Page 46 of Obsessed with the Player

I listened as Andy was having a shower, the need to run tingling through my legs, even if it also terrified me, because then everything would be over.

For weeks, I’d been telling myself that this was temporary. A purge–I was getting Andy out of my system, this wasn’treal, I wasn’t getting attached, but the thing was— This whole thing might not be real, but the feelings trying to break out from inside my ribs very much were.

I'd come here, hoping to change myself, hoping to change the inexorable course that my life seemed to be in, the same thing day in and day out, following the rules, my old routines, everything that had taken me to my failures, and not only had I completely failed at doing what I’d come here to do, now I’d made it worse.

This was going to explode in my face. I was going to see this thing between Andy and me shatter before I was ever ready–because I wouldneverbe, and as I contemplated this, I realized…I couldn’t take it.

I just couldn’t.

It would break the last piece of me left standing after six years of failed relationship, and somehow, this felt even worse, it felt fatal, and so almost without thinking it, I was already up and out of Andy’s room, going straight to mine, where I got a change of clothes without looking too much at them.

I was almost at the door when Andy got out of the bathroom and saw me.

He was wearing his towel around his hips, his chest on full display, his darker blond hair dripping on his shoulders as hetook me in, my clothes, the keys in my hand. His expression darkened. “Where are you going?”

I couldn’t look at him.“Out.”

“Outwhere?”

“I need to go somewhere,” I said, putting my shoes on.

Andy walked closer. “You need to go somewhere at half-past seven in the morning on a Saturday?” he asked, voice unsteady.

The sound of it sliced through me, but I powered through. “I need to be somewhere.”

“Don’t give me bullshit. Dan–” he called out, getting hold of my forearm.

I turned around, viciously looking at him, and said, “I know you see me as your toy, but is it incomprehensible to you that I might actually have a life? Sorry I won't be available to you.”

Andy was speechless, hurt flashing in his eyes before his jaw hardened.

He didn’t reply.

So I left.

I left with my heart breaking, the hurt on his face replaying in my mind again and again as I ran down the stairs, my heart squeezing inside my chest and wanting to throw up, but I just couldn't be here, I couldn't.

***

As soon as I left, I messaged Jon, and an hour later, I was just getting done spilling all of the truth out of me like poison, hoping that it would ease the pain, but it didn't.

It only made it worse.

I told him everything: Andy’s dares, our first slip, and all the times that came after.

“So, why did you leave exactly?” Jon asked patiently, sitting in front of me on a bench at a park near his house.

“Because it was going to crash and burn?” I said, pacing in front of him, restless. “Because I wanted to save myself the annoyance of things being ruined after?”

“It doesn’t sound like it was just an annoyance,” Jon said carefully.

My throat tightened. “It doesn’t matter, the result is the same, and it—it was never supposed to become this thing. It was just casual.”

“Was it?”

I looked at Jon, startled.

“I don’t think you and Andy could do casual to save your lives, Dan.”

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