"Yes... I want you to leave me alone. I mean it."
The words leave a sickly taste in your mouth and you wash them down with even more wine, aware that the more you drink the more your resolve might weaken but you're not thinking straight.
"Do you tho...
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You can't go on like this... you have to end things with Van...
You repeat the same few lines over and over in your head like a mantra over the following two weeks, almost like it's a sacred incantation that might somehow ward off these feelings that haunt you. It doesn't work though, your heart lurching every time your phone vibrates with a text message. Van's insistent, that's for sure. His texts start out flirty with plenty of innuendoes, but by the third day of you blanking him they take on a more serious tone.
Van: This won't go away just because you're avoiding me. I need to see you.
Van: We need to talk. You can't just keep ignoring me.
Van: I miss you x
The last one just rips into your heart brutally, and from that point on you hit delete quickly every time his name flashes up on your phone screen, trying not to read the contents of the messages. It's safer that way.
Of course ignoring Van doesn't mean that you automatically stop thinking about him though. He lingers there in your mind frustratingly, refusing to budge. He's the first image that pops into your head on waking and the last thought intruding on your mind as you battle with sleep. His whispered seductions in your ear, his hot breath fanning against your neck, the plushness of his lips as they press feverishly against yours... and those eyes... captivating and impossibly blue in the sunlight, drawing you in.
You've stayed away from Larry's ever since the day after the party, feigning a mystery illness, even going as far as insisting that Larry steers clear of your house too in case you infect him. He argues at first, but you insist. After all you are sick. Sick with guilt.
For the first time in all the years that you've been together you find yourself imagining a scenario where you two break up, playing the scene in your head like a movie. Larry shocked and disbelieving, pleading for you to reconsider through his tears. Van there waiting in the wings to move in and claim you, the duplicitous victor who steals you right out of his best friend's arms. No matter which way you play it, the outcome is always the same. Heartbreak for all involved.
You just can't do it.
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