Chapter Twenty: You Love One, You Lose Another

****Sorry this took so long!! Hope you find the wait was worth it. :) Warning for language****

I took a big breath in and blurted it out. “Why didn’t you tell me about the conversations you had with Jeff?”

She looked at me blinking. I couldn’t tell if she was shocked, upset, or something else. Once again her face wasn’t giving away any of her emotions.  After we had started dating, I thought that after a period of time I would be able to tell what she was thinking. That maybe I would learn to pick up on some indicator that I hadn’t seen when we were friends, but that hadn’t happened in the year that we’d been dating. The only thing I was able to read was her eyes, and even those, on a rare occasion were hard to read. This was one of those times. I had no idea what was going on in her head.

“What do you mean?” She asked and that’s when I saw the confusion. I had learned early on in our friendship that, just like Jeff, she didn’t lie. Once her face showed an emotion that was what she was feeling.

“The conversations you and he had one night in the den and then at the bar. Did he ask you not to tell me?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you didn’t mention them to me.” I didn’t understand why was she having such a hard time understanding?

“Is that a problem?”

“Is that a problem. . .Why wouldn’t it be?” She kept looking confused and I sighed. I was going to have to go a different route to find out what was really going on since she wasn’t picking up on what I really wanted to know. I decided to just flat out ask her.  “Star, why didn’t you mention them to me?”

She blinked several times before answering. “I guess I figured that you’d find out about them at some point. Since they didn’t come up, I didn’t think about them.”

“Okay, I could see that, but from the conversation Jeff and I had in the attic, it didn’t sound like just small talk.” She shrugged and I was really starting to feel frustrated. “As a matter of fact, they sounded pretty important.”

“Why were you talking about all of this in the attic anyway?” Star questioned.

“I was getting frustrated with Jeff for not talking to us about what he was feeling and about what’s going on with Rosamund. I was pretty much begging him to let us in; trying to explain to him that he wasn’t going to get through this without leaning on someone. He was shocked that I didn’t know that he had already talked to you about it and then I was the one that was shocked to find out that he had. He acted like he had just guessed that you would have told me about them. So then that got me wondering, why wouldn’t you tell me about them? Was there a particular reason, because from the way Jeff acted, there really shouldn’t have been a reason why you didn’t tell me.”

“There wasn’t, it’s like I said. I figured it would come up eventually but it didn’t.”

“Star, people don’t just forget about conversations that important. . .” We once again stood there, looking at each other. I was wondering what was going on in her head and I was pretty sure she was wondering the same about what was rattling around in my head. We stood there in an uncomfortable silence for what felt like an eternity. I looked down at the floor and stared off into space thinking about how ridiculous it was that I still didn’t even know what had been said during those blasted conversations. I felt my jaw clench and at the same moment I heard her sigh. I looked up and she was standing in the same spot with one of her hands clenching her arm. “Star, it might help if I just knew what was said during those conversations. . .”

She slowly looked up at me and nodded. “The one in the den I had been downstairs getting a snack and Jeff had come out of their bedroom after they had fought about the fact that they hadn’t had another child since the miscarriage. I had started to hear them fighting while I was in the kitchen and I was trying to get out as fast as I could, but Jeff came out before I could escape. He looked like he needed to talk to someone so I offered. After a minute, he agreed and we went up to the den. I figured it would be a good place since it wasn’t right outside their bedroom door.” I nodded and she continued.

“Once we got up there we started talking about why he married Rosamund. . .”

“You just came out and asked him? Nothing leading up to it?”

“Well, no. We talked a little about when we were little and how things were less complicated then which kind of led into me asking him about Rosamund.” 

I nodded again, deciding not to comment. “What did he say?”

“He said that the biggest reason was because she was pregnant but that there were other not so noble reasons, like his political career.”

“I had pretty much figured that was one of the reasons.”

“I tried to reason with him that maybe his dream of being in politics wasn’t worth it. At that point, he figured that was all he had left. Nothing else had turned out the way he wanted so he was determined to see that one dream come true. That was pretty much it.” I continually looked at her eyes the whole time she talked, trying to gage her emotions.

“As for the conversation at the bar. . .”

“Wait, back up.” I interrupted her. She looked somewhat annoyed but I was curious about something she had said and I wanted to know about it before she continued.  “What did you both say when you were reminiscing about when we were all younger?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just curious.” I lied. I hated doing it but I had a hunch about what all of this was about and I needed to know.

She skeptically looked at me and didn’t say a word for several moments. I was about to give up on her telling me and was sure by the sigh she let out that it was her way of saying she wasn’t going to cooperate but I was shocked when instead she started talking. “I made a comment at one point about how the two of us being in the den with a plateful of cookies was kind of like how he and I used to sneak out at night into his tree house; sometimes even falling asleep in it.” She chuckled “It’s insane how we never got caught.” As I watched her relive a memory of her and Jeff sneaking into the tree house, I watched as her expression changed slowly from annoyance, from me asking about it, to a smile. By the time she was talking about not getting caught, it was all over her face and in her eyes. I had little doubt at that point but I let her continue on.

“As I was saying before about the conversation at the bar, I followed him there and after talking about why Rosamund does crazy things like not tell him she’s pregnant in private, we talked about his options. I hinted at divorce and he immediately reminded me of whom Rosamund’s dad is and that he would have no shot at ever seeing the baby.”

“So he thought about leaving her?”

“I think at this point, if he had something on her, he would. He’s only with her because of the baby.” I chuckled. “What’s so funny about that?” She asked almost defensively.

“Oh, I don’t know; possibly the fact that you didn’t think that a conversation that involved our best friend admitting that he would possibly leave his wife if the situation presented itself wasn’t worth mentioning to me.” As I watched her face turn from annoyance back to emotionless I could feel my heart starting to break a little. 

“Damn it Peter! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but is it really this big of a deal?”

I sighed and turned away from her. I started thinking back through the last year and remembered certain instances where I felt something was off but had pushed the thoughts out of my head. Looking back on them now, with my eyes open, I realized that those feelings had been right. Something had been off and I was only now seeing what it was. I had been a complete idiot and wanted so much to believe that she could love me, but it just wasn’t possible. What hurt even more was that she didn’t even realize her own feelings. 

“Peter, please talk to me. I said I was sorry. . .”

“I know you did, Star, but you don’t even realize what is really wrong here.”

“What in the world are you talking about Peter? You’re upset that I didn’t tell you about what Jeff and I talked about.”

I nodded and turned around to look at her again. “Yes, but it’s why you didn’t that matters.”

She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one side. “We’ve been over why that happened, Peter.”

“No, we’ve been over why you believe you didn’t tell me, which in all honesty Star, it doesn’t add up. He’s thinking about divorcing her and it just slips your brain to tell me?! No, that’s not what’s really going on here.”

“Well then, Mr. Knowitall, what do you think is going on? Because I’m telling you, that’s what happened.”

I didn’t know of any other way to ask but to just lay it on the line. There was just no subtle way to ask it. “Are you still in love with Jeff?”

Her eyes got huge and she threw her hands in the air. “Are you smoking something, Peter?! What the hell?! You can’t be serious?!”

“I am. You loved him once, didn’t you?”

“That was a long time ago, Peter. God! What kind of a person do you think I am? He’s married, has a kid on the way. Have you been hanging around Rosamund, because you sound a lot like her right now.”

“I actually wonder if this is one subject Rosamund may be somewhat right about.” I admitted and watched Stars anger turn almost into rage.

“How dare you! Do you know what you’re accusing me of right now?”

I was all too aware of what I was accusing her of. “Yes, I’m accusing you of still being in love with Jeff; but I don’t think you know it, or at least you’re not willing to admit it to yourself.”

She started to say something but instead glared at me. I had no idea if she wasn’t speaking because she had been shocked by what I had said, been shocked because she realized her feelings, or was just so mad that she couldn’t form a sentence.  As I waited for her to speak, I held my breath. There was no going back now. Even if she wasn’t willing to see the truth, I had finally seen it and I could feel my heart breaking. 

“You’re wrong, Peter. I’m not in love with Jeff and I can’t believe you would even think that. You could have just admitted to me that you wanted to end our relationship, but instead you frantically grasped at anything to give you an excuse to end it! You’re seeing things that aren’t there and it’s sad!” I should have done the right thing and taken the high road at that point but I was so mad at her for not realizing her own feelings.

“What’s sad, Star, is that you are so out of tune with your own feelings that you can’t see what is very obvious! You try so hard, like Jeff, to hide your emotions but when they show, there’s no denying them. While you were talking about being younger and sneaking into the tree house with Jeff, I could see it in your eyes. But what really convinced me was it was all over your face! God! I have been such an idiot! I thought you could love me! I thought that maybe you were over him and that you and I could really have a shot! This must be what Rosamund feels like, knowing that no matter what you do, the person you want to be with wants to really be with someone else!” As I finished the last sentence I felt her slap me and I was snapped out of my rant.

I grabbed her arms and tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, Star. I shouldn’t have said all of those things.” She squirmed her way out from my hands and backed away from me, crying.

“Don’t ever touch me again! Don’t ever talk to me again!” She yelled as she cried. “You are an asshole and I don’t ever want to see you again!” With that she ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs. I heard her slam a door and I closed my eyes. There was no way that things were going to end well, not after what I had accused her of, but it would have been a whole lot better if I had just kept my mouth shut and not ranted at the end. After the way I had acted I deserved what she said. At that moment, I figured that that was the end of our friendship and that hurt even more than knowing that our relationship had ended.

There was a knock on my door and for a split second I was hopeful that it was Star. I was saddened instead to see Jeff. “Hey, um . . .what’s going on?”

Oh nothing, my now ex-girlfriend is still in love with you and I’m pretty sure you’re still in love with her. I sarcastically thought to myself. “Didn’t you hear?” I asked instead.

“Well, I heard arguing and then Star came out and went into her room and slammed the door.”

“You must have been on the first floor.” I said and Jeff nodded. Since my bedroom was on the third floor, he wouldn’t have heard much, which kind of relieved me. “Star and I. . .I guess you’d say we broke up.”

“What?! Surely it will blow over.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. You didn’t accuse you girlfriend of being in love with someone else and things would blow over. “No, Jeff, it won’t.” I grabbed my coat and headed out of my bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Jeff asked as he followed me down the stairs.

“Out. I need some air.”

“But it’s still snowing. . .”

“I’ll be fine, Jeff.” I tried to smile at him but wasn’t very successful. “I may be back later, I might not. I’ll call and let you know where I am if I don’t come back.” 

“Okay.” He sounded unsure.

I opened the door and looked outside at the snow covered ground. Everything seemed so peaceful and calm. Completely opposite of what was happening inside of me. I turned around to close the door and made eye contact with Jeff. He looked concerned and I once again tried to smile at him. “I’ll talk to you later.” I told him as I closed the door. 

****Star****

After slamming my bedroom door I leaned against it. I looked up at the ceiling while I felt the tears streaming down my face. I stood there wishing that I had just imagined all that had happened. Here it was Christmas Eve, we weren’t able to go home to Appaloosa, and to top it all off Peter had just told me that he believed that I was still in love with Jeff and our relationship was over.

Thinking about Peter enraged me. How could he?! How could he really say all of those things?! How could he believe them?! It was insane to me to think that he really believed that I was in love with Jeff! He mentioned that I had been at one point but that was a long time ago and so many things had happened since then. It was absurd! There was no way that I was in love with my married, soon to be a father, best friend. Peter was smoking something if he believed that. It didn’t matter what he thought he saw, he saw what he wanted and his thoughts had obviously tinted the glasses he was looking through.

I walked away from the door and pondered what he had said about me talking about being in the tree house with Jeff. How could anyone determine from that how a person felt. There was no way he could tell from that how I felt about Jeff; just another instance of Peter’s insanity today. Maybe that was it. Maybe Rosamund’s insanity had rubbed off on Peter and he had lost it. There had to be some rational explanation for the way he had just acted. But the only rational explanation I could come up with was that Peter was jealous; jealous of something that didn’t exist. He was jealous of something that he thought he saw, if that was even the real reason for him acting the way he did. I still wasn’t convinced that was the real reason. He could have just really wanted to get out of our relationship for some reason and used that as an excuse.

I tried to think of times in the recent months that things may have seemed off, but I was drawing blanks. Up until today I had no idea that there was even an issue. It was like all of this came out of the blue and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that he must have been looking for a way out. Asshole! Jerk! I picked up one of my pillows and turned around to fling it at the door. It didn’t give me the relief I was looking for so I picked up another, and then another. Soon there was a pile of pillows in front of the door and I still didn’t feel better. I stared at the pile of pillows and was tempted to fall into them but was surprised by a knock on the door. I picked up another pillow and armed myself in case it was Peter. 

“Who is it?” I angrily asked.

“It’s me, Jeff.” 

I slowly lowered the pillow. “I just want to be alone, Jeff.”

“I’m either going to talk to you in there or through the door; up to you.” I shook my head thinking about how stubborn he could be sometimes and I knew he wasn’t kidding. 

“Fine.” The door handle turned and the door slowly opened. He peaked in around the door and before he saw me he noticed the pile of pillows on the floor.

“Took your aggression out on the pillows?” He joked as he pushed the pillows back with the door and stepped the rest of the way into the room.

“Maybe; and I just might take it out on you if you start making fun of me.” I threatened.

He held up his hands. “I promise, I won’t.” I threw the pillow on the bed and stood looking at the ground. I had no idea what to tell Jeff because all of what happened between Peter and I revolved around him. At least Peter thought it did.

“So, Peter just left, went for a walk in the blizzard. . .” Jeff started.

“Good! Maybe he’ll freeze to death.”

“You don’t really mean that Star.” Jeff quietly said. I looked up at him and it looked like he was almost pleading with me to agree with him. He was right, I didn’t want him to freeze to death but I didn’t want to admit that right then. I wanted to stay mad at him because I knew as long as I stayed mad I wouldn’t feel the pain; the pain that he had caused. “Star?”

“What?! What do you want me to say, Jeff? He’s an asshole! He caused this to happen on Christmas Eve. I was just going along thinking that everything was fine and then BAM!!! He pulls this shit and now I’m standing in my room, throwing friggin pillows at the door!”

“What did happen?” Jeff asked.

“He didn’t tell you?” He shook his head. “You didn’t hear?” He shook his head again. I sighed with relief. At least there was that. I was somewhat surprised the asshole hadn’t told him what had happened since he was so convinced that Jeff was somewhat involved. But my relief was soon replaced by fretting. There was no way I could tell him what Peter thought, even if it had been imagined. It would forever change how Jeff perceived our friendship. I had just lost one friend and there was no way I was going to be able to handle losing another, especially Jeff. I was at a complete loss, I had no idea what to tell him.

“Was it really as bad as Peter led me to believe?” I nodded. “So there’s no chance of you making up?” I slowly looked over at him with what I was sure was a crazed look.

“Make up? There is no way, EVER that I will make up with him. Not only is our relationship over, our friendship is over! He’s delusional! He sees things that aren’t there and then blames me for them!” With each sentence I let out more and more of my anger and more and more of the hurt was starting to come forward. “I just don’t get it, Jeff! Why today? Why couldn’t he have waited for a couple more days? Why doesn’t he believe me? Why is he making something out of nothing?”  Before I could stop myself, I was crying; which was the last thing I wanted to do in front of Jeff.

Before I could stop him, he was hugging me; which made me cry even more. It was as if a dam had broken and there was no holding back the tears. I knew I had to stop but the more I tried to stop the more I cried. I probably would have continued to cry but a sudden thought hit me. I was standing there crying, with Jeff. Not only was I standing there crying but he was holding me, comforting me.  This was the worst thing that could happen after Peter’s and my argument.

“Star, are you okay?” 

I pulled away from him. “I’m fine.” I said without looking him in the eye.

I heard him sigh and I looked at him. He was watching me with a concerned expression.  We made eye contact and I felt my heart start to beat faster. I immediately started to think back to the night when we were in the den and I had felt the same thing. No, this can’t be. I refuse to admit that Peter was right. But the more I tried to deny it, the more I knew it was true. Peter had been right, I had been fooling myself. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to continue to act like I had before? I almost felt like I needed to leave, like my being in the house was wrong. But I just couldn’t leave Jeff to Rosamund. Who knew what she’d do to him if someone wasn’t looking out for him. I kept wishing that none of this was happening, that I could go back to the way things had been when we woke up that morning.  Then we could have all chosen different paths. That Peter and I never would have gotten into the fight and he wouldn’t have started this foolishness about Jeff. 

“Star. . .”

“I’m fine, Jeff. I just think I need some time alone.” I lied. I couldn’t remember a time in our lives that I had lied to him and the fact that I just had made me feel even worse than I did.

He hesitated for a moment and then put his hand on my arm. “If you want to talk, you know where to find me.” I nodded and continued to not look at him as he took his hand away and walked toward the door.

He stopped one last time before he closed the door. “I mean it. You can talk to me no matter where or when it is.” I nodded and tried to smile. He quietly closed the door and I listened as I heard his footsteps going farther and farther away, and then eventually down the stairs. The whole time I listened I could feel tears streaming down my face. When I was sure he was downstairs and far enough away I sat down on my bed and sobbed. I cried so hard I could barely catch my breath. I had no idea how the pain I felt was ever going to go away. It was by far the worst day I could ever remember; I had lost one of my best friends and realized that I was in love with the other.

Credits:
Poses:
F&L - My Weakness 
Zhippidy - Anger Fight 
Zhippidy - Bang Door Poses 
Aeoverse - Affection