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“She did,” I lie.
Lila begins to walk backward to the bedroom and I know immediately that she wants sex. Just like that, all the good from today disappears and reality comes crashing back down. I have two options: have sex with her unprotected or insist on a condom and risk getting kicked out of the apartment again. She hates when I wear a condom and has actually kicked me out for refusing to have sex with her without one. She may be in a good enough mood tonight that I can get away with wearing one. She might be on birth control, but every precaution is necessary.
She kisses and seduces me until we’re on the bed, naked, and horny. Just as I lean over to reach for the nightstand drawer, she grabs my arm with a tight grip. Her nails dig into my skin so hard, she could draw blood at any second.
“Not tonight, FC. I want to feel you. Really feel you.”
Damn it. “You haven’t missed a single day of birth control?” I ask.
“No!” she exclaims. Outrage colors her face that I would even ask. “I do not want a baby, FC.”
“That’s the point of me also wearing a condom, babe.”
She rolls her eyes, grabs my cock, and situates herself above me. “I’ll take that day after pill tomorrow as precaution,” she promises me.
I should know by now that she can’t be trusted, but that thought doesn’t hit me for a couple of weeks.
It’s been a week since I’ve heard from FC. It always worries me when I don’t hear from him for a few days. I’m certain my worries are legitimate, too, and not just a no big deal branch off my crazy tree, which has roots formed by my generalized anxiety disorder. FC hasn’t been the FC I’ve known for over a decade since he met this latest girlfriend.
He’s different, and different in a way that makes me uneasy and worry about him. He doesn’t talk about her much at all. I was surprised he even mentioned he was taking her to meet his family. That was the first time he’s talked about her in a couple of months. Although I’m ashamed to admit it, it makes me a little sad and upset whenever FC has told me he has a girlfriend. If he’s happy, then I truly am happy for him. But I’m sad for myself.
When I was younger, it was easy to picture FC and me together. That one day we’d meet and make our own happily ever after. I could picture every romantic detail of how it would happen. I often fantasized about it, dreaming up various scenarios. As I got older and the day of us meeting never came, the daydreaming lessened dramatically as dreaded reality sank in, but I never could shake those feelings for FC.
My heart swears he’s my soulmate while my head reminds me we haven’t ever met and if he really wanted to meet me, we would have by now. My head thinks I’m still that silly girl in middle school finding a guy who seemed so perfect, but refuses to see the light it keeps blinding me with. My heart doesn’t see anything but a soulmate when it sees FC.
Do you know what that does to a woman? Some days, I feel guilty for even talking to him when one, or both, of us are in a relationship because our conversations sometimes feel intimate and I obviously have some feelings for him, real and true or not. Not to mention, I feel clingy and needy with how often we talk and I’m desperate to talk to him when days go by and I don’t hear from him. That part is particularly bad when my anxiety and depression are giving me a run for my money.
My phone rings with a video call from FC while I’m on my lunch break and I smile. My nerves heighten and my heart gallops with happiness. There my heart goes; running off with crazy ideas of a supposed soulmate while my head screams, reminding me of a boyfriend. I answer the call, keeping my smile even though FC looks like he hasn’t slept in two days.
“Hey! I was starting to worry about you.”
“That’s because you have an anxiety disorder and I’ve been a sucky friend.” He gives me a smile I hope is genuine. FC is the only person who can tease me about my mental health issues and not upset me. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, not for the teasing, for being a sucky friend. “If it makes you feel better, I have seriously missed you. How have you been doing?”
“Good. A little up and down up here,” I point to my head. “What about you? You didn’t tell me how your family liked Lila.”
FC shrugs and I frown when I see him lift a cigarette to his mouth.
“You’re smoking again?” I ask with disappointment, though it’s obvious. “You know it’s unhealthy.” When he first picked up the habit, I was able to eventually nag him enough until he quit when he was twenty.
“It’s either this or pot, and this is legal,” FC replies, completely serious. As if I wasn’t worried enough. “I need…whatever this does for me, Idaline,” he adds on quietly. After another long drag, he says, “Everyone loved her but Nana. She said Lila brags too much and that basically she doesn’t have much to brag about until she lives to be eighty like her.”
I laugh. “I think I’d like your nana.”
FC smiles. “She’d like you better than she likes Lila. Your boyfriend treating you like he should? You think you’ll keep him around?”
I tend to go through boyfriends fairly quickly. Most don’t last longer than six months and it’s all FC’s fault. We haven’t met yet, but I’m sure when we do, it’ll be fireworks and love at first sight. Hell, I’m already in love with him as much as I can be. What boyfriend can live up to the man FC is to me? To who I’ve built him up to be in my mind, which may not be who he really is in person? All I know is no one else can mess with my emotions and get me in a tizzy like FC can and that apparently means something to me.
“At least for a while longer,” I answer. “He’s a little bit of the jealous type and I haven’t decided if it’s a good thing and the normal healthy amount or not.”
FC sits up in his car and his face moves closer to his phone. His voice is serious, but his hands have begun to shake a bit because the screen moves. “What do you mean he’s the jealous type and you don’t know if it’s good or not? What has he done, Idaline?”
I glance around the courtyard, which is full and bustling since it’s a warm summer day. “I don’t think this is where we should talk about something that personal,” I say as I spot a co-worker.
“Idaline, tell me right now,” he demands in a low deadly tone that should make me shiver in fear and not delight.
“Okay,” I relent. “So, I told him about you, right?” FC’s eyes widen as his eyebrows shoot up. “I always tell them because I talk to you so much.” Well, I did. “And he wasn’t happy, spouting off how his girlfriend wasn’t going to have a guy friend and how you have bad intentions and other nonsense. You’re like my dirty little secret now. You’re in my phone as Fiona, just in case.” FC does not look happy, but I continue with, “And we went to a bar after work last week and when the bartender flirted with me, he practically threatened the guy.”
FC’s phone steadily shakes. “Leave him, Idaline. If you don’t do anything else I ever tell you, leave him. That’s not healthy. Don’t get in that situation where it gets worse,” he nearly pleads. “I don’t want that for you.” He shakes his head. “You’re the last person in this entire world who should go through something like that and I can’t stand the thought of it. Get out of it while you can, okay? You promise me you’ll break up with him.”
