As You Fall Asleep | styles

III | A flick of the wrist, my heart, a twist.

Oh, trust me, I know.

"She's so... satisfying and lovely," he continues. "I'm serious about her, us. But you never know with these things, relationships—they're finnicky, people are finnicky. I wanted to be sure about us before I introduced her to you."

"And she's the reason you've been ignoring, then?" I tease.

"Not ignoring, just forgotten," he corrects.

Of course, he forgot about me. Everyone in my life seems to have the same proclivity to do so. Am I that boring of a person that people forget I exist entirely?

I know I'm not Drew—the CEO of a multi-millionaire company, who lives the expensive life people dream of, where buying exorbitant cars and drowning in profligate, opportune glory is every day normality.

I know I don't have millionaire friends, who I can share millionaire wine with and wear millionaire clothes and access millionaire-only clubs, where we all complain about how difficult it is living as a millionaire whilst being surrounded by a descending economy, where I'm finally being forced to pay taxes like normal people.

I know I don't have models hanging like coats in my closet to attend millionaire balls with.

I know I don't have any of that, I know I'm not Drew. But does that make me so boring I no longer exist?

"Oh, forgetting about your best friend, that makes it so much better. I'm charmed, Drewsan." I roll my eyes.

"You know I don't mean it like that, Harry. I'm a busy man, I have my responsibilities. But being in love... it's a different type of duty. It controls you more than business and money ever could. Suddenly, your world revolves around making the one you love happy, and nothing else really matters." He looks to me. "I'm sure you can understand that."

"I do."

I really, fucking do.

It seems I have inadvertently watered the soil that's sprouting resentment and jealousy within me. I'm aching with the need to snap like a twig, for Drew to reach over the table and twist me into a ball and roll me away from civilisation. I don't want to be here, why am  I here? Why did I agree?

I'm depending on something: a weed-killer, an ibuprofen, a Zoloft, fire, a walk at the bottom of the ocean with no oxygen tank. My hand reaches for the only saviour—my half empty glass of pinot noir.

"Seems like she has you caught then," I choke out before my mouth is gushed with the burn of wine.

"By the balls, and she's not letting go any time soon, I'll tell you that." He laughs. Fuck you. "Look at this, me getting strung before you, who would've thought."

I look to him from the rim of my glass and this time I really do almost choke. He's sat, reclined in his space in the booth, sprouting horns and a tail. His hellfire trident pointing directly at my throat. He's the devil, but he's smiling at me like an Angel–all the while goading me with a piece of my broken heart, a photo of (my) Andy, that's dangling above his head by my spleen.

His skin glows ethereal; in my head, a mantra of 'fuck you' begins to grow distorted in repetition.

I don't know why I do it, I don't know why hurt myself further, but as the flames around me disperse and the chatter of normality flings back into focus—like the masochist I am—I say: "Technically, I did, I fell in love first," in a tone so low, I wonder whether I've said anything at all.

But I did, Drew's face is my proof. Apologetic and disdained. I see it, the moment it clicks in his mind, the moment he understands—watching them flaunt their love in front of me is some type of subconscious, ineffable torture neither of us can explain.