Lemon Jello Ladeez and Gents and on with it!

“Why… what are you doing here?” I asked, stuttering. He stood in the rain, not attempting to come inside, most likely because I was blocking the doorway. I gulped and stared as he pushed the soaked strands of hair back from his forehead and shook his head.

“Why’d you call me? You never call me.” His voice was flat, his expression unchanging. When I didn’t answer him, unintentionally because I was still kind of stunned, his frustration started to show. “Tell me something, Rosalie! Give me a reason why I’m here right now!”

“I… you were just gone,” I said, looking down at the floor. “You don’t care about me.”

He laughed contemptuously and punched the door lightly, causing me to jump.

“You’re not serious. Tell me you’re not being serious, please.”

“That’s all I was to you, someone that you slept with while you didn’t have anyone else. And we got comfortable, and it was easy, I get it. But… we‘re supposed to be best friends. And you just dropped me, right after the first time we slept together sober. Obviously, I’m going to think you don’t care.”

“Rosalie,” he grabbed my hand and clenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring as he breathed through them heavily. “Don’t do this.”

“What?” I asked, at a loss as to what he wanted me to say.

“Don’t confuse me!”

I shrugged and took a step back, suddenly understanding what his agenda was for being there. They were getting serious, the two of them. He wanted to know that what we had was nothing, and that we never had a chance. And I was causing him to think otherwise.

“I’m going inside,” I mumbled, stepping back and closing the doors. I left him standing there on the stoop in the rain, his face twisted and full of grief. As I started walking back up the stairs, I felt a pain in my chest.

I didn’t want to be with him. That wasn’t something that was going to change, just because he was with someone else. But I didn’t want him out of my life. As hard as I tried to deny it, there were some surprisingly strong feelings that had grown throughout my life, and now they were just… stagnant. There inside of me, unmoving and permanent. And I didn’t want them to go away.