Draft (2012-08-20)

"How long have you been cheating on me?"
The fork that was halfway to my mouth I rested back onto the plate. Brian sat across from me on our little apartment table. His face downcast as if concentrating on his food. Barely a bite of it eaten. His hands gripping his utensils.
"If you are asking that question, then don't you already know?"
He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot from tears. A couple days of dark growth covered his face.
"I want the truth, from you."
I looked at him, for the first time in week I looked at the man I was living with. He had lost weight, new lines had appeared on his face. I never knew him to look so old.
"Sometimes it seems like it has only just happened. Other times, it feels like years."
Tears began to fall, "That's not an answer, tell me who it was that was worth throwing all this away for?"
I stood, picked up my plate and dumped it in the sink. I wasn't going to eat anymore of it.
I couldn't move from the sink, I felt rooted to that spot. I griped the bench for support.
"There is no this, there is nothing here for us. You have got to kidding yourself if you think that is anything here."
I felt the plate smash on the wall, "Then grow some balls and just leave me."
"I tried, oh god how I have tried. I spent so long trying to get you to realise that there are problems with us. You ignored me. You acted like you just wanted to bury your head in the sand and hope it all goes away. For months I tried doing CPR on the corpse of this relationship. Eventually, I just had to give up. So I tried to end it. You wouldn't let me. Every time I tried, every time I told you what was wrong, that was when you fought for us. And I though, maybe this time it will be different. And for a minute it was, but then it just all went back. That night, after you left me crying in that carpark, after I told you I needed you and you told me no, after that, I was done."
I turned and looked at him then. He was was just sitting there, pasta sliding down the wall, shards of plate on the carpet. His face blank and emotionless.
His voice was calm, "so when did he come into it?"
I was stunned, "Did you not hear anything I just said?"
"Yeah, I did. But I don't care about your excuses. You cheated on me. You ended this, not me."
"This has been ended for years. You just never had the courage to acknowledge it. All I did was put my life together and try to move on."
"WE LIVE TOGETHER."
I looked him right in the eyes, "We share an apartment, but there is nothing 'together' about us. When was the last time we made love? Hell when was the last time we went out together? Or even spent the night in the apartment together?"
"God, you really don't care do you?"
I turned and walked into the bedroom.
"I haven't had a reason to care about us for a very long time."
I went to my backpack and grabbed the pack out of it's side pocket. I walked back in to the main room, past Brian and out on to the balcony closing the sliding door. I stood gazing over the waterfront buildings and out into the darkness of the beyond.
The smoke felt good in my lungs. Its effects calmed my nerves. I never heard the door open. I just felt his presence next to me.
"I thought you quit."
"I had, I have."
He grabbed the cigarette out of mouth and threw it of the balcony, "then you don't need that."
I sighed and pulled another one from the packet and lit this one, "Doc wants me back on them, he says it helps to calm me down."
"Your 're seeing your shrink again?"
"I needed someone there for me."
"Is that who this man is? Someone there for you."
I took a drag, the light briefly illuminating my face.
"What do you think you know?"
"I don't understand," He said while shaking his head. "What do you mean by that?"
"Obviously someone has told you something, seen something. Some part of your social life," I couldn't keep the disdain from my voice, "has run back and whispered something in your ear. So I want to know what they saw? What they said? What you think you know?"
"You are talking about my friends, And I don't need to tell you anything."
"Then neither do I."
The sound of the wind was the only thing we heard for the next little while.