Somebody's Girl

C H A P T E R 2

"I knew what I am getting—got myself into... but I could not walk away... the time apart only made me fall in love with her."

"Love? Bullshit!" Tisha scoffed. "She was—is! She is still in love with someone else Sam! Get it through your head."

I drank the remaining liquid in my glass and was the first one to call the next shots this time. "Yes. She is—that I am fully aware of. Hard not to know when I have always played second-fiddle for almost two years."

I watched as the bartender prepared our drinks.

"Two years? Two fucking years! And she still carries a torch for that woman?"

Erica!

She was throwing away the love I so desperately wanted.

How is someone like her be able to elicit such strong devotion from Austen while I could not?

All Erica does was ignore Austen and yet whenever she calls for her my girl comes running.

It's not fair.

"Still burning bright from what I see."

"Well, fuck! Which begs the question why the fuck you stay." She smacked her palm on the counter to get my attention.

"Why?" The old bartender stopped minding our order and raised a brow in my direction, daring me to answer. "I ask myself that every day. I found my answers when Austen comes home to me and held me in her arms—'I couldn't see myself with someone else'. When she smiles at me and laughs as she shares a joke—'I wanted to bask in the warmth of her smile and be the reason for her laughter'. When she kisses my lips and pulls me in and even the little things she does, My heart along with every fiber of my being shouts—'I can, I want to'. Then I couldn't take that first step out the door."

The bartender shook his head but acquiesced.

Tisha and I have been in this establishment for more than I could count—every time Austen's best friend comes to the city and I was left all alone.

He must have grown tired of listening to the same shit over and over again.

Poor guy, he has to listen to this homo drama when all he really wants was to work his pay.

Passively, he went back to finishing our order and brought it to us.

"So, the times she ran out in the middle of the night to get to that woman? To hold her! Her smiles and the waves of her laughter? What brought those on? Those were when she talked about that woman! Her kisses and a roll in the hay—It all boils down to sex! Not making love!"

I looked around and found the eyes of all the customers glancing in our direction. I tried to calm her down but failed.

"Sex, Sam! You could keep holding onto her body every night but you will never have her heart."

I downed my drink in a flash just to blur the words out.

She voiced out the insecurities etched within me.

Those words piercing and scarring me for years on out... those words I know but pretended not to care... those same words hit and hurt much deeply now.

This broken heart that I thought could no longer break, shattered to splinters as she spoke them out loud.

"You're doing wonders for my ego, my friend." I tried to downplay what I feel and my misery with fake enthusiasm and ordered another shot.

"I am telling you as I see it. How hard is that helmet you had on that I could not knock sense into your head. How dense are that imaginary rose-colored glasses you wear on your eyes? The truth is staring you right in front of you but you can't see!"

They were more inferior to what has blinded Austen's.

"I lo—"

"I swear if I hear you say you love her, I will push you off this building. I'll take mercy on you and just kill you faster than she is doing." She drank before continuing. "Damn, girl! We should have that heart checked. Its task is to make sure to pump blood into your body and not dupe you into loving torture."

"You can be so honest to a fault." I chuckled as the old bartender offered me an understanding smile.

"That's because I care." She looked at the glass in her hand and then at me. "Oh, Sam. I really wish I could say the same about her."

"There were moments she did," I countered.

"Have I been talking to the wall all this time?" She asked her growing frustration at my situation evident.

"No. I heard you loud and clear, Tish." I reached for her hand. "Maybe I was really greedy this time. I saw the love Austen has for that woman, who wanted none of it. I coveted Austen. Kept thinking that if she could love the wrong one—someone who doesn't love her, how much love she could possibly give for the one who does, for the right one."

I wished it was me instead.

"I'm sure she could have given a lot more. Tell me, in the span of those years, has she made you feel you were 'the one'? Never mind 'right or wrong', has she, in any way, made you feel you were the 'only' one?"

"At times..."

"Bullshit! She got you eating on the palm of her hands." Our next drinks were down again.

"We don't love because it's easy, Tish. We just do." My phone rang and Austen's face showed on the screen.

"Well, not me, girl," I saw Tisha's face morphed in disdain at seeing who the caller was. "Seeing you as you are right now, I fuckin' want no love – Definitely, not your kind of way."

I looked at my screen.

"Your 'love' calls," Tisha mocked.

My love.