Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

“It was just sex with him.”

“Yeah, I know, Will. You don’t have to—”

Will’s head snapped up and his eyes were a blaze of blue.

“It was just sex. It was nothing. You were my best friend. You were my best fucking friend and I’d told you the truth and you just left me. No more hanging out, no more talking or texts. No more… anything. That one moment meant more to you than every fucking thing we’d shared. That sex meant more to you than it ever could have to me. Because then you were just gone.”

Oh Jesus.

Before the Tiramisu Incident, Will and I had been hanging out all the time, cooking, watching TV shows together, going all over the city together, having a lot of (I thought) hot sex. And all those things meant a ton to me. Had made me deliriously happy, which Will no doubt knew since it’s not like I was super subtle about it. And during that, I had always known Will slept with other people, though I hadn’t let myself think about it. But seeing it in the flesh had in some ways overpowered all the rest of what we’d shared.

And I had left him.

“I—you never said….”

“You told me not to! You told me you didn’t want anything to do with me, Leo. And I understand, right: you were looking out for yourself. You were taking what you needed. And fuck if that isn’t exactly what you should’ve done. It’s what I’d been telling you to do all along. It just….” He jutted his chin out like he was preparing to take a punch and clenched his jaw.

“It hurt you.”

He gave a shrug, absorbing it. It was like everything had polarized. I had hurt Will. I had hurt him with my absence. I had hurt him when I lied and said I could handle things the way they’d been when I knew that I couldn’t. I’d hurt him and he hadn’t said a thing. He’d respected my wishes and left me alone until… what? Until he absolutely couldn’t anymore. And then I was the one he’d called. The first one. The only one.

“I’m so sorry, Will. Fuck, I’m so, so sorry I hurt you.” I grabbed his arms and turned him so he was facing me. He sighed, still silent, but his muscles unclenched a little under my palms. I stayed that way until he finally looked at me.

“The thing is, though? When you told me you didn’t want to be around me anymore.”

“Couldn’t. I couldn’t. Not didn’t want to.” It was essential that he understood the difference.

“Okay,” he conceded, “couldn’t. That was the first time I believed that maybe I was wrong about what being in a relationship meant.” He shook his head at himself.

“How do you mean?”

“I always saw them as the Borg, where the two of you just kind of sloshed into one being. Or that you had to sacrifice all the pieces of yourself that didn’t fit with the other person. But you… didn’t. You were totally yourself. Even though you wanted us to be in a relationship. Even though you knew getting upset about it wasn’t what I would want. I don’t know, maybe that makes me a total dick. But it made me kind of hope that it was possible. Autonomy and a relationship.”

“Wow,” I said.

“What, you think it does make me a total dick?”

“No. Well, when you put it like that, I guess it kind of makes you a total dick that you realized it when we broke up. Or—sorry, I mean, not broke up. Stopped being whatever we were being. But, no, I was gonna say, wow, Rex was right.”

“Huh? Rex. About what?”

“Oh, um, well….” I gave a nervous laugh. “I kinda… asked Daniel for advice. About you. Us, I mean. And Rex was there because, duh, he lives there, and he overheard and, yeah. It was the night I got home from Holiday. You were still there and I didn’t want to bug you about like, What Does It All Mean, because you were handling everything with Claire and the kids.

“But I was dying, seriously. Like, chugged five Cokes and couldn’t sit still dying over not knowing where we stood. Point is, Rex told me that just because you seem fearless about being blunt to people doesn’t mean you don’t get scared and resist saying stuff about yourself. Anyway….”

Will was glaring.

“Fuckin’ Rex,” he muttered, shaking his head.

I stepped closer to him and slid my arms around his neck, wanting the closeness, the feel of him. “It’s just… I want… I want you to tell me that stuff.”

“I do,” Will insisted. “I do tell you stuff. I called you about Claire even though you’d told me you basically never wanted to see me again!”

“You’re right.” I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to explain what I meant. “I just… I want…. Okay, you know how you tell me what you want when we’re, uh, you know—”