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Unfinished: Friendship

"Does it bother you that I have sex with other women?" he asks. The question catches me a little bit off guard. We were laying naked together in bed. It just didn't seem like an appropriate time or place to ask that kind of thing. Or to answer it. A noncommittal grunt is my only response. What could I possibly have to say in response to that? Yes, I am bothered by the fact that you sleep with other women. The thought alone makes me feel sick to my stomach. "Because, if it's a problem for you, we'll probably have to stop doing this kind of thing."

"You already have a girlfriend," I remind him. "I knew you were having sex with her when this whole thing started. Why would I start getting mad about it now?" It becomes apparent to me then that I'm not the one who this question should be directed toward. There is a whole other person someone out there who doesn't know that she's a part of a sex triangle. Plus, she didn't really have anything to worry about. I was feeling the ties of our relationship slowly loosening every time we slept together. This line of questioning was his subtle way of letting me know everything was coming to an end. Becoming attached to someone so emotionally unavailable to me was my fault alone.  No matter how many times he slipped into my bed, I knew, he would always slip out again and go back to her.  We as humans are allowed to make mistakes, and I was his. An accident, as he had called it.

"I'm just making sure. I like having sex with you and I really do care about you. I want us to be able to talk about anything that we're feeling. I wouldn't want anything to mess this up for us." I am unable to understand what he is trying to say. I ask him what he means. "I'm not really sure. I guess... I just don't want to fuck up the dynamic of our friendship." And there he said it. Friendship. Friends. Just friends. That's all we are and I had no choice but to act accordingly.

"We're always going to have a fucked up dynamic. I feel like it's the only way this friendship knows how to work." I'm a dirty liar for saying such things. I want nothing more than to put his girlfriend on a space shuttle to Mars just so I could keep him for myself. I wanted to be able to feel something special with him. I wanted more than friendship. My heart cracked a little more each time that word got thrown out into the universe to be interpreted as truth. "We're just fucked up."

Then we rolled over each other and did what we did best. There was no preamble of kisses. It was cold, mechanical, detached. He put me on my stomach just so he wouldn't have to look at me and could pretend I was who he really wanted. I obliged his unspoken request and he finished himself off quickly, not bothering if I had come. I hadn't, but I suppose that was never much of his concern anyway.
I looked over at him as he busied himself with the cell phone he had promptly fished from under the bed. Text, text, text, buzz, text, text, buzz. "I have to go now." He says it quietly as though he feels any guilt. I know otherwise. "Do you think you can give me a ride to the train station?"

"Of course."

The short and silent ride is punctuated by the slamming of my car door as he leaves to run to a girl waiting on the platform. The Girl waiting on the platform. I look away and as I pull back onto the street for my four wheeled walk of shame back home, I get a text message.

Thx for the ride. Your a gr8 friend. - Boy

I try my best to remain neutral in my answer.

Right. - Girl
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