AS SOON AS the door to my apartment closes behind him, he grabs me and goes to kiss me. I groan and push at his shoulders with all my strength, hitting his back against the wall. He hisses and glares at me, but I don’t let him dampen my anger.
“I will not have sex with you!’’ I yell, scorching my throat. I throw my clutch to the floor and my shawl vaguely in the direction of the couches, but it doesn’t go all the way and falls lamely on the rug in a heap. “Do you hear me?’’
He shakes his head and takes two steps toward me, hounding me, invading my personal space. “You don’t want to play that game,’’ he growls out, his voice darker than usual, his words harsher, spitting out.
“You’re the one playing, Brock. You’re the one obsessively jealous of Zann. You’re the one sending me mixed signals!’’
“Don’t you fucking see it!’’
“What? See what damn it!’’ I yell back, my voice shrill in the quiet apartment.
I clench my fists tightly, my nails digging into my palms painfully. I’m shaking from feet to head, my muscles quivering from nerves and tension.
“That I spent my whole fucking life in love with you!’’ His eyes widen, and he jumps back almost as if I’d physically hurt him. The anger immediately leaves his face and, instead, only fear takes place. His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat, repeatedly, convulsively. He brings his hands in his hair and tugs on the strands.
The words slowly imprint themselves in my mind, flashing bright and daring to render me speechless. I’m a gaping mess with eyes wide in incredulity. But then, his words register, the meaning behind them making sense, colliding with many memories I never thought twice about and my eyes water.
He’s always been extremely protective of me, sometimes pushing guys away from me. But I never thought anything of it, believing him when he told me that some of them were scumbags.
After all, he’s always been there for me. Even when I was with my last boyfriend, I never thought Brock was in fact suffering.
He’s never been fond of my boyfriends, but I thought him to be overly cautious on my behalf. But it’s more than that. Way more.
I blink, and tears fall along my cheeks and down on my cleavage. I don’t move to dry my face. In fact, I don’t feel the tears falling. It’s just like background noise, something that you don’t pay attention to once you’re focused on something or someone else. The pain on his face, the gaping hole in my chest… those are the things that I can’t look past.
“You never said anything. I mean, you’ve always been with countless women.’’ My voice is thick with emotions I can’t describe, too intricately laced with each other, colliding and exploding inside me.
He releases his hair and brings his hands to his face, efficiently hiding from me or maybe he’s trying to forget that I’m standing right in front of him.
“They didn’t mean anything, and you know it.’’
His voice is broken, defeated even. His shoulders slump and he leans heavily against the door, legs wide apart, knees slightly bent.
“I can’t…’’ I trail off, unsure what I want to say or what I should be saying. There’s no manual on how to react to such an odd and unexpected love declaration. I don’t know what I feel at the moment anyway. My body is getting hot, and yet I’m shivering. Goosebumps cover all my skin, and yet my skin appears numb.
And my heart… My heart is racing, sometimes squeezing painfully so, mostly when I watch more closely the pain in Brock’s golden-brown eyes when he finally lets his hands fall along his body.
“It’s true, Addy. I’ve always been in love with you, but too chicken shit to say it,’’ he says softly, his voice deep and strangled as if the words wanted to stay hidden inside him. “Every time you were with a guy it was like a fucking hit straight to my chest and deep into my heart. And I kept it a secret, fucking all and every woman interested to numb it all and try to forget you. The only moment I didn’t think was while fucking, and even then, it was just mechanical, just a means to an end, to scratch an itch.’’
I wobble to one of the couches, my knees knocking into each other. My muscles are sluggish as if I ran a marathon without preparation. I lean against the back of the couch and take a few deep breaths, trying to recompose myself or at least calm the tornado of thoughts running rampant in my head.
“I’ve never seen any signs. Am I that blind?’’ I mumble to myself. I run the smooth fabric of the see-through material of my skirt between my fingers, absentmindedly toying with it.
“I know how to hide my feelings.’’
I shrug and dry my cheeks with my free hand, sniffling lamely like a little girl. “We’re supposed to be best friends and tell each other everything, at least everything of importance.’’ I lick my lips off the salty tears and lock eyes with him again. “I never knew I was hurting you. And did you ever think that maybe…’’
“Maybe what?’’ he prompts me urgently when I don’t finish my sentence. “Maybe what, Addy?’’
He walks to me and cups my face delicately in his big hands. Being so close to him, feeling so petite and protected, and knowing his biggest secret make me tearful all over again. I can’t remember the last time I cried so much.
“Maybe things would have been different if you’d have told me what you felt back then.’’
“You never saw me that way. I’ve always been your good friend Brock. I was fine with it until…’’
“Until that day in Hawaï and I let a boy kiss me for the first time.’’
He cringes and clenches his jaw, accentuating the angle of it. “One of my worst memories.’’
“I feel like I should say sorry, but you hid your feelings from me. I would have acted differently if I’d known.’’
“What? You’d have gone somewhere else to swap spit so I wouldn’t see the both of you?’’
I snatch his wrists and push him away, glaring at his hard words. It’s been over a decade! “Don’t be a jerk, Brock. You just told me that you spent years upon years in love with me and I had no clue. Can you imagine how scrambled it makes me feel?’’
He doesn’t step back but doesn’t touch me either. The tip of his black, shiny shoes are touching my high heels. The spicy cologne he’s wearing since he’s been a teenager envelops me, enthralls me. His face is turned down toward me, flashing me his incredible eyes.
“You don’t feel the same, I know it, Addy. At least, now it’s out in the open.’’ His breath caresses my face and my neck softly.
I close my eyes and listen to his intake of breath, slightly faster than usual, the light noise of the fabric of his suit making me acutely aware of his proximity. I would have just to reach out a few inches, and I’d be touching his firm chest, the same chest I’ve been kissing, touching, licking and cuddling into for the last few weeks. Now that I know how he honestly feels, things are different, and I can’t just touch him. I can’t.
“I can’t jump from friendship to love in the blink of an eye. It’s already so complicated to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re sleeping together.’’
He nods slowly and forces a small smile on his face. It’s so fake, his pain is so evident that I hurt from the inside, deep in my very soul. I want to wrap him in my arms and whisper soothing words in his ears, but it wouldn’t do any good.
The man loves me. Me!
I spent years giving him details about my love and sex life while he was secretly pining for me. I can’t erase that. He's always been there for me, unwavering, unyielding.
“I know.’’ He tilts my head upwards by the chin, his thumb and index fingers on my skin. Tingles shock me. “Don’t be upset. I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier. I was just—‘’
“Jealous and hurt. You went off, and now I understand why.’’ I circle his thick wrist with my fingers, tracing small abstract patterns on his skin.
His eyes immediately flare with desire, but I know it’s not just desire. Lust is hiding something deeper, more meaningful. And that scared me.
I pull away and turn my head sideways, breaking the contact with him. He stops breathing for a couple of seconds and then growls darkly.
“Are you going to dodge me from now on? I won’t let you.’’
I frown and cross my arms, still avoiding his eyes before they could suck me in. “What does that mean?’’
“Either you act the same way as you did before or…’’ He takes a deep breath and clears his throat. He comes in front of me, making it impossible to look away. “Or we take a break and spend time apart, staying in contact only at work.’’
I lock my jaw and bite back the string of curse words threatening to leave my mouth. Anger and sadness both take hold of me, overpowering everything else inside. I’m mad at him for giving me an ultimatum, first time he ever did that in all the years I’ve known him and sad because we’re at a dead-end. It’s impossible to forget his true feelings and act as if nothing has changed. I’m too aware now, and I don’t want to hurt him more by getting so close to him when we’re not exactly on the same page.
I know I’m past the easygoing friendship we used to have. It was done for once we started sleeping together, and a part of me has known it from the start, but love is something else, something that I take very seriously.
I respect and care so much about him that imagining my days without seeing him, breakfasts without him, my nights without him and our funny texts over, it hurts. It hurts so much that I don’t know how I can still be standing.
“Brock…’’
He retreats, putting a few feet between us, his eyes downcast. I can’t see much of his face anymore, but the anguish is there, palpable and weighing between us, stretching out the link that has always tethered each other.
“You don’t need to say anything else. I know what you’re thinking.’’ He rubs his neck a few times and then turns around, ready to bolt. I can see it in the way his shoulders tense, his hands flex, his breathing gets louder and faster. “Let’s take that break then.’’
I want to say something, want to stop him, but no words form on my tongue. I’m blocked there, watching him walking out of my apartment, shoulders straight, but head hanging down. His steps are heavy and yet, his strides are long, purposeful.
In a blink of an eye I’m alone, still staring at the door.
My heart sinks into my chest and tears fall again. My eyes sting more and more as the first sob is wreaking out of me, shaking me violently against the back of the couch. I let myself slip to the floor, knees bent, arms tight around my legs.
I lost my best friend, and I hurt him yet once again.
Strangely, it feels like the worst heartbreak.