Friction

After Addy and Izzy left, it was just me and Tristan in a bar full of eyes staring at us. He was crying a little, but not more than I was. I couldn’t believe that he was playing us. I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do. He started to move towards me, but I backed off. He tried to touch me, and I backed off even more.
“Don’t you touch me,” I said a lot more calmly than Addy.
“Kieran, please…please just listen.”
“I can’t. I can’t even look at you.” I cleared my throat and wiped my tears. “I’m going—I’m going home. Don’t call me, don’t come over…don’t show up at any of my jobs. I don’t want to see you.” Tears flowed down my face and I could taste the salt. I left.
“Kieran,” I heard before I left the bar.
When I got home, Kelly was still gone. I sat on the couch and Jinx purred up next to me. I felt my lips start to quiver and suddenly I was sobbing uncontrollably. I put my hand on my face, but I don’t know why. I didn’t need to shield it from anyone.
I got up to grab a tissue from the bathroom and found myself talking to myself in the mirror. It was strange because I’ve never done it.
“Get yourself together, Kieran. Don’t let that asshole get the best of you.” I sniffled and wiped my nose again. “There are plenty of men you could be with. Why is this one so special? He isn’t. He’s a cheater—a liar.”
I stayed looking at myself in the mirror for what was only about ten minutes, but seemed a lot longer. I remembered the day that Tristan and I met. I was in a bar with Kelly and he’d walked in. I noticed him right away and I guess you could say that he noticed me. We eyed each other from across the bar for about half an hour before he came over. Kelly excused herself to go to the “bathroom”.
“I couldn’t help, but notice that we had a…a connection.”
I noticed his piercing blue eyes right away and his wicked smile. He grazed my hand with his finger. I looked down at it and then back up at his eyes, which were staring straight at me. There was silence between us in a noisy and crowded bar for a good five minutes. We just looked at each other and he kept caressing my hand.
When the bartender came back, we paid for our drinks and immediately made our way out of the bar and around the corner to an alley. In the alley, he pushed me up against the wall and before I knew it, his tongue was in mouth and his arm was around my waist, with the other hand on my neck.
We just connected—like magnets. We spent a few minutes outside kissing before we exchanged names and numbers. He left, while I went back inside to meet back up with Kelly. We gossiped about him for about ten minutes before leaving. It was late and I had to work the next morning.
That was only a few months ago. I wonder how long he’s been with Addy. No I don’t. I can’t think of him and Addy. But if I don’t, I won’t be able to get over him, but how do you get over someone you love and how do you take back someone whose been using you to cheat?
I hate him, but I love him at the same time. It sucks and I just want it to go away. I want one of those emotions to go away. I either want to love him, or hate him—not both.
“Kieran?” I heard. Then there was a knock on the door. It was Kelly. I opened the door and looked at her. She must’ve noticed that I was crying. “What happened?”
“So, I found out today that Tristan has being seeing me…and Addy at the same time.”
I felt my lips quivering at the very mention of this, but Kelly soon wrapped her arms around me and I was already feeling better. She left for a minute to get junk food and I sat on the couch, flipping through the channels on TV while Jinx purred around me. When Kelly got back, we munched and talked about what happened. She was seriously angry. I think she probably would kill him if he showed up at the doorstep. I’m not even joking—seriously killed him. Her mood sort of made me feel better. Knowing that she was on my side made me feel better.
“Maybe you should call Chris and go out for some drinks or something to get your mind off of things.”
“The last thing I wanna do, Kelly, is call my ex-boyfriend for drinks. For one; he’ll gloat about me being single. For two; he’ll come onto me.”
“That’s the point, duh. You need to get over Tristan.”
I looked at her and then down at Jinx in my lap. “What if I don’t wanna get over him?”
“What?”
“I told him that I loved him…and I meant it.”
“Well he didn’t. Don’t you understand that?”
“What if he did, Kelly? What if he did and he just couldn’t choose between Addy and me.”
“That’s a poor excuse. I can’t believe you’re even saying these things.” She took a bit of a cheesy puff and I popped some caramel corn into my mouth.
“I love him, Kelly, and what if I wanna make it work?”
“Oh, is Addy gonna be in it this time as well?” She looked me up and down. “This is really fucked up, Kieran.”
“Of course not. But…I’ll make him choose.”
“What if he chooses her?”
I looked down at Jinx again, trying not to cry. “Well, then, he chooses her.”
“Kieran, don’t even try it. You don’t need to get your heart stomped on twice.”
“But Tristan is worth it.”
“He’s just a man, Honey. Do you know how many men there are in the world?—tons.”
“But I want this one. I want Tristan.”
“No matter how many times he hurt you? What makes you think he won’t do it again?”
“I’m not delusional, Kelly. I know that there’s a chance that he’ll just cheat again. But…when he told me he loved me, I could feel it. I could feel that he was telling me the truth.”
“That’s because he’s a liar, Kieran, and a damn good one. It’s in his nature. It’s practically his job. He’s a salesman.”
“You just don’t get how I feel for him.”
“I do, and I get it, but he’s not worth this.”
“To me he is. To me, he’s worth it.”