Stupid Cupid

ii

"Oh, what about her?" I ask, jabbing Stefan's side and point towards a tall brunette at the other end of the bar. He gives her a cursory glance but shrugs his shoulder and goes back to enjoying his imported European beer. Narrowing my eyes, I stare at him and wonder if my best friend has been replaced by an imposter. "What's your name?"

Stefan gives me the side eye, the bottle frozen in place, perched on his red lips. A crease features on his forehead, knitting his eyebrows together so that it looks like he has a unibrow. I think he's the only guy on the face of the earth that could pull that look off. "Wie bitte?" He questions once he sets his drink back down on the bar countertop. He turns his chair to face me and cocks his head to the side, surveying me slowly. "Are you drunk, Lena?"

It used to annoy me how he pronounced my name like that. When I was growing up, my mother insisted on calling both Romy and me by our full names but after a while, Romilly and Helena just became a mouthful and she soon picked up on the nicknames we both had. Romy's name was easier to pronounce- it was either Roh-mee or Rohm-ee but the agreed on is the former. Only weirdoes pronounce it as the latter. My name, however, well that's a minefield depending on your nationality or your accent. 

I've had it said so many different ways that not even I know which one is correct. Lee-nah. Lay-na. Len-ah. It doesn't help that Mum pronounces Helena as Hel-ay-nah while Dad typically says, Hel-en-ah.  The majority go with Lay-nah. Except for Stefan.

"Leh-nah," he calls out to me. "Are you drunk?"

"No but I think there's something wrong with you," I laugh, once again motioning towards Wonder Woman with her Amazonian legs, raven coloured hair and slender, athletic body. "Diana Prince over there is stunning and you're not even taking a second look. Come on, Stefan, you would hit her up in three seconds before. What's wrong with you, Mr Hook-Ups-Only?"

He sighs. "Maybe I'm sick of having hookups." I laugh at his admission. As if Stefan would get sick of them- he's had more hookups than I've had hot dinners and everyone who knows me, knows that if food isn't served piping hot, I won't eat it. When Stefan's blue stare continues to burn against me, I stop sniggering and frown. "Look, Lena, I've been meaning to talk to you about something."

Now, I'm not sure about anyone else, but I don't think a man should refer to his secret girlfriend as 'something' but apparently, that's what we're now discussing. Stefan's been hiding a girlfriend from me for the past four months and it's only now that he think's the 'timing is right' to mention her. She even has a name. Larissa. Sounds exotic. She works in advertising. She's five foot eleven. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She's a netball player. She sounds disgusting. I hate her already. 

They met the evening I dragged Stefan to Kulture Klub and I'd set them up. He was smitten, he says, and since then, they've been hanging out, going on dates, sleeping over, meeting each other's friends and family. I was the last box to tick. Not that I like being called a box to tick, of course. I'm his best friend, supposedly, and yet, I'm the last to hear about his girlfriend.

Confusion washed over me as the hurt registered. We've known each other for years and we never kept anything from one another. We've been through quite a bit together. When I dislocated my shoulder on the slopes in Aspen three years ago, he was the one who came with me to the emergency room and filled out all the relevant paperwork, never needing to double check all my medical details and next-of-kin contacts because he just knows them. That time I was too embarrassed to go into a pharmacy in Berlin to buy tampons because I'm not all that up to date on the Deutsch, Stefan went, no questions asked. He even bought the right brand and the correct absorbancy. Last week, even, he came with me when I had to supervise Romy's date with Francis. 

That's the type of shit best friends do. What they don't do, however, is hide stuff from you. I'm not that much of a crazy psycho that I'd make a terrible first impression and have her running for the hills. I'm a great best friend who welcomes people into the bosom of friendship, no questions asked. Stefan should be scared to introduce me to her out of fear that I'll replace him with Larissa as my BFF, not because I'll... well, I'm still vague about why he hasn't told me about her until today. 

 "Why am I only hearing about this now?" I ask, my defences going up and irritation filling my tone. The worst thing is, Stefan knows that I'm irritated. He's rolling his eyes at me, like he can't believe that I'm about to lose my shit over this. That just makes me even angrier. Shutting that down for a little while longer, I fold my arms over my chest. "You've been dating her for four months and you never mentioned her once. You two must have been together when we went to Sofia."

He nods. "Yeah, we were. Look, Lena, I didn't want to upset you with this, that's all."

"Why would I be upset about it?" I ask. "I mean, why would I have been upset about it then? I'm upset about it now because you hid the truth from me but back then? There was nothing stopping you from telling me."

Stefan winces, averting his gaze to the floor and awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "Weil ich weiß, dass du Gefühle für mich hast."