Loving Alek came easily. Being indifferent to him was the hard part.
If I wanted any chance of surviving this breakup, I needed to get my acting skills up to par though because something tells me that his walking out the door to go to her is only t...
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It took me three years to understand how truly foolish I've been. Three years of loving a man so deeply that I ignored the signs that were right in front of me if I had only been paying attention. The ones that warned me that his heart wasn't mine for the taking.
I sit up in bed and watch Alek pace around the room, his hand reaching up to squeeze the back of his neck occasionally as he listens to David on the phone. His eyes keep jerking to me before skittering away and something about those little looks has my stomach roiling.
"They broke up?" he asks, something in his tone making me sit straighter and tighten the blanket around me like it can ward off whatever negative vibes I feel in the air.
Of course, it's about Jerica.
It's always about her.
When I first met Alek, I thought the one I'd be competing with was Charlie. It was only after meeting her a few times that I realized that wasn't the case. She and Alek share a really deep bond, one he's been completely open and honest with me about. They love each other, but not in a way that ever threatened me. How could their love and friendship ever make me feel that way when Alek made me feel like the only one he sees? It also helped that Charlie was completely in love with Keaton.
I didn't really start catching on to the whole Jerica thing until around the beginning of our second year together. We were all at a cookout that Charlie and Keaton were hosting at their new place. It was only one of the few times that Alek actually took me around his friends, and now that I think back on that, it's just another sign of how much of a naïve fool I've been. They all knew we were in a serious relationship, or at least I thought they did, but if he wasn't taking me around them, then maybe they didn't. I'm questioning everything about our relationship now.
We'd only been at Charlie and Keaton's for about an hour when David Baladucci, Alek's best friend, came knocking, bringing along his sister Jerica and her long-term boyfriend Reggie. It was only the second time I'd ever met her, but I'd heard about her plenty, considering who her brother is to my boyfriend.
The change in Alek the moment Jerica came in was instantaneous, and I don't know why it took me so long to connect it. I must have really been blind or deep in denial, because the way he distanced himself from me was so freaking obvious. He'd smile at me, but they were tighter around the edges. His hugs became looser and for the rest of the night, it was actually a pretty lonely fucking existence. When we finally got to his place, we were both pretty tipsy, so as soon as we stumbled through the door, we were all over each other. Clothes were pulled off, bodies came together in a fit of angry passion, and lips and teeth left marks of faux ownership behind. It was a fiery battle of lust, love, anger, and every other emotion combined that we could fit into our drunken, silent, passionate fight.
Now that I think back on it, I believe I was fighting for him to see me and he was fighting to try not to see her.
By the time it was over, the only thing I remember was suddenly feeling sober and the need for a shower, because the interlude only left me feeling extremely dirty.
