.

Oh, here's a love story for you. Once upon a summer, my friend Danny fell in love. It was sweet really. They met when he had signed up for a summer abroad programme in the USA. They spent the week holding hands, exchanging life stories, and telling each other they'd keep in contact for life. Photos of the two were taken, and memories were made. It was all very sweet, and the first of it's kind for Danny, who was a serial single and never really seemed to commit. Although Danny and this girl, we'll call her Kitty, never commited, or even publicly acknowledged their feelings for each other, they and everyone else saw the connection they'd made, and Danny and Kitty at least were hoping that connection would stay strong even back in England in the dark, depths of the 'English winter'.

Their parting at the airport was "hell" Danny told me. Once they'd claimed their baggage, they just looked at each other with Kitty proclaiming "This is gonna be hell!" and kissing him on the lips.

"That was a testement to the intensity of this whole Kitty situation," he told me. It was obvious he still had feelings for her.

They kissed several more times, "no tongues though", before Danny eventually left with Ashley for the North-East of England, and she remained in London.

"It hurt so much leaving her. It made me depressed. Just thinking about her it was..." Danny struggled to find the words.

"I know man, I know."

He made a visit in Dundee, where she was studying dance at University, in an attempt to keep their connection strong, but it was then that Danny realised things weren't the same and that, as corny as it sounds, it wasn't summer anymore. He made a conscious decision to get over her, though he then announced to a table full of his friends at a mutual friend of ours 18th birthday celebration meal that she was his “true love”.

Now, what makes the story relevant to today, and how you can never leave the past in the past, is he has a girlfriend. He adores her. But on a recent night out, where he was hideously drunk, he got home and signed into MSN.

“A confessional ensued as I told Kitty EVERYTHING! From meeting in USA to now. How I felt. I don’t remember exact words. But she returned my feelings for her. Now, what do I do Noah? Do I keep what I have, and what I can see working and where I can see the relationship growing into love, or gamble it for a long-distance relationship, but a relationship where the love has already been established? Noah, seriously, help me!” He ate the pepperoni from the top of his pizza. I could tell he’d lost his appetite.

“I honestly don’t know Danny, I really don’t. I think this ones a one for the ladies to advise, and, maybe you’re gonna have to figure this one out on your own.”

“Great, just what I was afraid of.” He sipped the water whilst simultaneously looking worried.

It was a tough situation to be in. I had a thought: could you ever really leave the past behind? How in the past is the past? Will it always find a way to get to your heart?

I looked at Hermione. She was laughing with Martin and Tess, and Ashley and Adam were dancing. I sipped my OJ. I thought to myself that there was definitely ‘the spark’, but I could only imagine us as friends. I knew though that although our kiss was in the past, it would always be there whenever we saw each other.

"Cheap Vodka and Cheap Clubs"

"So do you love her?" Skye enquired over a jug of Long Island Iced Tea, on a night out.

"Well...um..." This was followed by even more 'umming' and 'awing' as I tried everything and anything to use everything and anything but the 'L' word. "It's a bit early to say. We've only been going out," I hate that term - I mean where exactly were we going? "for a little under a month."

"Noah...does she give you butterflies?"

"She does." I replied.

I couldn't help but think back to feeling like a 15 year-old again - which is exactly what Ella is.

Before I met up with Skye and her boyfriend Aidan, who was our designated driver for the evening, I'd spent the afternoon with Ella at a shopping centre, gathering presents for Christmas.

"We spent the afternoon holding hands and looking into each others eyes," I told Aspen while Skye and Aidan were at the bar. I failed to tell him about our "fragrance war" in the perfume shop, fearing it would sound too immature.

"Puppy love Noah, puppy love. You have to be careful, remember how girls at 15 got attached really easy?"

"You think? Ugh I honestly do not care - so what if she's younger - and an adolescent - I really like her; is a year and a few months really that big of a deal?"

"Just wait..."

Why had I resigned myself to using the world adolescent? What was I? A 75 year old man talking about "those pesky adolescents on the metro"?

I spent my train journey down to London the next day thinking about Ella. Why was I so scared of the word 'adolescent'? I mean, we'd all been there.

Hungover, with big dark glasses, and a bottle of water becoming a permanant fixture in my hand, I phoned her.

"Ugh Ella, I feel so bad!"

"I'm not surprised. Babe, when you phoned me you were slurring and shouting and everything!"

"Oh wow! I don't know what happened. I think it was the house treble vodkas," they were cheaper apparently, "Oh no. Oh no! Please tell me you didn't hear Wonderwall!" Oasis' classic had come on and Skye and I had phoned her.

"Yeah, it was if I was really there."

"I actually cannot believe it. I can't believe how drunk I got. I can't believe how hungover and sick I feel right now. Well, I'm gonna go, probably get some food. I'll see you babba!"

There were so many thing I felt like I need to say - like how I quite literally am disaster. I just wanted to try and warn her about me before things got anymore serious. For example, I'm a serial binge drinker who you'll quite possibly receive calls from at 2am, totally wasted from cheap vodka from a cheap club. But for now I wouldn't.

"I think I'm still drunk, " I thought to myself, "Oh God!"