The Space Between Us | L.S

Replacement

At first, there were some moments where I thought Morgan might be my next boyfriend. The night of the party he took me back to his flat that he shared with three other graduate students and we drank wine and talked about every conversation we could think of. We had so much in common which was strange; every niche interest I had he also had or could at least carry a conversation about it. We had sex the second time we met up and it seemed like our interests carried to the bedroom as well. He was comfortable taking control and we were exploring each other's kinks. There were also things I absolutely loathed about him; he thought being an art history major was a personality trait, he was too brutally honest for his own good, he never gave me compliments which I guess I had grown greedy for from my prior relationship, and he was a very picky eater. However, when I carefully calculated them over, I would always tell myself that they were not breaking points.

We've been sleeping together off and on for the past four months. Nothing serious, nothing too casual. However, tell that to my too-big-for-its-own-good heart.

Everything about the casualness of our relationship, if you could even call it that, went against my very nature. After our fourth time sleeping together and his penis pretty much still in me, he said "I'm looking to keep things pretty cas'; you get that right?" I nodded, mainly because I was so shocked by his statement I didn't think my body could comprehend any source of verbal communication.

"I just don't like the lad." Jonas exclaimed, aggressively shoving green beans into the plastic bag. We were in the middle of Marks and Spencers, Jonas helping me pick up foods for the dinner I was going to prepare for Morgan tonight.

I rolled my eyes, picking up two loafs of bread for him to choose from.

"Sour dough? Are you kidding?" He practically smacked the 'repulsive' loaf from my hand.

"I don't know why though? He hasn't done anything wrong." I shrugged putting the whole wheat loaf into the basket.

"He asked me if I've ever heard of this underground band called the Artic Monkeys." I snorted

"That's not enough reason to hate someone."

"I don't hate him." Jonas picked up the bread from my basket. "I loaf him." A

"Okay see, now anything you say is invalid." I walked away not wanting people to think we were associated.

"Wait! I get it, that was a bit crumby." He giggled like a schoolgirl, skipping to catch up with me.

The dinner was subpar at best. I really wasn't much of a cook and Morgan made no effort to hide his distaste as he pushed mushy vegetables to the corners of his plate.

"So, Morgan how's that thesis coming along?" Like always Jonas noticed the awkward tension, and swooped in to save his social-inept mate. Pulling back a chair, he sat down cross-legged and grabbed a hefty chunk of the loaf from my plate.

"Fine." Morgan said simply, taking a sip of his wine. "Tackling the biblical references in da Vinci's early paintings has been nothing less than thorny." I sucked my lips between my teeth, trying to stifle the upcoming bubble of giggles that were making their way up my throat at the sight of Jonas' eyes glazing over.

"Classic Vinci." Jonas joked, eying me over the loaf he had now submerged between his lips.

"Why don't you tell Jonas about what you found in The Last Supper? Maybe in great detail." I eyed Jonas again, mischief definitely present in my grey eyes.

For how smart he was, or at least pretended to be Morgan was oblivious to our jokes and started babbling on about few of the original paint strokes from da Vinci remain. I instantly knew the joke was on me, when I realized I would have to sit through him talking about this again. "We are basically just looking at a painting by Santa Maria Delle Grazie workers." He pronounced the location in an awful Italian accent and I almost allowed my face to scrunch up in second hand embarrassment for him.

"Wow, fascinating." Jonas said deadpanned. "Who would have tho-" He stopped midsentence as all of our attention jerked to the now flickering light above us.

"Ah fuck!" I groaned

"Not again." Jonas groaned even more aggressive, shooting to his sock-clad feet.

"It's just a light bulb?" Morgan said not understanding our prominent frustration.

"This bulb is our arch nemesis. The mount is so particular and when it goes out it's an all-day process." I informed him from gritted teeth, as I mustered a deathly glare at the ceiling fixture. "I mean an all-day thing for us at least; we're not really handymen if you couldn't tell."

"This can be your initiation Morgan." Jonas said with a cherish smirk creeping on his face.

"You don't have to." I turned to him, but internally I was praying he would say yes to save me a mental breakdown.

"I mean I could I guess, who did it last time? Call up your landlord?" Morgan asked, obviously not wanting to commit to any hardlabour.

"We got Louis to change it last tim-" The words halted in his throat as I whizzed a sharp glare in his direction.

"Who's Louis?" He inquired casually. My teeth grinded as I glared at my flatmate, soon to be ex-flatmate if he kept this shit up.

"Nobody." I replied quickly. "Actually, well no, he is my ex-boyfriend."

"Oh, okay cool. Well, I bet I can take a look at it." He shrugged indifferently.

I excused myself to the kitchen to search through our cabinets for an extra light-bulb. My ears perked at the footsteps making their way towards me. "You couldn't just keep your bloody mouth shut." I whipped my head when I heard Jonas walking into the room.

"Jesus Christ Wen." He raised his hands in surrender, his eyes wide with shock at my abruption.

"I get you don't like him but I do. So don't bring up shit like my ex-boyfriend around him."

"Fuck, okay I'm sorry." He raised his hands in surrender. "It wasn't being intentionally spiteful."

My tense shoulders relaxed. "You're right. I'm sorry for snapping at you." I rolled my shoulders, loosening the strained muscles.

"Don't worry about it." He brushed it off, something Jonas has always been good at.

Why did the sudden mention of Louis put me in such a spiral? Heck, Morgan casually brings up his 'ex-significant other', as he likes to call her, frequently. I never really even thought twice about it. They were together for almost three years so a lot of his stories centered about them together. He knew I had dated someone but I never told him about Louis and he never asked.

I had finally wiped Louis completely from my radar. My now was Morgan, however, casual everything might be.