Where did we go wrong?

Part 22

Earlier that day, when Alec learnt he had to go and see Magnus, he felt as if his whole day got ruined, and it made it worse when his mom asked him to invite Magnus for dinner. Alec wanted to hate Magnus. Alec needed to hate Magnus, and seeing Magnus would not help with that. Despite the fact Magnus cheated on him, one stupid part of his heart screamed, saying Magnus never cheated on him, and he hated that part of his heart. He had to be rational. Magnus was his past, and Magnus cheated on him, and his future is with James, but his rationality runs out of the door every time he sees Magnus. Magnus had more impact on his life than he liked to admit. The second he saw Magnuss lonely silhouette by the window in Magnus's office, Alec felt his heart clench. All he wanted to do was to walk up to Magnus and take him in arms and kiss him and sooth him, and Alec hated that part of his brain. He felt as if he cheated on his fiancé whenever he felt like that towards Magnus.

So, Alec acted extra nasty towards Magnus. He felt as if it was his own way of punishing himself for emotionally cheating on his fiancé. For the last decade, Alec acted cold towards Magnus. His glares were pointed at Magnus, and his harsh words were pointed at Magnus. Whenever he was vicious towards Magnus, he saw how Magnus's heart got broken a little bit more, and that made Alec feel as if he had a knife pierce through his heart. The more affection he felt towards Magnus, the more he vicious he became towards Magnus.

After their breakup, when Magnus came back from England, he hung around with the friend group like he used to. Of course, no one brought up the breakup, but Alec's actions towards Magnus pushed Magnus away from the group. Magnus let himself get replaced by James in their friendship. Of course, that did not go down well with the friend group, which made them less time together as a group altogether. Happier James seemed in their relationship; more ties Magnus cut with the group. Magnus did spend one to one time with the lightwood siblings, Ragnor, Clary, Simon, Raphael, and so on, but he never attended any group events.

Little by little, Magnus spent less and less time with the group, and there was a time when no one was by Magnus's side for his birthday. Of course, Alec remembered Magnus's birthday, but he was not going to give the satisfaction of him remembering Magnus's birthday to Magnus. So, he instead, decided to officially post about his relationship with James on social media. Alec knew Magnus saw the announcement as Magnus disappeared from social media, and later, he got to know Magnus deleted social media altogether. Alec felt sad and satisfied at the same time, but he instead started putting more and more effort into his relationship with James.

The more he saw Magnus was in pain, the more he tried to make James happy. Magnus cheated on him, Magnus broke his heart, and Magnus walked away from their relationship. Alec used to remind himself this at least once a day like a mantra, so his longing for Magnus would go away and 8 years later, but he is yet to see that day.

So, after a few suffocating hours at Magnus's office, Alec felt as if he could breathe when he stepped outside of the Banes' office. The last thing he wanted to do was hang around so he would see Magnus. It was bad enough that he would have to see Magnus later that afternoon as his moms birthday party.

Alec got back to his office within less than an hour even after grabbing himself some quick lunch. As he bit into his chicken club sandwich, the last thing he expected was to his whole life to crumble into dust because of one email.

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"Are you okay?" James asked from Alec as Alec took his coat off.

"Yeah, I am okay." Alec gave a quick smile, which did not reach his eyes.

"You have been bit off this whole evening. You hardly talked. What is going on?" James walked up to Alec. Alec flinched as his fiancé put his hand on his shoulder.