This is Not a Fairytale

by Kate, Rebecca

  “So…” I said, smirking back. It felt good being in his line of attention again. I felt almost dizzy as butterflies took flight in my stomach. I felt bold and beautiful the way his dark eyes twinkled at me. I hadn’t felt that feeling in so long.

  “Wanna get out of here?” I boldly offered, knowing what we both wanted. His arms moved from my hands to around my waist.

  “Absolutely,” he agreed, and off we went. We barely made it to his hotel before we were undressing each other. I wanted him, and I could feel that he clearly wanted me. I had missed the passion he was giving me. It had fizzled down to nothing by the end of our relationship, and it was back in full force.

  When we eventually left the hotel the next morning, well afternoon, we decided to get lunch and discuss our lives, which we had noticeably avoided until then. We were all naked limbs and touch, but we hadn’t yet used our voices, and we figured it was time. I found out that he wasn’t living in Colorado anymore, but had instead moved to California where he helped to produce music. He hadn’t made it big time yet but was doing well.

  I was proud of him, though it made me a little sad he had moved so far from our hometown. He was rarely working as a writer or singer anymore, choosing to instead focus on assistant producing for a smaller record label in Los Angeles. He had a small apartment that he shared with a roommate. I got the impression the roommate was a woman the way he avoided mentioning any names or pronouns. I knew it wasn’t my business though, so I didn’t ask or bring any attention to it.

  The way his eyes seemed to twinkle only for me had me a little dizzy. I thought back to the time we had spent together. Had he always made me feel that way? No, he hadn’t. I liked the attention he had always given me, but it hadn’t been that pleasant years before. Perhaps I had overlooked something beautiful that could have formed the first time around.

  My heart wasn’t in the right place to let someone else in at the time. But it was time. I was in a comfortable place with my school and work, and it was time I made time for a social life again. We parted ways as he dropped me off at my car sitting in my work parking lot where we’d left it in a lust-filled rush the night prior. He pulled me in close with an arm around my waist and kissed me like he meant it.

  Like he was leaving his imprint on my lips. Our matching giddy smiles as we pulled apart said it all. I wasn’t through with this part of my past. Not even close.

  Fredrick went back to California two days later, and that should have marked the end of things, because of the difficulty in the distance; but in reality, it felt more like a new beginning.

  We spent hours after hour on the phone, just getting to know one another again. We were up until the early sunrise getting every last word in before we had to part ways and carry on with our lives in two separate cities. I was not unaware of the glares Sebastian sent when my phone would light up with Fredrick’s name. I just preferred to not bring it up.

  Though the type of writing Fredrick did was a world different than the writing I did, in a lot of ways I credit him with my shift from hobby writer to professional writer. It didn’t happen overnight, but each step of the way tied heavily with Fredrick and our newfound friendship. He had a big imagination. Maybe larger than my own.

  I would frequently sit in busy cafes and people watch, only once I started texting Fredrick again it really blossomed and bloomed into a full-blown sport. More than once, we found ourselves in a conversation that sounded like this… “Let’s see who we have today. A woman in a yoga outfit, noticeably pregnant, sitting across from a rugged man in worn out jeans and work boots.

  “She looks wealthy, far out of his league, a real Lululemon type. Perhaps he isn’t her husband, but her lover. Perhaps he’s the actual father of the baby in her stomach. Surely he isn’t the one that has put that large rock on her finger.” Fredrick, equally interested in the peculiar lifestyles of strangers, would encourage me by adding fuel to my fire.

  “Oh, he’s definitely the father. Maybe her husband is a very cold, distant man; a lawyer. He might even be verbally abusive. Oh, and he’s barren, but he doesn’t know it. She’s cried over not being able to bear his child through the last few years of trying. Only once she runs into her lover does she become with child.”

  We went on for hours, planning out the lives of strangers. “Does the husband know the child isn’t his? Does he care? Why doesn’t he care? Maybe he had a mistress of his own and was going to leave his wife but she became pregnant and he stayed out of obligation.” That was just one of our many conversations that we had using real strangers as our muse.

  As starving artists, we thrived on finding a story or song in everything we did. My mornings belonged to Fredrick, my days belonged to my school and my work, and then my evenings belonged to Sebastian. As much as I tried to keep the sections of my life apart, I couldn’t always control when the urge to talk to Fredrick came up.

  Eight

  Sick of having to share me with Fredrick, Sebastian decided to take matters into his own hands one late night while we were just drinking and studying in the living room of my small apartment. “Why do you talk to him so much? Are you back together?” he spat out with more anger than he probably meant. I wasn’t offended though. I knew my friendship with Fredrick bothered him.

  “No. We’re just friends,” I told him honestly.

  “Are you? Because you know you could tell me, right? If you were back together with him, you could tell me the truth.”

  “Bash, I’m not keeping things from you. We’re not dating, Fredrick and I. I’m still as single as ever. There’s just a familiarity there with me and him. We like talking. We’re friends, I promise.”

  “Well, I am keeping something from you, and I don’t think I can keep it in any longer. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

  I knew what he was going to say, and though my stomach felt instantly sour at the idea, it was time to pretend I felt something more with him. My survival instincts kicked in. I needed him around to survive. I got the feeling my luck had run out and my time ignoring his feelings was up. I could tell he was on his way out of our friendship; out of self-preservation, he was ready to leave me because he was hurting. I wasn’t reciprocating the feelings he had, and I could tell it upset him.

  I took his hand and allowed him to lead us to unchartered territory where he wanted us to go. I didn’t feel anything romantically for him, but I was willing to try to love him the way he loved me if it meant he’d still be in my life.

  I had to believe people started off better as friends and grew to love romantically in some cases. I mean, people allowed for their entire marriage to be arranged by their families in other cultures. Surely they found the secret for turning a friendship into romantic love over time. Maybe I would be that lucky. Because I would be lucky to fall in love with a decent man like Sebastian.

  I needed it to be true. If I were to compare Fredrick and Sebastian as men without taking into consideration my sexual attraction for either one of them, then Sebastian would win by far. He’d knock Fredrick off the charts. He was a hard worker, an honorable man, highly intelligent, and he treated me with a level of respect my father would approve of.

  Fredrick had already cheated on me, and he was single-minded. He had a strained relationship with his parents because they didn’t approve of his choices, and he had no desire to repair their relationship. A man unwilling to get along with his mother surely isn’t husband material.

  “I’m in love with you,” Sebastian said, pulling me back to the conversation. “It kills me to be your friend, when I know I’m in love with you. I want to be more, Scarlet. I want you to be my girl,” he said with such a tender look in his eyes, it made me truly believe I could fall in love with him over time.

  Without a better option, I smiled and said, “I’d like that too.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  From that day, things changed drastically between us. He took me out on date after date
after date, week after week. It was nice at first because I genuinely enjoyed Sebastian’s company. But I knew one very real thing was missing; passion. There was no passion between us, and that became increasingly more obvious once we actually started trying to be physical.

  I sat next to him on a regular basis, doing our homework, and preferred to keep doing my homework with no urge to stop and be physical with the beautiful man next to me. That was a first in my life. If he were Fredrick, we would have been too distracted by each other to get any work done.

  My grades didn’t suffer from Sebastian’s presence, to put it that way. We also spent many nights watching movies, and though he often put his hand around my shoulders or tried to hold my hand, there were no butterflies, no desire feel him closer to my body, nothing.

  Dating always starts out similar to friendship, and that part was as easy as breathing with me and Sebastian. But the second our relationship began to make that shift into romance, I knew it was just a ticking time bomb ready to blow my friendship into a million and one irreparable pieces. The worst part is I don’t think he even noticed.

  He tried to kiss me more often after being together for about a week, and I eventually gave in and let him. But that was only the beginning. Kissing led to him wanting to make out, and that was as far as I was comfortable going with him. It felt awkward, but I let him do it because I could tell he enjoyed it and I didn’t want to seem cold by continually denying him.

  But one minute we were making out and the next I was pumping the brakes, asking if we could take it slower. Sebastian was a gentleman, but he was also just a man, and he had needs and urges. I knew he was physically attracted to me because I had caught him on more than one occasion staring at my ass or legs or cleavage.

  But that moment was too much. We had been deep into tonsil hockey on my living room couch one evening, when he began edging toward foreplay, grinding his erection into my center and breathing like he was running a marathon. He slid one hand up the flowy skirt I was wearing and began tracing the edge of my panties with one finger.

  I was trying to enjoy it, trying to convince myself that I wanted it, but instead, I felt a deep dread in my belly, so heavy and loud, and a nervousness that told me what I was doing was wrong. I didn’t want him to touch me so intimately. He was my friend, and having him in this way felt disgusting. I was an only child, but I imagine the heavy dread I felt when he touched me was what it felt like to have a sibling touch you. Wrong and awful.

  The second his finger made it past the elastic in my panties and touched actual skin, I pushed him away and yelled, “Stop!” Like the gentleman he was, he immediately pulled away, throwing his hands up in apology.

  “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong? Are you okay?” He was so worried, and that made me feel guilty.

  “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just been a long time,” I lied. “I’m really nervous. Would you hate me if I asked if we could take it slower?” He didn’t know I had slept with Fredrick while he was in town. Unlike Leah, Sebastian and I rarely spoke of anything sexual. He wasn’t wired that way. He didn’t kiss and tell, except on a few heavily intoxicated occasions.

  He exhaled, relief shown in his eyes that I hadn’t been hurt. I know it confused him, though. “Of course not. Why would I hate you for that? No big deal. We’ll take things as slow as you need, baby. I’m sorry if I seemed too pushy. It’s just because I really like you. You can always tell me to stop.” I smiled over at my best friend and then kissed his lips. He kissed me back so sweetly. All eagerness gone. He was being honest. It really didn’t bother him to not go any further in that moment. One day he was going to make a woman very happy. It was becoming increasingly more obvious that I was not going to be that woman though. No matter how convenient and easy that would be.

  Fredrick all but disappeared when I told him I was dating Sebastian. He didn’t tell me he wanted me to be with him instead. He didn’t tell me I was making a mistake. He didn’t try to fight for me. He was just gone without a trace. I missed him more than I did the first time we parted ways. But that moment in my life was different. I had more of him to miss the second time.

  I missed the pictures he sent me on a daily basis. The narcissist in Fredrick seemed to think I’d enjoy looking at his face on a regular basis, and I had to admit, he was a pretty picture. I missed the early morning flirty texts that arrived like clockwork minutes before I woke each morning. I missed him asking me how my day was, and at least pretending that he gave a shit. I missed the conversation about random strangers we saw, the devil’s advocate he played so well with each story and the way he seemed to complete me on that level.

  I liked that attention he gave me because he didn’t give it to me the first time we dated. I also liked that he was surrounded by beautiful women in Los Angeles, but was texting me every morning and every night instead of them. It said a lot of the man he was on his way to becoming. Was he perfect? Hell no. But I enjoyed the side I got of him in the more recent weeks to the side I had of him years prior.

  But I respected Sebastian enough to let Fredrick go again and not act on my feelings about his reaction to my news of dating Sebastian. My parents had the opposite reaction as Fredrick when I told them about Sebastian. They had gotten to know him in the two years of our friendship, and they already had an idea of what a great guy he was. Happy is too light of a word to describe how they felt about us dating. They were delighted. They couldn’t wait to have dinner with us the second I mentioned we were together.

  Sebastian, of course, loved the idea, and insisted we go, another thing Fredrick would not have done. With flowers for my mother and a firm handshake for my father, Sebastian walked into my parents’ house looking like an image conjured up entirely by them. It was a perfect evening. That is, until my dad mentioned Mason in random conversation, and sent me into a tailspin of destruction for the rest of the night.

  My mom mentioned Mason had a new girlfriend, Emma, that was model gorgeous and had two equally attractive sons. “You should see them all out together. They look like the pictures that come in those frames at the store. They look like they should be in a magazine ad.”

  I wanted to throw up. I didn’t even have anything to say back. I just nodded and looked down at the food in front of me. “Oh, they really are!” My mother added. “The legs on that woman, sheesh! And those boys of hers are such polite kids.”

  “I get it,” I said a little too loudly. All eyes landed on me and my big mouth. Sebastian put his arm on my shoulder and rubbed back and forth. He was trying to calm me without even knowing what upset me in the first place. He must have chalked it up to nerves or PMS because he didn’t pry. He simply kissed the side of my temple and rubbed my shoulder like we were an old married couple.

  I missed him as a best friend. Best friend Sebastian would have teased me or even used that situation as a platform to connect on. Boyfriend Sebastian just soothed me like a supportive husband, and while I leaned into him to try to get my mind off of Mason, I missed my best friend so much.

  I drank a little too much, got a little too cozy with Sebastian, and sent him all the wrong signals that evening. I needed his strength, so I leaned on him throughout most of the night. I was comfortable with him in the way you’re comfortable with your friend. To him, it looked like sexual tension, though. By the time I realized the signals he was picking up, I was already committed to it.

  “Make sure you get her home safe, Sebastian. It was great to see you again. Really happy you’re in our daughter’s life. You’re welcome here anytime,” my parents said as we made our way out the door, him with a steadying arm across my shoulder, me with both arms around his waist. I looked back at my parents’ beaming faces. God, could they be any happier? It was sick.

  Mason had his picture-perfect family, Fredrick was single and ready to mingle in a city full of models, and I was doomed to spend my life with a man I never wanted to see naked. I was not in the best spirits, to say the least. I was also
wasted.

  Sebastian drove straight to my apartment, and then he walked me to my door and kissed me like there was no tomorrow. Eventually I was going to have to sleep with the man, it might as well be when I was just drunk enough to get past that feeling of regret and wrongdoing. I asked him to come inside and immediately began undressing him.

  He smiled more that night than I had ever seen him smile in our entire friendship. The alcohol did reduce the nervousness I felt, but it did not silence it completely. Once we were naked and on the bed, all the dread came crashing back to me as I watched him sheath himself in a condom he pulled out of his wallet. Like the good boy scout he was, he was ready for the night.

  How long had that been in his wallet; just waiting for the day I’d split my naked legs for him. Then he spit into his hand and lubricated himself and attempted to try to find where he was supposed to enter me. I wondered briefly if he was a virgin, though I had assumed he slept with his ex-girlfriend, Amy, back home. I got frustrated and grabbed his dick and shoved him into me, and he flirted with me, teasing me for my “eagerness.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t eagerness so much as it was irritation. His face was full of passionate expression, but beyond that, he was silent.

  I, on the other hand, was anything but silent. It felt wrong and bad to be with him in this way. I wasn’t attracted to him. I didn’t like the feel of him inside of me. I wanted it over, and I knew exactly what I had to do to get it to end. I played the part like an Oscar-winning actress. I dug nails into his ass cheeks and threw my head back, moaning like a porn star. Grinding my pelvis to his, I yelled that I was coming, and not a second later, Sebastian pushed hard into me and collapsed all of his body weight on me.

  He hugged me to his sweaty body and kissed me soft and slow. “Wow, that was amazing,” he whispered, pulling out of me and getting up to go throw out the condom. I was frozen still and silent despite the performance I just gave. He began to reach toward me when he returned, probably wanting to cuddle. But I put a stop to it before it began, announcing that he was welcome to stay but I wanted to shower and sleep.