“Let’s tip this coffee out, go and get some beer, and drink until we both feel better.”
He laughs. “Sounds like a fucking good plan to me.”
I stand and smile down at him. “I’ve got your back, Bestie. Even if sometimes I’m an asshole about it, I do have your back.”
“Yeah,” he says, holding my eyes. “I know you do.”
“Then let’s go get some beer and get this party started.”
He stands, extending his hand for a fist pump.
I laugh. Giving it to him.
It’s not completely okay, but like everything else, we’ll find our way through this.
We always do.
~*~*~*~*~
“One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war!” I cry.
Roman rolls his eyes, curls his fingers in mine, and our thumbs press against each other.
“I’m at a disadvantage.” I laugh. “Your thumbs are way bigger than mine.”
“Deal with it, midget fingers.”
I use my other hand to thump him, and then I grab his forearm to try and stop his thumb squashing mine. He laughs loudly as our thumbs attack each other, trying to squash the other person’s down for three seconds. I laugh loudly and squeeze his arm.
“That’s fucking cheating.” He grins. “Beat me properly.”
“No,” I yell with a laugh. “No, I will cheat my way through this.”
His thumb traps mine and squashes it down. He pulls his hands back and throws them in the air. “Yeah, boy! I win!”
“You’re a fucker,” I huff, crossing my arms. “Let’s play the slapping game.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Seriously, Roman, I’ll fuck you up. I’m good at this one.”
I hold my hands out flat in front of me, he does the same. The tips of our fingers touch.
“You have to move your hand before I can slap yours,” I say, wiggling my brows.
I go to slap his hand, and he jerks his back quickly.
I do it again. He moves quickly.
I’m laughing so hard there are tears.
“I thought you said you were good at this, Spooser.”
“I am!” I cry, grabbing his wrist and slapping his hand over and over.
He roars with laughter and pulls it back. “You should quit while you’re ahead, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
I cross my arms and then flip him the bird.
“Now you’ve gotten that out of your system,” he grins. “Are we done?”
“I’m thinking of another game, this is not over. You will suffer.”
He snorts.
“I hate you,” I say, raising my brows.
“I hate you, too, dick frig.”
I giggle.
“Drink another beer, you’re behind.”
He slides a beer across the table towards me. I take it, open it, and drink it. “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes on the radio, and we both look at each other, massive grin on our faces.
“We simply cannot let this pass without breaking it down.” I nod.
We both start singing at the top of our lungs to the song, throwing our hands in the air, laughing like crazy people, right until the end of the song. Then we collapse back laughing again.
I miss laughing with him.
I miss the fun.
I really just miss him.
“I’m glad we’re friends again, I was getting worried there for a while,” I say.
He looks to me. “Me too. I know I don’t say it, but I appreciate everything you do for me, Molly. I really do. You’ve helped me so much.”
Just not enough to keep her from digging her claws back into him.
“Yeah, I know. I do know that.”
His eyes lock onto mine. “I never meant for it to go like this.”
I smile and shrug, even though my heart aches. “Honestly, I think it was just too soon. I think sometimes I hurt because I’m so afraid of losing you, and not because my feelings are that strong. I haven’t known you long enough for them to be that intense.”
Liar.
But it’s what he needs to hear.
He needs the pressure removed from me, and the only way for me to do that, is to take away what I think and feel, and just let him do this on his own. The worst thing he can get from me right now, is more drama. I need to be his happy place. I need to give him what he gave me at that start, because honestly, that’s what got me over Michael.
“Yeah,” he says, studying me.
“I just get so freaked out about losing what we have, that’s all.”
“You won’t lose me.”
But I could. He just can’t see it. If he goes back there, he will lose me. Because I don’t know many girls that would accept a friendship like ours. And even if I didn’t lose him, it would change. It couldn’t ever be the way it is now, and honestly, I think I’d rather nothing than a mediocre friendship. Roman and I, we weren’t made to be mediocre, we were made to be incredible. Epic even.
If he’s with her. Then he doesn’t need me.
That’s just how this works.
“Do you think we met for a reason?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I do. Honestly, and I’ve told you this before, the day you started talking to me, I asked my mom to send me something to make it easier. It was getting so fucking hard. And then you came into my life.”
That makes my heart ache for him.
But mostly, it makes me feel grateful that someone crossed our paths.
“I think your mom made sure I found you,” I say softly.
“I think she did, too.”
“And I’m grateful for it, Roman. You’re the best person I know. You’re my person. I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”
“Yeah,” he says, those eyes looking sad again. “I know.”
I hope this goes away for him soon.
I hope that woman finally gives him the chance to move on.
Because I hate seeing him so ... broken.
CHAPTER 20
Two weeks pass since Roman and I went back to being just friends.
It’s hard.
I keep most of how I’m feeling inside, and spend more time than not acting like I’m happy and moving on, but it’s killing me. It’s killing me to watch him sinking again. He looks unhappy, he’s not himself—even his tone of voice on the phone is flat and broken. I hate her for doing that to him. I just want to take his pain away, but I’m powerless to. So, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing.
Being his backbone, the positive in his life, his person.
Even though I’m falling to pieces internally with every passing second.
Things have changed between us, how could they not? Our conversations are guarded, we can’t talk about certain things anymore, he’s treating me how a man treats his friend when he has a girlfriend. When it was just me and him, there was nothing held back. We talked for hours on end about anything and everything. Now ... Now we just ... We just aren’t Roman and Molly anymore.
We still talk every day. We still laugh.
But something vital is missing.
Just keep pushing through, Molly. He needs you to be strong.
“Hey!” I say, rocking into his house when he gets back from work, beers in hand. “How are you?”
He’s sitting at his back table, staring at his phone. He looks up when I come in, and he smiles, the softness in his eyes returns for a bit. I wish I could make it stay for longer, but I can’t. I hold up the beers. “You up for one?”
“What do you think this house is? Amateur hour?” he grins.
I roll my eyes and flop down onto the chair. “Well, your hands are empty, so I’m guessing yes.”
He snorts, taking a beer.
“How are you, Spoosie?” he asks, putting his phone down.
“Awesome. You?”
He shrugs. “Good.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“That’s good,” I smile, and it kills me not to ask him more.
>
We drink and talk for a few hours until we’ve both eased up. It takes longer these days, with so much tension floating around in the air all the time. I wish I could make it easier, things have never been awkward between us, but only time can do that. Finally, he turns to me and for the first time, he talks freely with me.
“I was thinking of going down and seeing her this week.”
My stomach flips and pain stabs me in the chest, my entire body goes numb, but I keep my smile. I keep it because I have to. He needs me. Just breathe, Molly.
“Oh, does she want that?”
How I manage to get those words out of my mouth, is beyond me.
“I thought she did, but she rang me up last night and said she just didn’t have the same feelings for me anymore and didn’t want me to come down.”
I want to scream for joy, because it’s about damned time she finally said those words. Relief floods me, so glad he’s not going to go and have his heart ripped out of his chest yet again.
“But then she rang me again today...”
No, no, no.
“And she said she’s confused and doesn’t know what she wants. I think something is wrong with her, hey.”
No. Shit.
She’s a fucking psycho.
“So, I spoke to her a bit, and, honestly, it’s just pissed me off now. I’ll read you these messages.”
He’s going to read me the messages?
I’m honoured he trusts me with that.
“Can you just listen?” he asks, holding my eyes. “Please don’t judge me.”
I put a hand up. “No judgement here.”
I sit quietly as he opens his phone and starts telling me how it went down.
“So, I’ve been trying to just talk to her on the phone. Figure out what’s happening. We’ve been talking a fair bit over the last few weeks. She said she needed that time, I gave it to her, then she ended it, and I went off. Then she came back and confused it all again. It’s doing my head in. So, I told her I just want to talk with her on the phone, but she won’t answer.”
Bitch.
I don’t say that out loud, but I just nod and encourage him to keep going.
“So, basically, I told her to ring me as she was going out. She told me she would. She didn’t. Then she sent a message saying if she talks to me, it will confuse her decision and that as much as she’d love to come back, she is happy and wants to move forward with her life, blah blah blah. I told her I loved her, that I wanted to help her, all the bullshit, but she just refuses to ring me.”
God.
“I just wanted to end it, you know? I’ve gotten to that point, where I just want to end it and move on. She obviously doesn’t love me. I know that. I’ve always known that. Deep down, I knew you were right all along. I just wanted her to say it.”
She is saying it.
She’s said it a thousand times with her actions.
“Listen to this,” he says, flicking to another message. “I asked her to talk. She said why. I said you know why. You know what she said?”
I shrug, eager to know what she said.
“She said, ‘oh, I thought you might be going to tell me you have won a million dollars’.”
My mouth drops open.
That money hungry, selfish, piece of shit. All she cares about is money.
“How fuckin’ wrong is that?” he says, frowning. “All she fucking cares about is money.”
“That’s so disgusting. I can’t believe she said that,” I say, shaking my head. “She should be ashamed of herself.”
“Yeah. So, I’m still waiting to hear from her. I’m not going down there. I can’t. She obviously doesn’t want me there.”
Of course she doesn’t want him there. She’s playing games. Games that will only end in disaster. It’s black and white, in the big scheme of things. She can’t and won’t try and handle her life on her own, so she’s clutching onto the only person she knows will keep coming back time and time again, no matter what she does to him. She’s honest, she lets him go, and then has a freak out when he actually starts moving on, and tries to get him back.
“Can I tell you a story, it might help?”
He looks to me and puts his phone down.
“I knew a girl once, and recently I spoke with her,” I begin. “She was with this guy for a long time but broke it off because she didn’t love him anymore. She did the exact same thing your ex is doing, she kept him hanging, wouldn’t fully end it. I asked her the other day why she did that, why she didn’t just let him go if she didn’t love him. You want to know her answer?”
He nods, focused on the next words that come out of my mouth.
“She said it was because she liked knowing there was someone out there fighting for her, that there was someone out there who loved her and couldn’t live without her. She admitted to having zero feelings for him, but she said she even slept with him again, just to keep him hanging because she liked the attention he was giving her. She didn’t care for him, not even a little, she just liked how he made her feel.”
Roman stares at me for a minute, then says, “Write that down. I want to use that.”
I laugh softly and shake my head. “No way.”
“Please. You just said exactly what she’s doing to me. I want to say it to her. That’s what I want to say when she finally calls me. Please, help me out. Write that down.”
I smile at him and do what he asks.
Glad that maybe, just maybe, he’s finally realising that he is worth so much more than this.
And that woman isn’t worth a single second of his time.
He’s too good for her.
He always will be.
~*~*~*~
I feel good the next morning as I head over to Roman’s for our usual coffee. I’m proud of him for finally seeing what kind of woman he’s dealing with. I’m glad he didn’t get on a plane and go to her, because honestly, it would have ripped his heart out all over again, and how many times can one person bounce back from that? I feel a sense of relief in my chest, too, and for the first time I realised just how much pain I’ve been stuffing inside, trying to squash down.
It feels nice to have a breather from it.
It feels nice to have some hope.
I walk into his house, and he’s on the phone. I pause when I hear a feminine voice coming from the other side. He encourages me in and takes the phone off speaker and puts it into his ear, mouth that ‘it’s her’. I point that I can leave, but he shakes his head and asks me if I want a coffee. I sit and wait for him to finish up his phone conversation and make coffee.
Then he joins me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realise you were on the phone.”
“That’s okay. It was just her. I think she’s having some sort of mental crisis. She’s just losing it, hey.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
He shakes his head, clearly frustrated and tired. “She said she’s going to the doctor today, I think she needs to. Part of me wants to help her, you know.”
“But you can’t,” I point out.
“Nah, I can’t.”
You can’t help someone doing the things she’s doing. She needs to figure this one out on her own, and she’ll never do that when she is continually using people instead of dealing with her issues.
“I’m just trying to figure out if I should go down there or not.”
Oh.
I thought he said he had decided he wasn’t going to.
My heart sinks.
Again.
“Oh. Is that what she wants?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Why?”
“To see if there is anything there.”
Anything there? Anything there?
He has to be kidding me. There is nothing fucking there. The only thing there is something there for, is him. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about him, and will take a week of his attention before putting him back on a plane and sending him home. Why can’t he s
ee that?
Anger bubbles in my chest, and I can’t stop it.
I just can’t anymore.
He must notice the change in my face, because he says, “You okay?”
“I just ...” I look up at him. “I’m going to lose you, aren’t I?”
His eyes soften.
But he says nothing.
Dammit. Fucking God dammit. I’m such an idiot.
I shake my head and stand.
“Molly, please ...”
“I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. It’s just killing me. I’m going to say it, and I know you don’t want to hear it, but someone has to say it because God knows you’re not getting it on your own.”
I take a deep breath.
“She doesn’t love you, Roman. She is the most selfish, self-centred piece of shit I’ve ever encountered. You know, deep down in your heart, that she doesn’t want you back, that she doesn’t love you. I know you love her, I respect that, what I don’t understand is why? What is so fucking good about her, that you’d be willing to risk your happiness and another terrible heartbreak? What can she give you? Honestly? She’s a liar, she left you for another man, she’s done nothing but treat you like crap, so what exactly is it you think you’re going to get out of this?”
I take another shaky breath, and tears run down my cheeks. I’m so tired of trying to hold it all in. I’m so tired of trying to be the good guy. The strong one. I can’t take it anymore. I care about him. Way too much. I’m fooling myself into believing I can deal with this. I can’t.
“I have stood by you, I have watched this, I can see it so damned clearly but you can’t. I can’t stand by and watch you get broken once again. I’ve been so close, you know, to begging you not to go, but I realise this isn’t my battle to fight. It’s yours. My feelings for you are making this hurt for me, and I know that’s not your intention, but it’s the truth.”
“You said you didn’t have feelings for me anymore,” he says, his voice a little harder.
“I told you what you wanted to hear.”
He looks like I’ve slapped him.
“If you go back there, she becomes your person again, you don’t get me, too. You can’t have everything, Roman. You have to sort yourself out, because honestly, this is killing you again. It’s eating away at you, and it’s not fair. You deserve so much more than this, but I can’t make you see that anymore. I can’t make you see what’s right in front of you. She will break your heart, but if you have to go down there and let that happen, then I can’t stop you.”