"It's fine" she replied thinking; "it is not fine"
They talked about it endlessly in the following week; crying at times, laughing at others. She felt safe and sick. Broken and whole. She loved him and hated him all at once. Thoughts compulsively went round and round her head. What had this girl looked like? What did she sound like? Was she tall or short? What had she looked like when she was fucking him? Swirling thoughts that wouldn't let up. Working herself into a lather she imagined him holding this girl, looking at her appreciatively as she walked away from him, telling her how attractive she was. Things he'd said and done for and to her. In her head this girl was perfect. Small and slight; long dark hair, pouty Lolita lips, breasts high and firm leading down to a taut stomach and shapely legs. Sexually knowledgeable and aggressive (she would have to be sexually aggressive to be the sort of girl that sent unsolicited sexy pictures of herself to other peoples boyfriends). Laura was not sexually aggressive. She was unsure of herself and despite many compliments from past (and the current) suitors about certain physical attributes and her skills in the bedroom, she was not a conventionally attractive woman and she still carried the weight of being a virgin into her twenties around with her. Time and practice had filled in certain gaps in the meantime but she had never really lost the inferiority complex that comes from being a gawky, inexperienced, frightened-of-the-world teenager. Laura was sure the girl was a conventionally attractive girl who, though clearly in thrall to some serious daddy issues, would never have stood at the edge of a dancefloor feeling fat, unattractive, and unloveable as Laura had spent most of her formative years.
These thoughts gripped her from morning till night. Brushing her teeth, waiting for a bus, washing dishes after dinner. She'd be stood there feeling fine, or just stood there existing feeling neither fine nor not, and suddenly the thoughts of the girl would start swirling and drag her to a dark, dank place. A place she thought she'd never have to go again once she met him. Now here she was, standing on the precipice between sanity and the alternative and was not sure which way she would fall. Reason dictated stepping back into the realms of logic ("he didn't do anything once we were together properly, he only kept stuff from me to save upset, he didn't tell her to get lost because adults aren't taught how to create boundaries anymore"), emotion urged her to jump with wild abandon into the pit of self-destruction ("how could he not know this would hurt you? Thus he must have done it to hurt you. You're better off on your own. You will never live up to this girl. You're worthless to him, he's proven that. Give up. Give in"). She felt herself caught between these urges, these voices, unable to choose between them.
She'd said 'I forgive you' and meant it but now felt nothing but anger. She wanted him gone. She never wanted to see him again, then, just as suddenly, she loved him with all her heart and could not imagine her life without him. Flipping between these states like switching between channels on the tv. She hated her brain: 'just pick one!' she screamed internally, but it seemed impossible. Her heart and her head would not settle.
Laura knew this was what would be the end of them. Not his initial stupidity, but her inability to let things go. To settle.
This was the worst betrayal of all.
