Friendly Affections

One thing that stayed was his scent lingering around my apartment. It had sunk deeply into every nick and crevice, and no matter how many times I vacuumed my carpet, scrubbed every flat surface and washed my clothes and bedsheets, it remained. It made me ache with a constant reminder of him, that even Mark noticed I was unhappy.
“A disagreement with a friend.” I told him, over and over. I didn’t even attempt to explain why everything smelled so masculine, or why I had so many pairs boxers and oversized cotton teeshirts shoved into my bottom dresser drawer. It took almost a week to break the habit of sleeping in them. It was to much work explaining everything that happened with Jack.
Kate called me a week or so after I left Jack’s apartment, demanding to know why we had broken up. I could barely get a word in edgewise as she raved, asking me why I have to given up the first healthy relationship since Mark.
“It wasn’t healthy! We weren’t ever together!” I snapped back angry she was prying into my life, especially a part of it that was painful. Normally I was keen to share things with her since she was a sister and a friend, but Jack’s broken eyes were to fresh a memory to discuss.
“You two were always together! All the time! For like, six months, at least! And now, you’re just not. Why?” She didn’t understand what I was saying. Yes, physically, we were always together. But emotionally we had no ties to each other. We were not a couple.
I sighed. “Kate, we were never together, in the sense you’re thinking. Yes, we were together, literally, but we were just hooking-up. A friends with benefits thing, nothing serious. But it’s done now.”
She exploded at that point. She raged on and on about how great Jack was, how terrible I was and how great we were together. Some how, in her world, a negative and a positive equaled and positive. I knew it was different, especially since I had seen the effects of our relationship. They were definitely negative.
I rubbed my temples and held the phone away from my ear to avoid going deaf. She went on yelling for a good few minutes, as I sat there taking all of it and knowing every word she said about Jack was true.
“I screwed up.” I murmured softly when she finally stopped for a breathe. “I know. And I regret it. But I missed Mark, and Jack was here and he was willing. He knew that I didn’t want anything serious, and when Mark came back –”
“No.” Kate stopped me. “I don’t not want to hear one thing about Mark.”
I hit the end bottom on the call. Fine then, I thought, if you don’t want to hear about him then stop talking to me.
It was a month of pure and utter torture. I mean, I was happy, being with Mark, kissing him and holding him once again. We were easing back into what our relationship had been previously. It was sturdy; maybe not the most spontaneous and fun, but reliable and comfortable. I always knew what to expect from him.
And yet I missed that, with Jack. When his big paws tickled my sides, or he decide a midnight chinese run was necessary. I felt like a kid in high school who was just experiencing first relationship and friendship rolled into one and topped off with a healthy dose of sexual attraction. Things were new and exciting, I was always on my toes. But it was never reliable or grounded. Both of us felt it, the underlying deadline of Mark returning home.
Are you happy now? I asked myself. Are you actually happy that you destroyed one of the truest friendships you ever had? All because your horny self couldn’t control your hormones. Slut.