The One

Having enough of the lies of your 'best friends.'

The guests around the dining table laughed heartily at one of John-Paul's anecdotes involving a young reality star his PR agency represented and the result of too much cocaine. John-Paul and his wife, Lucienne, a tabloid journalist, were always a worthy addition to their dinner parties with the salacious celebrity gossip they entertained them with, much to the amusement of Sally, Samara and Lou.

It was only Tom who wasn't laughing. Instead, he sat at the table staring out through the floor-to-ceiling window as he often did, wishing he were anywhere but here.

His ambivalence toward the company and the Malaysian food Sally had spent much of the day preparing hadn't gone unnoticed. Several times Sally placed her hand on Tom's arm and while it used to make him smile, now he just wanted to recoil at her touch. He was also drinking more than usual, knocking back the Chardonnay, undeterred by the hangover it would inevitably give him the next day.

"How are the wedding plans going?" Lucienne asked. Tom was just sober enough to stop himself from letting out an audible groan.
"There's not much left to do now really." Sally said, a sudden edge on her voice. She was probably annoyed by the way Tom was acting. "It's going to be the two of us in New York. All we need to find is a photographer now and we'll probably have a party when we get home."
"I wish we would've done that," Samara said, glancing at Lou. "It would've saved my parents a fortune. And you haven't had any more thoughts about the Match Your DNA test first?"
"Oh, don't start on that again," Lou interrupted. "They're happy as they are. Leave them be."
"I was only asking."

Tom's eyes flicked toward Sally's, but she didn't return the look. She was too busy topping up Lou's drink, visibly flushed by Samara's question. He was surprised she hadn't told her best friend they'd taken the test or about his results. He was thankful to Lou for keeping the information between just the two of them. But there was something about Samara that night that was winding him up. Her pregnancy gave her a boastfulness that irritated him, as if she was rubbing her and Lou's perfect marriage and impending parenthood in his face. He felt like his world was on the verge of collapse and he couldn't stand looking at her smug expression.

Several times he bit his tongue to stop himself from saying something inappropriate and instead he continued to stare blankly out the window, refusing to add anything to the conversation. There was an air of tension around the table and poor Lucienne and John-Paul kept quiet.

"We decided not to take the test in the end," Sally lied. "We know everything we need to know about each other, right?" She looked imploringly at Tom for reassurance but he gave none.

In fact he had given her a little of anything in the last fortnight. He left no affectionate messages pinned to the fridge with magnetic letters, his daytime texts were humorless and to the point and he would led her to believe he was spending more and more time in the office beyond his contracted working hours. Whenever she confronted him about his aloof behavior, he simply blamed it on a couple of particularly stressful accounts, an excuse she did at first accept. But she wasn't stupid and he knew she understood there was more to it than that.

"Well, let's see if you can buck the trend of rising non-Match divorces," Samara added. "I'm rooting for you guys"
"Remind me again about how it was when you and Lou first met," Tom suddenly asked, the first words he spoke for a good half hour.
"I've told you before," she replied hastily. "We were at my cousin's wedding in Mumbai-"
"No," Tom interrupted. "Tell me how you felt when you first saw each other or when you had your first conversation. How did you know that Lou was the one?"
"It was a gradual thing, wasn't it?" Samara said, blushing from Tom's interrogation. "A couple of dates in I had a feeling he was the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Then the DNA test confirmed it." Lou nodded in agreement, but something inside Tom knew it was halfhearted; Tom had become the master of halfhearted of late.

"Only it didn't, did it?" Tom said, leaning over the table to grab the bottle to refill his glass.
"What do you mean?" Samara asked.
"I mean there were no fireworks or explosions or thunder and lightning bolts like other Matched couples talk about."
"It's not the same for everyone."
"No, Samara, you didn't feel any of that because there's no Match between you and Lou."
"Tom... what are you doing?" Sally asked, darting a horrified look to their guests on the other side of the table. "I'm so sorry, you two."

John-Paul and Lucienne also glanced at each other, evidently feeling equally uncomfortable but quietly fascinated.

"You either didn't do the test because you were too scared to find out the results or you did it and discovered you weren't compatible," Tom continued, a grimace on his face. "You've lied about it ever since because you want everyone to believe you're this perfect couple destined to be together. I've seen Matched couples and the way they behave is nothing like the two of you act. Really, you have no idea how it feels when you meet the one, do you? How, when you're with them, the whole world melts away and you feel like you've been hit by a force of a tsunami. And how nobody else in the world exists in that moment apart from you and him."

At the word 'him' Sally took a sharp intake of breath.

"You don't know how any of that feels because you have never experienced it. So don't try to tell me or anyone else how we should live our lives when your own is just as messed up."

And with that, Tom grasped the rest of the bottle, pushed his chair out from behind him and stormed up the stairs to the bedroom, slamming the door shut.