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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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839
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1/1
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FRIEND AGAINST FRIEND

Summary:

A short sorrowful piece about friendship lost

Work Text:

We may have been the best of friends for many, many years, but now I bear only enmity for him.

How had we come to this?

Oh God! How I wish we could go back to what we once were.  How I miss our closeness, our comradeship.......gone it is now.....with the ashes of our friendship.

It all started when SHE appeared.

The day had been normal, busy as usual.  We traded morning jokes and reminders of meeting after work for our pickup basketball game.

It was some time after ten and I'd just finished a meeting with a client.  I was in an ebullient mood when this vision of loveliness walked into the office.

I literally stood there with my mouth hanging open.  She wasn't a knockout, her nose was a little too pointed, her face too plain, but something about her had my heart leaping and other things standing up and taking notice.

She was dressed tastefully and professionally.  Not a secretary or an assistant....oh no......she was  CEO of a new line of exercise equipment.  Her body was fit, proof of the effectiveness of what she was marketing.

I hustled her into my office, offered her coffee, which she accepted in a gracious, light tenor voice.  We talked about the ad campaign she was looking for to market her equipment.  We meshed so well that our conversation segued into more personal areas and the deeper we got the more enamored of her I became.

It was never wise to get personally involved with your clients, my best friend would be the first to remind me of that, but she reached a part of me I thought could never be touched.  I couldn't let her go.

I did the unforgivable and began to see her.  We went to movies, theater, the beach, walking in the park on a beautiful Sunday morning, riding bikes, having intimate dinners.  It was all so fantastic and I wanted her.

Then it happened, I caught my best friend speaking intimately with her one day as she stopped by our offices.  Firmly keeping my smile, I politely swept her to my office so we could talk about the campaign that was going very well for her business.  All the while, in the back of my mind, I was asking.......what was he doing?.......why was she looking at him like that?........it ate away at me, making me tense and uneasy.

I didn't confront him.....not yet.....but as time went on and I caught them together more than once in social situations, I finally called him on his poaching.

On the basketball court, we played a rather aggressive game, hidden anger making me more intense, turning our normally relaxing match into a bitter battle.  He sensed something was wrong and reacted to it by being aggressive back.

Finally, as he made a lay-up shot, I slammed into him, sending him to the hard asphalt.  He rolled to his feet and charged up to me....chest to chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He yelled at me.

"Why are you hanging around my girl?" I spit.

He blinked at me in surprised shock.  "Who?"

"Don't play innocent with me.  You knew she was mine but you've been playing up to her and I want you to lay off.....she's mine!" I told him flatly.

"You mean Sara....don't you?" He asked seriously, stepping back from me.

"Of course Sara.  Don't pretend you didn't know," I hissed bitterly.

His face went grim.  "No I didn't know you two were involved.  I've been seeing her for weeks and we.........we just click like no girl ever has before," he said, the joy unmistakable in his voice making me choke with agony.  "She cares for me and I her."

"NO! She's mine! Stay away.......for God's sake we're best friends....don't do this to us.  She's mine....we're so close, her eyes clearly show how much she cares for me.  One of us has to back off and it's not going to be me.  I was with her first....right when I set up her ad campaign and we've been seeing each other for months," I said, my voice tight with pain.

He stared at me, pain now in his eyes and I knew then we were no longer friends, his next words confirming it.  

"I can't! She loves me.  I won't give her up!"

"I don't believe a word you tell me...I don't believe that she's so close to you.  When she's with me I feel the fire in her eyes, so one of us will have to pay the price because only one of us can win!" I said bitterly, then turned away and left him there.

In the end, we both lost.  She had been playing the field and apparently was one of those girls who like men to get just close enough then break it off and head to another conquest.  

I wanted to wring her neck but to my shame I still love her desperately.  She cost me my long time friend........he was in too much pain to even look at me any more as I with him.  What a price we paid for a love that never truly existed except in our own minds.