Maybe I'm Better Off

“You have to tell him.”

He likely wasn’t wrong. But I already decided it was too late. I had long accepted my fate. It didn’t matter anymore; I couldn’t make his life any more difficult any longer.

“I’m not telling him.” I told my friend, Will firmly. He truly didn’t understand my stance on this. In fact, it was the subject of a few arguments between us. This was something that had been going on for awhile, and I finally had accepted my fate; our friendship was over.

“Why not? He deserves to know!” Will protested, but I shook my head no.

“Because I’ve already made his life harder than it needs to be simply by existing. I don’t want to make it any harder. Besides, you and I both know his life was a lot easier without me in it.” I replied so calmly, I think it surprised the both of us.

“You know, that’s not true for one, and for two, not how that works” Will told me, eyeing me with concern. “You know, you’re allowed to be upset by this. I think anyone in your place would be.” I took his comment into consideration. Sure, I was allowed a lot of things.

“I’m not upset, it’s fine, really” I told Will, who looked at me with a disapproving look.

“I don’t buy it.” He spoke up after a few moments of silence. “You guys were so close! You were good friends. And what, you’re going to just throw away the friendship because you somehow think it’ll make his life easier?” he asked, though I knew he wasn’t asking me, he was just thinking aloud. “You need to tell him because he needs to know the person he’s marrying.”

“He knows the person he’s marrying, Will. They’ve been together for years! A hell of a lot longer than I’ve known him. And I mean hey, I get it! It makes sense! Nobody wants their fiancé to be friends with some girl they met at work, it’s weird” I justified my reason for not telling him. It was true, too. Who wanted their fiancé befriending someone from work? I knew the friendship was innocent, as did he. There was never any flirting, no romantic interest whatsoever. Those who said men and women can’t be friends were wrong, but in the same breath, right.

“She lied to him about you, though! For literally no reason,” Will tried to start, but I interrupted him.

“There was a reason dude. Our friendship obviously crossed a line. If I had known-”

“If you had known, what? That she is actually very insecure that she can’t even let her fiancé speak to another woman for work purposes? It’s not like you hung out or spoke a lot outside of work!” Will tried to justify to me, and he was right. We spoke at work, and that was the extent of our friendship. It started one day when I was having a panic attack. He had seen me and wanted to ensure I was okay. After talking me through the anxiety, we just began to chat occasionally after that. We didn’t chat outside of work; it was strictly professional; but his fiancée took issue to this. She never liked me, nor did she ever take the time to try and get to know me. She simply decided one day, I must have been a threat to her relationship, because the next thing I knew, she had approached me and threatened me to say if I ever spoke to him again, she would ensure her job would be on the line. I wasn’t even sure if this is something that she could do; but I was taking no chances.

“How did she lie to him exactly?” I asked, trying to figure this out. I had kept my distance during work from him at all costs. Of course, as expected, he had approached me to ask if everything was ok, and if he had done something, so I had just told him I was going through some stuff and was doing some work with my therapist. He respected my answer without question, though I knew my answer didn’t satisfy him.

“She told him you hated him, to sum it up” Will answered, obviously holding information back. The statement felt like a slap in the face.

“Wait, he thinks I hate him?” I asked softly, still trying to keep my composure. I was doing well so far at hiding my feels from everyone, that sometimes without realizing it, I was even beginning to hide them from myself.

“Yeah, he does” Will replied, a little more gently as to spare my feelings. “Look, I know this is bothering you, and you’re pretending it doesn’t. But I’m telling you, he deserves to know the kind of person he’s marrying. He deserves to hear from you. Poor guy thinks you hate him, he was pretty upset by the whole thing.” He told me, eyeing me sympathetically.

I took a moment to take in all this information. The whole time I was pretending like none of this bothered me. This whole time, I put up a front, acting like everything was okay, when the exact opposite was the case. This whole time, I hadn’t even taken the time to consider how he felt. Or what he deserved.

“I’m kind of an asshole” I managed to mumble, barely maintaining eye contact.

“I wouldn’t say that” Will answered quickly.

“I was so focused on trying to play off like this wasn’t bothering me, I didn’t even think about how he was feeling” I replied, finally admitting out loud that this was in fact, bothering me. He seemed to have an amused expression how his face when I vocalized this, but the look quickly faded.

“So, what are you going to do?” Will asked me curiously. That was indeed the one-million-dollar question. What does anyone do in this situation? Did I tell him? Finally acknowledging that I was hurt by this whole ordeal, or did I continue my path of self destruction? Ignoring my feelings and going by the assumption that his life was better off before I was in it.

“I can’t do it, Will. He’s getting married in a month. I can’t dump this on him. He’s extremely happy with her; I can’t ruin that” I finally told him, a blank look on my face. Will sighed, looking defeated.

Maybe it wasn’t right, but right now, ignoring my feelings and pretending I didn’t miss him or his friendship, or that I even had feelings in general seemed way easier than facing the harsh truth.

***********************

Erik was on the other end of the line, feeling uncomfortable. He was about to leave for the summer, when he decided he needed a better answer. He knew her better than that. He knew there was something wrong, and he was determined to figure it out. Thankfully, Will had been more than willing to help him out.

He was finding out new information about his fiancée. She lied to him. She lied to her. He had no idea his fiancee had threatened to get her fired. He had no idea any bad blood existed between the pair. He just knew that one day, his fiancee had come home, and let him know the person he considered a friend had not liked him from the beginning, and only spoke to him out of courtesy. That of course, turned out to be a huge lie. He felt the blood inside him boil. How could she? Why wouldn't she just talk to him about how she was felling? Why was it necessary to hurt an innocent person in all of this? Even though he wasn't present, he could tell just by the tone in her voice she was having a harder time than she was letting on navigating the situation.

He suddenly began to question his relationship. How was he supposed to stay with someone who could be so cold, calculating, and manipulative?

"Will" he spoke in to the phone, wondering if she even knew he was on the other line. He had no answer. He then looked at his phone and noted the call had ended. Sitting on the edge of the bed he now felt he shared with a total stranger, he flopped down, feeling defeated. What was he supposed to do? Confront her? Say nothing?

He didn't have a long time to sit and thing, because he knew she would be home soon. And he knew there would be a conversation he wasn't sure he was ready to have.