Best Friends Don't Sleep Together - A.H. Series #1

Chapter 15

CHRIS

I knocked on her door for a third time, but still received no answer. Where did she go? She's been pretty much m.i.a. for the past week, claiming a trip to New Jersey with Beth, nights out with the girls ... if I didn't know my Vivy so well, I'd almost think she discovered she's a lesbian and started dating Beth herself. But that would be crazy, wouldn't it? I would be the first person she would confess such a thing to.

There is virtually no secret between me and Vivian. Or there wasn't up until now. This past week, the way she sneaked around, the way we've barely seen each other, it's way too weird to be a coincidence. I wonder if she somehow heard about me and Karen. God, I really hope not. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but Karen was probably the second biggest one.

She came to me a few days ago, angry, yelling that it was all my fault, she was about to get married, yet she couldn't stop thinking about me. What if we made it work? She said, what if I wasn't so stubbornly obsessed with Vivian? Of course, when she mentioned my best friend, we started arguing. But Karen is ... I don't know what is it about her, but somehow we ended up having angry sex.

I guess I can't even really blame Vivian for pretty much going awol this week, because I haven't been much myself either. That's what Karen does to me. I keep thinking I can stem the tide, keep things under control, but Karen is a like a wild beast, there's no predicting what will come next. And I guess this was one of the things that most attracted me to her at first. But now it's seriously too much.

We're like a derailing train that cannot stop its course, no matter how much we – or rather I – try, yet we don't even get off. I know Vivian and everyone else is right, I know Karen is no good for me, yet I keep stumbling back to her. And normally, I would have my Vivy to counter Karen's poisons, but in the past week she's been God knows where. Sure, we texted and even talked on the phone, but we barely saw each other.

I wonder if she's really hiding something from me. And if she is, then what? The only reason that would take her away from me for so long could only be Karen. Vivian cannot stand her ex-roommate, part of the reason why our relationship was so strained was the fact that I kept doubting it. Vivian acted as antidote, every time Karen pushed me to unreasonable limits, my Vivy worked her magic and pulled me back. Obviously, Karen didn't like that one bit.

It's the first thing she said to me when she came to my workplace: if only I wasn't so obsessed with Vivian, Karen said, if only I didn't let her string me along like that. How could she possibly think that, I don't know. Vivian is the sweetest creature in this world, she would never hurt a soul, imagine do anything to hurt me.

My Vivy is unique, there's no one like her. Even her naivete is countered by her sweet, gentle ways. I don't know what I'd be without her. She's my everything, my universe. We are way more than best friends, we're beyond every label. That's why most people don't understand what we have. Not even our friends do.

Shane and Nick keep telling me I'm too possessive with her, that I need to let her breathe. Laura says it's my fault if Vivian has been single for so long, Beth says her career is stuck because of me. Our own friends seem to think I'm what's holding her back.

But they don't understand. Nobody does. The kind of bond we have, it's exclusive, nobody outside of it could possibly understand. We are one soul in two bodies, we understand each other so perfectly. I've never once met someone that could get me like that, that knew how to handle me. She gets me like no one else can, not even my mother. We're pretty much soul mates. Our fates are tightly bond, but not in the sense everyone usually thinks.

Soul mates aren't necessarily romantically connected, you know. What we have is simply impossible to replicate, we could not live it with anybody else. It's just the two of us and nobody else. I can't go more than a few hours without talking to her, I usually text her from the office even. Yet this past week, the one that was supposed to be so important for us, we've barely been in contact at all.