Old Friends (Janet and Toni Fanfic)

Chapter 37

  "Wissam, I-"

  "Why couldn't you just tell me, Janet? Tell me that you weren't happy? Okay, so I was selfish, I was rude, insensitive, but one thing that I was not, ever, was unfaithful to you." His voice was low and eery.

  "I'm sorry." My breathing was shallow as guilt coursed my veins.

  "You know, that afternoon, when I left you there, I kept wondering, why now? I mean, what about me today, what about me coming home from out of town in the first place, made you so distant? We'd done this a hundred times before so, what this time--what did I do? Why weren't we getting along anymore?" His voice began to quiver. He was going to cry. Then so was I. "I could hear her, I could feel her, all over you. Over the phone, even when I was still gone, you just didn't sound the same."

I sniffled, but refused to face him.

  "You--you sounded happier, actually."

  With every word, I felt myself break. I was insane to think I could blame this entire thing on him. He was only human.

  "You sounded so much happier, and for the life of me, because I loved you so much, and I still do, I couldn't figure out why, all of a sudden, this wasn't enough. And I trusted you to tell me if you weren't happy, I trusted that we would fix whatever it was we had just broken. Then you would push me so far away, I had to push back, and claw, and fight my way to get at arms reach. But she was already there, so it was like, even if I'd ever gotten close enough to touch you, there was no room left for me anyway. We would argue, and you would run to her without a second thought, and it made me hurt so much. So bad."

"So I'm sorry, I was selfish, and I'm sorry I was mean and all of those things, but you can never say I didn't love you, and only you, and you can never say I wasn't loyal. As much as you don't want to believe it, you weren't perfect either, but the thing that hurts me the most is that you really tried to blame all of this, this whole falling apart, on me, and not on the fact that another woman was pulling you away and making it so much harder for me, for us."

  "I guess I just--I didn't know how to say it, okay? I didn't know how to tell my boyfriend that I was seeing another woman." I wiped my eyes.

  "You're in love with her."

  "What?"

  "It was more than sex, more than a one-night-stand. You weren't just seeing her. You love her, Janet. It was an emotional infidelity. And I guess that's okay, I mean you--you couldn't help that. I just wasn't for you anymore, but for God's sake, don't make it seem like you were the only victim, okay? Please? I just need you to understand that I'm not completely responsible, and you can't tell me that you don't think you are the least bit at fault."

  Finally, I turned around and looked at him. I got a good, long look at the person I could have sworn I was going to spend my life with. His eyes were bloodshot and glossy, his face pleading, no longer angry, and it made me want to collapse on the floor to sob with everything I had in me. He was right. I started it. It was my fault. And once I decided I was over him, I thought I could leave without a drop of blood on my gloves. I, of all people, should have known it would never work. I was careless and eager to be with her, excited for something new, and I abandoned him like a lost dog with no real explanation. He deserved a reason, above anything else. He deserved my truth.

I'd realized how much being with Toni had changed me altogether, and I could have sworn that it was for the better, but I was blinded with infatuation. I had no idea what I was really getting myself into, or the person I'd turned into. I had absolutely no judgement. She distracted me from things that I would hate to face within myself alone, and for that, I thought she'd fixed me. But all she did was cover problems up with a sheet. And it wasn't her job to fix me anyway, it was mine.