Use Me - C.M.

Chapter 1

I, Layla Smith, was officially pathetic. For what felt like the hundredth time, I was standing on the front porch of my best friend's home. The one person who has consoled me every time Jay and I got into a fight.

I knocked lightly with my left hand, my right wiping at my tear-stained face. I stood silently, listening to the footsteps approaching until the porch light came on, the front door opening slowly. There he stood, hair disheveled and wearing only a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. A look of concern crossed his face as he took in my mess of an appearance.

"Layla? It's one in the morning. What happened?"

"I'm sorry, Conor. I wanted to go home, but Hannah has some guy over and she-" My voice shook as tears started streaming down my face again.

"It's okay, come in." He interrupted, pulling me inside and ushering me to the black leather couch in the center of his living room.

"Are you alone?" I asked, wiping my tears with the sleeves of my sweater.

Although he lived by himself, Conor occasionally had "lady friends" over at night, which is why I would typically call him before showing up, and I usually never came over past 9 pm, but tonight was different.

"Yeah, no one's here. I was just sleeping." He replied. "Do you want a drink?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm okay. I'm sorry for just showing up. I didn't know where else to go."

"It's fine, Layla. I told you, you can always come here. What happened?" He asked, sitting down beside me.

"Jay and I got into a fight again, but it was worse this time. We broke up. I was staying at his place tonight but I obviously had to leave and Hannah is screwing some guy and asked me not to come back to the apartment tonight, which is usually fine until now. I'm so sorry. I should've just went to a hotel." I rushed out, shaking my head in embarrassment.

"Oh my god, if you apologize one more time I'm going to lose it." He said in his thick British accent. "You're one of my best friends, I would've been pissed if you had gone to a hotel alone in the middle of the night when you know you can stay here."

I forced a small smile but I felt like bursting into tears again at his kindness. Sure, I had other friends, but Conor never judged me and was always empathetic and helpful when necessary. He was complete comfort to me.

"So, why did you and Jay break up?" He continued. "Unless you don't feel like talking about it."

"I guess I just couldn't give him what he wanted." I shrugged.

As much as I shared with Conor, some things I held back for the sake of my relationship with Jay, and some things I just wasn't comfortable telling him, or most other people for that matter. One of those things was the fact that I had been dating Jay for 6 months now and we haven't had sex. Which is what most of our fights were about, but I couldn't tell Conor that.Conor had been one of my best friends for the last three years, but he knew very little about my relationship with Jay. I knew he was curious, and he always encouraged me to talk to him if I needed to, but he never pushed me. As much as I considered him a big teddy bear, he would be furious if he knew what was going on.

"Well, it's his loss for sure. I can tell you that much." He shrugged. "I don't know exactly what's happened between you two, but I really hope you know that you deserve someone that doesn't make you cry all the time."

We sat in silence for what seemed like hours, but was really only mere minutes until I finally spoke up.

"He cheated on me."