In Love with a Jackal

9.

If there could be anything more inherently embarrassing than having to relive the moment your secret crush rejected you, then it was knowing that a snarky eternal death God was watching it happen with you.

Whenever we got drunk and Youmna bullied me about my relationship with Antoine, I always told her I didn't want to ruin our good friendship with my unwanted feelings.

And how did I know my feelings were unwanted, you ask?

Well I knew because of this moment right here.

This horrible, horrible moment where both my heart and my self-esteem crumbled like a cookie before I'd even taken the first bite.

I tried to gather myself a bit and got up from the floor. My breathing still felt ragged and my legs were unstable, but my mind had recovered. At least a little bit. I guess, being confronted with the source of my future life-long trauma had somehow made a certain level of clarity return to my brain.

I was pretty sure we had somehow shifted from Anubis's memories to mine. I didn't how or why but I wouldn't mistake this scene for anything else than it was, as it plagued my every waking hour ever since it happened approximately three months ago.

I looked over at Anubis for answers but it quickly became evident that he was just as confused about the situation as I.
The man still stood rooted to the spot on the other side of the room, literally scratching his head.

I heard the other me laugh and my eyes involuntarily returned back to the scene at hand.

And turns out, it was infinitely worse to watch yourself go all moony-eyed over someone than to actually be doing it.

My blushing other self was giggling and looking through the microscope as Antoine told her interesting little anecdotes about the slide they were examining, a sample of the special purple dye only the Minoans could produce in early antiquity.

A dye only meant for emperors.

Antoine's hand was lightly placed on my shoulder, and looking at it now I realized at the time he had been standing awfully close to me.

I watched the other me turn back to look at him and then say something that even at the time had been incredibly stupid,

"Oh my gosh you're so funny Antoine!"

and once again I also had to bare witness to Antoine's following reply, which I am now even more embarrassed to admit had made my heart nearly jump out my chest when he'd said it.

"And you're really fun to entertain Tina," he said, his thumb now slowly stroking my back.

I didn't know when his hand had sneakily moved from my shoulder down to my back but it was a detail I did not remember like this.

Antoine and I had clicked from our very first meeting and since then we had naturally grown close. But still there had been nothing that could have been considered more than strictly friendship. And believe me, I had pondered over that a many a night.

Too many a night, in fact.

I'd always thought I had been the one to misunderstand things but looking at it from this angle, had I really misunderstood everything?

At Antoine's reply the other me once again giggled and then shyly glanced back up at him and I nearly choked on my own spit.

Had I always been like this?!

Since when did I act coy?!

Suddenly incredibly self-aware, my eyes darted over to Anubis, who was still watching the whole thing unmoving but with very dead looking eyes. One could physically see the will to live leave his body with every word that was spoken.

And I knew it was about to get a whole lot worse.

My other self inched a bit closer to Antoine in what could at this point already be considered a half embrace, and I watched myself place a hand on Antoine's chest, my fingers casually playing with the top button of his shirt.

Oh no.

No no no.

NO!

I covered my face with both my hands.

Where had all this confidence come from back then?

How had I had the courage to do this!?

I must be a closeted masochist.

I shook my head in disbelief, telling myself this wasn't real and couldn't hurt me.

And yet my hands slid off my eyes again and I went right back to watching this disaster knowing full well the worst was yet to come.

"You know Antoine," the other me said, "I've been meaning to tell you I really, really like spending time with you."

"I do too,"

"You do?"

The hand that had been fumbling with his collar was caught by Antoine, and the other me let out a tiny gasp. They looked at each other for a moment and you could see a small expectant smile form on my lips.

But alas I knew it would not last.

" You're really a great friend Tina," Antoine finally said, slowly removing my hand completely from his collar.

On the word 'friend' the other me went completely rigid, like someone had just dropped a bucket of ice on her head.

And to be honest I also wanted to drop a Boulder, no, a seven hundred pound deep sea anchor on that stupid little head of mine too.

And then, before the other me would ever manage to recover from the first blow, Antoine would go on to add the sentence that would really kill me in the end,

"So I really wanted to introduce you to my girlfriend. She's on her way here right now." he said, still not letting go of the hand he had removed from himself only moments before.

For some reason that were probably my masochistic tendencies, my eyes wandered back to Anubis on the other side of the room. I was surprised to find him looking at me too. Based on his empty expression, I first thought he didn't really care about what was going on, but then he mouthed one word at me.

'WOW.'

And with that what ever embarrassment I was already feeling multiplied tenfold.

I could not have Anubis still standing there when that girl showed up here. It would color me as a completely powerless and lovesick whimp. I'd never recover from this.

I already had the suspicion that Anubis thought that I had about the backbone of a wet towel and if he witnessed anymore he'd probably wipe the counter down with me in the future.

And yeah, you heard me, Antoine's girlfriend was going show up in this room in a matter of minutes to ensure that I would truly disintegrate into separate atomic particles out of sheer mortification.

Panic over came me, and in a split second decision I sprinted across the room willing to do whatever it takes to make this horror stop.

I could only think of one method. If it had gotten us here, there was a chance it could get us out.

And I had to get out of here.

ASAP.

Before he could protest and let's be honest, before he even realized I had traversed the span of the room at a speed faster than light, I smushed Anubis's cheeks between my hands, yanked his head down and planted a determined kiss on his lips.

Instantly and this time by my choice, I once again felt my entire world tip.