Your Friend, Alex

Your Friend, Alex: Part 2

I leave the car on the side of the road. It's a quiet street, I'm sure it will be fine. I've experienced no traffic ever on this street, and aside from a tiny house about a mile up the road, Julias's house is the only house for miles. I sneak through the trees, stepping slowly and carefully so as to avoid snapping a branch or rustling some leaves. This feels crazy. I can't believe I'm basically stalking my own girlfriend. This is a new low, even for me. I get about halfway down the driveway when the SUV door opens. I crouch ready to see who this could be. Out steps a man about my age, 27 at the oldest, with dark brown hair, and an even beard, wearing a black sports jacket and joggers. His watch glistened in the light of the setting sun, as did the gold chain draped around his neck. Light reflected off of his designer sunglasses, a pair that I obviously could never dream of affording. What the fuck? I've never seen this guy in my life. I mean Julia showed me pictures of all of her friends and family. In fact it's her favorite pastime. Almost like a regular slide show of sorts. However, I've never seen this man in my fucking life. It's bad enough that a random man I've never seen before is at my girlfriend's house, but did he have to be better looking than me as well? I mean this guy is fit. He's not a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson musclehead or anything but he is toned, chiseled, and looks like he could kick my ass without batting an eye. It was also apparent by his fashion and car choices that he had to be wealthy. I do well for myself as a professor, but this guy was obviously crushing me in the funds department. His whole aura radiated wealth and status. He's practically the antithesis of me. God Julia, am I really that bad? Why even keep me around? I look down at my protruding stomach and sigh quietly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not obese, not in the slightest. It's just that dinners consisting of Pepperoni Pockets and hot wings tend to catch up to a guy after a while. Don't judge me. I plan lessons every night. I don't have the time to be some health nut who only eats vegan cheese and salad. At least I'll die happy as grease slowly clogs my arteries. This guy must be miserable. He walks to the porch and goes inside. No knocking, no texting, just walks inside like he owns the place. He's definitely been here before. That entrance was too comfortable. Here I sit like an idiot in the brush of trees watching a man I've never seen enter the love of my life's house. No knock. My mouth is hanging open like I'm trying to catch flies and I feel a rage boiling inside of me. No. I need to relax. I haven't seen anything yet. I can't jump to a conclusion. I have two choices. I could pretend I never saw it. I could be confident in my beautiful girlfriend and walk away right now. She's never given me any reason not to trust her. Who knows? This could be a forgotten cousin, or an old friend she's scheduled to hang out with. She might have just forgotten to mention it. Why must my brain always jump to the worst case scenario? Maybe it's a surprise for me? Maybe this guy is just selling a rare movie poster or original print and she's buying it for me. After all, it is October, and My birthday is coming up in 2 weeks. Or maybe the whole no sex thing is a farce and she just thinks I'm too ugly to sleep with. Maybe this is a prostitute! God I can't believe I even thought that, Julia's too gorgeous for prostitutes, she can have anyone she wants. I guess we're going with option two. Snoop some more. I slowly creep up to the living room window, my heart racing. I'm nauseous over what I may see. This girl is so pure, so innocent. I mean we haven't even had sex yet. My idea of her in my head is so pristine and I couldn't bear for it to be shattered in such a dramatic way. I'm supposed to be her first, not this asshole. I finally got to the left of the window. I take a deep breath, bracing myself to feel like a massive idiot no matter what the situation. I slowly peak through the corner of the window. Careful not to reveal too much of myself and be spotted. There he is. Sitting on the couch by himself. Only 4 feet away. Julia is nowhere in sight. I pull away from the window gasping for air. The anxiety is too much. I mean here I am spying through my own girlfriend's window like a fucking stalker. But I have to know. Have I really wasted 6 months of my life? Could she really be leading a double life? Or am I just paranoid? I light another cigarette to calm my nerves, sitting with my back against the wall, eyes closed deeply inhaling. The flavor of tobacco coating my mouth and calming worries if only for a moment. My grandmother recently passed this year from emphysema, and I know that asthma runs in my family but I just can't help myself. There's nothing better than a morning cigarette, a cigarette after a meal, and as I've heard, a cigarette after sex. Usually I would feel guilty for smoking two cigarettes back to back like this but today I'm grateful I have them. After all, this may be my last cigarette as a man in love. It's best to make that feeling last as long as possible. I decided I needed to find Julia. I walked around to the back of the house, cigarette still in hand and crouched as I climbed the steps to her deck. There is a kitchen window that rests right above the sink, but that would be too obvious a vantage point. She'd see me right away. I'm going to have to look through the sliding door. As I come up the stairs and round the corner my shoulder grazes a hanging spatula on the grill that falls to the ground with a loud clang. Fuck I'm an idiot. I grab the spatula and rush as quietly as I can to the wall. I see the curtain pulled back as presumably Julia looks out into the backyard for the origin of the noise. I hold my breath, praying she won't come outside to investigate. After what feels like an eternity, I hear the sound of the sliding door being locked, and see the top of the curtain shuffle closed. I slowly creep back to the grill and hang the spatula back in its original place. God I'm a fucking moron. With my backdoor stalking foiled, I made my way back to the front of the house, tossing my cigarette as I didn't want to be detected by a smoke cloud. A shame. I only smoked half. These packs are expensive and I hate to waste them, but matters seem to be a bit more pressing than a measly waste of 10 dollars. I got back to the porch and took a deep breath. I peak around the corner again. Here comes Julia. She walks around the couch and hands the man a glass of water. They begin speaking but I can't make out what's being said. Julia laughs with delight. Fuck this guy. He can't be that much funnier than me. I sat seething with rage, unsure who I was more angry at. Julia for seeing this man in the first place, or the stranger for being superior to me in every conceivable way. Stop Alex. You're getting ahead of yourself. They haven't really done anything yet. Remember your what ifs. What ifs are something my therapist and I practice often. When my brain goes into fight or flight mode, I tend to think up the worst possibility that could happen, and then decide that it will happen. For instance, if my mother texts me with just the words, "Call me.", then I assume that she is dying and has some sort of incurable disease. Don't get me wrong, I despise that woman, but she's still my mother at the end of the day and losing a parent would be emotionally devastating. Now I practice what ifs. So if my mother says, "Call me.", I think to myself, what if she's inviting me to dinner? What if she needs my help with the computer? What if she wants to apologize for being a raging bitch? Usually after that, I feel much better. Today, my what ifs are failing me. I look back into the living room, careful to not be seen. Julia slowly sits in his lap. She runs her fingers through his hair and he smiles at her. She leans in pausing for a moment, their lips close, surely sharing breaths before the inevitable. She kisses him. Not a peck. A full on kiss. He slides his tongue into her mouth almost immediately. She bites his lip, sucking on it almost as if it were a piece of hard candy, and she was trying to drain it of its flavor before it dissolves. I pull away. I'm appalled. I can't believe it. That's all I needed to see. I now see that this whole relationship was fake. All of the long conversations and dinner dates, movie nights, and art gallery visits, all a facade. I was the safe guy. The one she knew would never make a sexual advance. The one she knew that would follow direction and make her comfortable. The one who could provide emotional depth where others could not, and listen to her problems with interest instead of boredom. I feel disappointed. Couldn't I have at least been the one she used for sex? For months I've been fantasizing, dreaming, and wishing something would happen. I thought about how I would initiate it too. I would pour her a glass of wine and slide over to her on the couch, looking deeply into her eyes as I rested my hand on her thigh. Lean in slowly to kiss her neck gently, my lips brushing against her skin ever so softly as I tightened my grip a bit with the other. Then slowly but surely we would fall into a passionate kiss, the kind that the two of them were sharing now. Her plump lips stained with lipstick intertwined with mine as she slowly undid my belt. I would pull down her dress revealing her curvy body as she pulled off my shirt, and we would make love. Once finished, we would lay together naked, uninhibited and talk about our future. All of our hopes and dreams and the ways that we would accomplish them together. This was a fantasy that helped me fall asleep every night. A perfect way to lose my virginity to the woman I loved. I just never could work up the courage. I'm currently 27 years old and I still have yet to know the sensual touch of a woman. It's not that I was afraid, to the contrary quite the opposite. It's just that film nerds and football stars possess very different qualities, and in high school and college, football players won the day. I had even tried to use Tinder as a hookup app but chickened out. Inviting a person I've never met into my home purely for the purpose of sex was scary to me. Who was to say that these women weren't carrying venereal diseases. Even worse, what if I got one of them pregnant by mistake? Now I was tied to a complete stranger for the rest of my life giving her almost all over my very minimal income to support a mistake made in 45 seconds late one night in my twenties. No thank you. But Julia was different. She was classy and beautiful, prim and proper, had an eye for the arts and didn't mind my less than ideal physique. However, she was so adamant that she wanted to wait, but now I see she was just spinning a web of lies. I'm crushed. I feel depression, knowing that what I thought was a beautiful love story was at its end, only to be swallowed up by waves of hopelessness and despair. I felt hatred For the man who must have something I don't. For the man who very obviously fucked the former love of my life. I feel anger. A sudden surge of rage coursing through my veins. A desire to get answers, a desire to have my say, and a desire to hurt this man. Very, Very badly. That was all I needed to see. It's my turn to speak.