Forget Yesterday

“Rian! Mail!” Alex yelled, picking up a pile of letters.

It’s a Saturday so Rian didn’t work today. The two of them hung around the apartment watching TV and yelling at bad plays and bad referee decisions. Nothing special, but it was nice for Alex to spend some time with with his best friend, just hanging out. In their neighbourhood the mail comes late in the day on a Saturday, at 5pm, and seeing as it’s November now, the sky gets dark pretty quickly at night.

“Coming!” Rian yelled back.

Alex sorted the letters into a pile. 4 letters for Rian and 1 for him. Huh. Who would be sending him a letter in a handwritten envelope? With a frown, Alex opened the letter and slid out a piece of thick card with a gold trim. What the fuck?

Daniel Kurily and Ian Planet cordially invite you to celebrate their wedding…

Alex whimpered and dropped the card, not able to read any more of it. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. No. He can’t do this to Alex. No. Without being able to stop himself, Alex burst into tears, messy and uncontrollable, and slid down the cabinet to sit on the floor. Within seconds, Rian was by his side.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Rian frowned, crouching down next to his crying friend.

Alex just pointed to the invitation on the floor with a shaky hand. How could he send this? How could he do this to Alex? Rian glanced over the card briefly before scowling.

“That sonofabitch,” he seethed.

“Why?!” Alex wailed.

“Because he’s a cunt and takes pleasure in making you suffer. You know this. You were the best thing that ever happened to him and he threw it away for that two-cent whore,” Rian said angrily.

“Ian’s not a whore – he’s Danny’s best friend,” Alex sobbed.

“He’s a whore. No-one does what they did and get anything good happen to them,” Rian spat.

~

Alex got home after a day of work and hummed a song from the radio as he unlocked his and Danny’s front door. Fuck, he can’t believe he could actually say that. After a year of dating, they had moved in together and that was 6 months ago. This is just…utter perfection. Danny completes Alex and he couldn’t wait to show him that tonight when they make love.

“Danny! I’m home!” Alex yelled, shutting the door behind him.

“You’re not home,”

Alex turned around, his back to the door, and saw Danny standing there, naked and smirking. Uh, what?

“I don’t get the joke,” Alex frowned.

“I wasn’t joking. This isn’t your home anymore,” Danny said simply, nodding to Alex's right.

There was a pile of cardboard boxes, all labelled Alex’s shit. What the fuck?! Surely Danny’s just doing some cleaning or something, right?

“W-What?” Alex whimpered.

“Wow, you’re right babe. He really is as stupid as you said,”

Tears pricked Alex's eyes as he saw Danny’s best friend walking down the stairs, just as naked as Danny. What’s going on? Alex didn't understand.

“Don’t you get it, Gaskarth? You’re moving out and I’m moving in,” Ian smirked, wrapping his arms around Danny’s bare waist from behind.

With that, Ian started mouthing at Danny’s neck, Danny melting into his touch. No. No! H-He…they look like they’d been doing this for a long time. W-Why would he do this? Alex thought Danny loved him! As tears trickled down Alex's cheeks, Danny didn’t even have the decency to look guilty as his dick started to harden right there – he just smirked a little more.

“Don’t you get it, Lex? Ian’s exciting; you’re not. Ian knows what he wants in life; you just float along to whatever. Ian pleases me in every possible way; you barely manage to get an orgasm out of me,” Danny taunted.

“You don’t mean that,” Alex blurted.

“How are you so stupid?! We’ve been fucking for months, Gaskarth. Don’t tell me you didn’t smell someone else’s cum in his ass? Don’t tell me you didn’t see marks that weren’t left there by you?” Ian gloated.

“How could you do this to me?” Alex whimpered to Danny, ignoring Ian.

“Easily,” Danny replied with a laugh.

A sob choked up his throat, the tears trickling even faster down his face.

“I love you,” Alex whimpered.

“I don’t love you. You have an hour to get your shit out of this house,” Danny retorted.

As Alex's world crashed down around him, all they did was run back upstairs to finish what he’d interrupted.

~

What they did was the single most agonising, humiliating and unexpected thing in Alex's life. And it was what caused Alex to break into a million pieces 6 months ago. If he didn’t have Rian in his life, Alex didn’t know what he would’ve done. Alex knew he could’ve escalated into a ball of destruction – and he couldn’t imagine he would’ve lasted long in that. Alex quit his job because Danny’s brother owned the place and he moved into Rian’s spare bedroom. All Alex could be grateful for was that every that person Danny and Alex mutually knew was on Alex's side for Danny’s betrayal, even Danny’s parents to an extent. Alex didn’t think he could’ve ever gone out in public if people chose Danny over him.

The one person Alex had ever truly loved tore him apart in seconds. Danny burnt down everything Alex cherished without a second thought. Danny broke Alex's heart and he didn’t even care.

“Alex, Alex, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay,”

Zack?

Alex opened his eyes to see Zack sitting down next to him, arms open in invitation for a hug. Rian knew that Zack’s hugs are the only hugs that really calm Alex down, so he must’ve called him. Without hesitating Alex scrambled into his burly friend's arms, sobbing into his chest. Zack wrapped his arms around Alex tightly, rocking the two of them back and forward.

“Why did he do this to me? It’s bad enough that he broke my heart once, but to invite me to their wedding?” Alex choked.

“He is a limp-dicked useless ape of a man and he is worth nothing,” Zack said fiercely.

“Limp-dicked,” Alex giggled weakly.

Rian and Zack glanced at each other, grinning.

“Lex…I have an idea,” Rian announced.

*

30 minutes later they were standing in the local park by one of the old trash cans that people use to make fires. Alex held a box of stuff in his arms as Zack hugged him, Rian adding twigs and leaves to the coals on the fire so it would start easier. This isn’t just any box of stuff though. It’s a box of the stuff Alex has leftover from when he was with Danny. Photos, birthday cards, Christmas cards, love notes, trinkets, even a t-shirt. And Alex was going to burn it all.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Lex? We don’t want to push you into anything you’re not ready for,” Zack said softly, as Rian pulled out a box of matches.

“No, I’m sure. I want Danny out of my life for good. He’s not going to hurt me any more and I don’t want to be reminded about him with anything. I want a new start,” Alex said firmly, smiling at his friend.

“Alright Lex!” Rian whooped, throwing the lit match into the fire bin.

Alex snickered slightly. Rian’s enjoying this a little too much. Then again, Rian was the one that mainly had to scoop up Alex's shattered remains from the floor.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Zack grinned.

Alex took a deep breath and stepped forward, letting the flames heat up his body a little before reaching into the box for the love notes.

“You took three months of fucking to figure out where my prostate was,” Alex spat, throwing the bundle onto the fire.

Rian and Zack laughed, spurring him on. Alex grabbed the t-shirt he bought Danny on their 1 year anniversary.

“You had the worst taste in music, socks and clothes, and I don’t feel bad for lying about the time you wore a disgusting suit to your boss’s party and looked like a pretentious asshole,” Alex said angrily.

Rian and Zack laughed even harder as Alex threw the t-shirt on the fire.

“Your momma’s cooking made me feel sick every time I ate it,”

“You could really use some tips on hygiene,”

“You like to think that you can sing awesomely and I never told you that you sound like a dying crow in a blender,”

“Your dirty talk never turned me on,”

“Your toes are scarily hairy,”

Alex picked up the last item, the first ever photo of them, taken a few weeks after they first met. All Alex could feel was the adrenaline pumping through his blood, letting him feel more free, more alive than he had done in a long time.

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!” Alex yelled, throwing it into the flames.

Zack and Rian whooped and threw their arms around their friend. Alex didn’t have to look at them to know they were grinning – he was grinning too.

“I’m so proud of you, Alex,” Zack laughed.

“You’re finally free of that asshole,” Rian said happily.

“Yeah, I am,” Alex sighed, genuinely smiling for the first time since the break-up.

“This calls for a celebration,” Zack announced.

Alex watched him pull 2 cases of beers out of his rucksack and grinned. So this was why Matt drove them here…

“Here’s to destroying the memories of asshole ex-boyfriends,” Zack toasted.

“And to friendships that we can rely on no matter what,” Rian added.

“And to new lives and new opportunities and a new Alex!” Alex whooped.

“Hell yeah!” Zack cheered.

They clinked their bottles together and each took a long gulp, watching the fire burn. Out of the ashes will rise a new life. A new life where Alex didn't have to be burdened down by Danny’s betrayal or humiliation or heartbreak. Alex was moving on with his life and it’s going to be fucking awesome.