The One

You should be with him, not me.

The fairy lights pinned around the window gave the bedroom a warm, buttermilk glow, but they didn't help Tom to relax or calm down. He felt more tightly wound up that he could ever recall. Moments earlier, he made a scene and stormed away from the dinner party he and Sally were hosting, after assassinating the characters of Samara and Lou. Now he lay on his bed, propped up against the headboard and took another swig straight from the wine bottle he bought up with him. He checked his phone to see if Tord had texted and at the blank screen he threw the phone down on the bed in a rage.

"You said 'him.'"
Tom was startled by Sally's sudden appearance in the doorway. He didn't hear her enter their bedroom. He wondered if their guests were still downstairs or if they left.

"What?"
"Downstairs, when you were tearing a strip out of our best friends. God knows why you did that." She gave a small hysterical laugh. "You said, 'Nobody in the world exists right at that moment apart from you and him.' You were referring to Tord, weren't you? When you went to that appointment, you felt it, didn't you? All that stuff you said about love being like a tsunami... You've fallen in love with him."

Tom said nothing. He couldn't bring himself to raise his head to look Sally in the eye. He already lied to her enough of late.
"I'm a fucking idiot." She laughed. "Have you been seeing him?"
Again Tom didn't reply.
"Of course you have," she continued. "All those late nights at work, the weekend where you and your boss were supposed to be laying out new campaigns and strategies. You were with him, weren't you?"

Tom nodded reluctantly.
"So you are gay."
"I don't know what I am or what this is, Sally."
"But you have feelings for him."
Tom paused before saying, "Yes."
"And does he have feelings for you?"
"I guess so."
"You mean you're unsure?"
"We haven't discussed it."
Sally laughed again, a dangerous glint in her eye. Her voice was getting louder and louder as she questioned him. "How come, because you spend all your time screwing and not talking?"
"We don't do that."
"You really expect me to believe you?"
"No, but I'm telling you that nothing had happened between us... nothing like that."
"But you'd like it to."
"I don't know what I want."

Tom was telling the truth. The line between what he felt for Tord emotionally and physically was starting to blur and there he indeed been times where he had imagined what it be like to be intimate with him. He even watched a couple or porn clips on his laptop to see how same-sex sex worked, and while he wasn't turned on by it, he wasn't repulsed either.

"Even if it's not physical between you two, it is emotional and that's the equivalent of an affair."
"I'm sorry." Tom muttered and held his head in his hands.
"How could you do this to me?!" Sally cried and sat on the end of the bed, staring at the exposed brick in front of her. "You know I grew up in a family where all my parents did was lie to each other about fidelity and you know what honesty means to me. Then you do this-"
"I didn't start it," Tom interrupted. "You were the one who wasn't happy the way we were. You were the one who kept scratching and scratching until you created a sore and now I've picked at the scab and this had happened. You should have left things the way they were."
"But I was right not to because we weren't Matched! We were in love, but deep down we both knew there was none of that 'fireworks' stuff like you spoke about earlier. We don't have the 'explosions' like you have with him."
"We could have been happy if you would've just left us as we were, and we wouldn't have done that test in the first place," Tom said, re-signed to her anger.
"Then you should have never seen him again!" she yelled.
"You don't know what it's like to meet someone you are Matched with because you don't have one!"

Sally's anger was brimming at the surface and she opened her mouth to retort but then stopped herself. She dropped down to the floor and began to cry, her body wrapping itself into a protective ball.
Sally was the backbone of their relationship and he had never seen her like this before. Tom was scared that he had broke her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she recoiled from his touch, just like he did with her earlier.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it."
"Yes, you did," she replied. "And you're right... I pushed you into this and now I don't know how to make it stop."
"Neither do I."

Sally wipes a tear from her cheek and took a shuddering breath. "There's only one way this can go, Tom. And although it kills me to say it, for my own sanity, I have to let you go. If it was another person you weren't Matched with, then I would put up a fight. But I can't battle with genetics. It's a war I'm never going to win."
Tom felt tears streaming down his face. "What are you saying?"
Sally took a deep breath before she spoke. "You should be with Tord and not me."

•°•°What side are you? Tom's or Sally's? ;3°•°•