Short chapter. 665 words. I'll be busy this week and updates won't be frequent.

"I have to tell him."

"Tell him what?"

"That you lied! He doesn't deserve to believe we would really do that to him."

"He knows."

"No, he doesn't." He should know we wouldn't, but he doesn't. "He honestly believes it. He wouldn't let me touch him."

Alex hangs his head in shame. "I'm so sorry."

I'm not the one he needs to apologize to. "You lied to him for years. You loved him."

"I lied to you, not Scott."

So the only reason he regrets it is because it hurt me? What about Scott? "I'm not important! We aren't important! I don't care that you lied to me. I don't even care right now that our whole relationship is built on false pretenses." Alex flinches at that, and I feel the weight of my words in my stomach, but I press on. "It doesn't matter that my best friend hates me because of you." Tears are flowing down his face, and I let them gather at his jaw and drip off uninterrupted.

"It's. About. Scott. 'Forever ago,' 'Once,' 'Never again,' Alex, do you know what that felt like? I felt like I was destined to live in misery. I thought I was never going to be able to breathe again without remembering. That's what it felt like to half-believe for thirty seconds that you cheated once a long time ago with someone who used to be your boyfriend anyway. That is nothing compared to what Scott must feel. Months? Months? Whoever hit you, you didn't hit them back, because you knew you could have broken them. You could have broken every bone in Scott's body and he would have healed faster and hurt less than this. I wish you had. I wish you had punched him or stabbed him or anything else, but you poisoned him."

"And so he poisoned you."

"I DON'T CARE. Are you even sorry for what you did to him?"

Alex nods his bowed head and sobs in a way that sounds mostly like, "Yes."

"Not what you did to me. Not to us. To him."

Alex breaks down completely. His head meets the floor at my feet and his whole body shakes, and I just watch because I can't comfort him. How could he? How could he do that? He loved him. He loves me. How could he do that to someone he loved? To anyone?

"Please," he chokes out pitifully. Please what? He can't finish his sentence. I feel sick. His tears falling to the floor are like blows to my soul, but part of me wants to watch this. My own face is far from dry. It feels like hours before I stand and walk away. His gasp is a pike through my heart and his quiet sob is seared instantly and permanently onto my memory as I leave him.

I go to the kitchen and pick up the blackberries. They're still frozen, because it hasn't been hours. It was minutes ago that I kissed him, that I tried to make him clean. It wasn't enough. I go back to the living room and hold the bag out to him. It's an invitation to stand, but he stays on his knees and reaches up. He doesn't look at me standing beside him as he buries his face and whispers in a hollow voice, "Please forgive me."

My voice is as soft and as gentle as I can make it, but my words leave an open wound in both of us. "I'll forgive you when Scott does."

He draws a deep breath and stops crying. He unfolds slowly. He stands, but he still looks crumpled and small. "Let me hug you one last time."

My head shakes, but my arms wrap around him, and he hugs me back like I'm spun from air, barely pressing. I pull away before I start crying again. "I'm going to see Scott."

"I love you, Mitch."

"I love you too."