Sean threw open his door and grinned happily at me, inviting me inside.  “Okay, so,” he said as he shut the door behind me, “since it seems our weekend plans got a bit derailed, I was hoping we could try again?”  He gave me a pleading look.

Instead of answering that question, I crossed my arms and leaned my hip against his desk chair.  “We need to talk.”

The happy look in his eyes started to fade immediately.  “Talk?  That…doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not,” I agreed.  I’d never broken up with someone before, this was so much more awkward and awful than I’d anticipated, watching his expression as it changed.  Even after yesterday, even after the pain he’d caused me, I still loved him.  I couldn’t turn off my feelings that easily.  I hated this – but there wasn’t any other option.

So I opted for as straightforward an approach as I could muster.  “I don’t think this,” I motioned between us, “is working anymore.  It was fine in high school but things are changing now and we’re going in different directions.  I want to break up.”

That was clearly not what he had expected or wanted, but I was firm on this.  I couldn’t stay.  “What do you mean?  I thought we were doing great!  Did something happen this weekend?”  He demanded.  “Did I do something when I was drunk?  Oh, please tell me I didn’t hurt you!”

Strange, almost, that he could care this much when I knew that all it would take for his concern to turn into hatred was admitting that I was a supernatural.

“We’re not really right for each other.”  That was true.  100%.  “I…don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore.”

He started glowering.  “What, did you meet someone else?  Is that it?  You just don’t want to say?  What on earth, Cooper?  This is so sudden!  And what if I don’t want to break up, what then, huh?  You think you’re the only one who gets a say in this relationship?”

I shrugged slightly.  “You can’t force me to be in a relationship with you.”  Maybe it was a little unfair, maybe he’d never get it, but it was almost easier if he was mad at me and never tried to talk to me again.  We’d probably see each other enough over the next 2.5 years anyway, going to the same school – if he’d just leave me alone, that would be best.  I didn’t want him to try win me back or anything like that.  Not when I knew how it would end.

“No, of course, I didn’t mean that, but just – why?”  He demanded.  “What happened?  We were great!  We were even taking the next step!”

Maybe I could use that, actually.  “Actually, we haven’t been as great as you think, I just…didn’t speak up because I thought I could live with it.  But I can’t.  I don’t want to sleep with you.”  I mean, I didn’t want to sleep with him now, of course, so that wasn’t a lie, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it yesterday, either.  I actually hadn’t been entirely on board with the idea, but I’d agreed because I wanted to make him happy.  “I don’t feel that emotional connection with you anymore, and since I'm demi, that connection is important for me to feel sexually attracted to you.  But it’s just not there anymore.  I think it’s been happening since we started college, we’ve just been moving in different directions and neither of us saw it because we were too busy to take an actual look at it.  Well, I did, finally, when I was trying to figure out why I didn’t want to sleep with you.”  There was some truth to that, even if I was kind of realizing it as I went.  At least now, anyway, it was hard to feel attracted to someone who I knew thought of me as some kind of monster.  “And I realized we’re not right for each other.  So I don’t want to keep pretending everything is okay.  Better make a break of it so we can have a chance to find a real relationship with someone else.”

He ran his hand through his hair, looking frustrated and angry.  “I didn’t want to push you before you’re ready, but I thought you were!”

“I tried to convince myself I was just because of how long we’ve been together.”  I gave him as firm a look as I could muster.  “Sean, you’re a great guy, but – but you’re not the guy for me.”

“You can’t just do this!”  He snapped, marching over towards me.  He grabbed my shoulders in his large hands and started shaking me.  “You can’t just leave me like this!”

I slapped him automatically, making us both freeze for a moment, before I carefully pulled myself out of his hands and positioned myself in between him and the door so my escape wasn’t blocked.

“I’m sorry, Sean,” I told him.  “But…we’re done.”

“You did meet someone else, didn’t you.”  It wasn’t a question this time, but I could hear the way his tone was seething as he kept his back turned to me.  “Otherwise, this makes no sense.”

I took a step backwards towards the door.  “Why?  Because there’d be no possible reason for someone not to want you?”

He turned his face towards me, the fury in his expression reminding me of last night – and making it easier for me to stand my ground.  “You’re being selfish and immature,” he told me coldly.  “And if you’re cheating on me, well, then I’m glad this is it.  I wouldn’t want to be with a cheater like you.”

I gave him an icy look in response.  “I never cheated on you,” I responded frostily, angry that he would even accuse me of that.  “And I think it’s more immature to try to force someone to be in a relationship they don’t want than to recognize when a relationship isn’t working and try to leave.  I was hoping we could part on good terms, but I guess that’s not possible.  Goodbye, Sean.”

I turned and walked out the door, heading for the staircase as I took deep breaths to calm myself.

That’s when Sean did something I didn’t expect.  Last night he had been furious, but too shocked, I suppose, to act on his anger.  Today – today he was giving into his fury, something I’d already seen when he shook me.  I wasn’t expecting it, so when someone shoved me between my shoulders as I started down the steps, I fell, tumbling the entire flight of stairs before I landed at the bottom – too startled by what happened for my cat reflexes to kick in, I guess.  For a few moments I just laid there, stunned, then slowly tried to pull myself upright.  No one was at the top of the stairs now, but I wasn’t a fool – I knew who had pushed me.  There was only one person who’d have the motivation.

I felt tears fill my eyes as I pulled myself to my feet, wincing a little with the movement.  I was pretty certain I’d sprained my wrist, but everything else was likely just bruises.  I could thank my shifter genes for that – and that I’d be fine by morning – but still…it hurt.  It hurt emotionally to know that the man I’d thought I’d be with forever, my boyfriend for over two years, had just intentionally tried to hurt me.

The whole way home, I found tears falling down my face again, a repeat of last night, but this time for different reasons.  And some of the same.

At home, I looked into the mirror at the plain young man whose tear-streaked face stared back at me.

When my family had died in an awful accident – an accident that still haunted my dreams – I’d been left alone, abruptly, with my grandfather as my only living relative.  A human, he’d been mostly out of it with dementia by the time I’d gone to live with him.  When I’d left for college across the country instead of close to him, I hadn’t been there when he’d died a few months later.  With his death, though, the only person left in my life was Sean.

I was an introvert, that wasn’t really up for debate.  I hated social events, hated parties, hated leaving the house more than necessary.  It was hard for me to meet new people at all, but even when I did, it was like something was wrong with me.

Because none of them, not a single one, really made any effort to keep our friendship.  Once I met people and reached a point in our friendship where I started really opening up, to me that was a big deal and I would do everything I could to keep them.  I tried, I really did, but I needed them to put some effort into the relationship to show I wasn’t just being annoying and that they, too, cared about the relationship.  But none of them ever did, so with time, any friendships faded and died.  No matter how much care I took trying to water them, without even a tiny bit of input from the other side, the relationship was doomed.

Sean’s friendship with me had been the only constant in my life since my family had died and now…now he was gone, too.  He couldn’t love the shifter me, only the human me.  But I was a shifter.  Wiping tears from my eyes, I opened up my phone, hesitated, and then blocked his number before removing it from my contacts list, leaving me with just two numbers.

Maria wasn’t a friend, more of a business acquaintance.  A useful one, but definitely not a friend.  The only other number in my phone was a friend of Dad’s who’d insisted that I should call him if I ever needed help.  I was tempted to call him now because suddenly I found myself alone, with absolutely no one, but…he wasn’t my friend, either.  He was Dad’s.  He’d made the promise for Dad’s sake, but he didn’t really care about me, either.  I couldn’t impose on him.

I reached out and touched the face of the lonely boy in the mirror.  “What’s wrong with me?”  I whispered.  “What am I doing wrong?  How do I fix it?”

Neither me nor the boy in the mirror had any answers.

~~~~~

“Is this real?”  I asked Colette quietly.

“Oh, what?”  She glanced up at her phone just long enough to take a look at the pictures I was holding.  “Oh, sure, guess so.”

I looked at her, nonplussed, my heart sinking.  It had taken me almost three years after Sean to be ready to date again, and while Colette seemed shallow at times, she was a nice girl and seemed to love me – or so I thought.  But she wasn’t even pretending to deny the pictures which made it very clear she’d been cheating on me.

“Why?”  My tone was quiet, controlled.

She shrugged, her eyes on her phone as she popped a piece of candy into her mouth.  “Eh, he was hot, single, and interested.  Why not?”  She glanced up at me, then suddenly laughed at my expression.  “Oh come on, Cooper, don’t look like that!  It didn’t mean anything.  You’re my guy, remember?”

Was I?  I suddenly wondered.  My coworkers had told me they thought she was only with me because I bought her stuff, but I hadn’t believed them.  Now…now I had to wonder.

We never really talked about serious stuff.  We hung out, and she lavished me with attention and what I thought was love every time I gave her something she wanted.  That…that really was the extent of our relationship, wasn’t it?  I suppose to most people, it would look like the plain, quiet, boring guy was buying a relationship with the hot, popular social media influencer by gifting her expensive bags and shoes and things.  Come to think of it, any time I pointed out that I couldn’t afford what she wanted, she’d pout and cry and stay away until I caved.  I hadn’t gotten into debt because of her, but I was aware I was spending most of my paychecks on her.  I’d thought it was okay because she was important to me and I was just trying to show her my affection, but maybe…maybe we were both wanting something out of this relationship that we couldn’t get.  I wanted affection, craved it from someone, and she wanted stuff.  She could fake the affection whenever I gave her what I wanted.

Which meant….

“You never really cared about me, did you?  Even once?”

She sighed as if very put out and finally put down her phone to look at me.  “You’re throwing a tantrum because I slept with a guy once?  Really, now, we don’t even sleep together!  How do you expect my needs to be met?”  She flipped her hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes.  “I assumed an open relationship was what you wanted if you didn’t want me.”

I’d hardly call my quiet tone a temper tantrum, but I couldn’t entirely deny her words, either.  Maybe I’d been using her as much as she’d been using me.  It hadn’t been intentional, though, on my part.  I was truly fond of her, but I’d been well aware that I wasn’t as deeply connected to her as I’d have wanted for a relationship.  Which was why we weren’t sleeping together.

Truth was, after Sean, I found it really hard to let myself get close to anyone anymore.  I was honestly terrified of getting back in the same situation, so keeping a distance from everyone – even my girlfriend – just made sense to me.  I’d told myself that eventually I’d open up to her, but maybe I’d actually just selected someone that I subconsciously knew I’d never be close to just so I could avoid the potential risk.

I thought for a long time as she went back to her phone, responding to all her social media followers.  I wasn’t sure which of her followers had sent me the pictures, or maybe it was the guy who she slept with, but I didn’t think it mattered much.

Whoever it was probably thought I didn’t deserve a girl like her and shouldn’t be with someone as hot and successful as she was when I was just…plain, quiet, boring me.  Maybe they were right.  Maybe I was doomed to be alone.  Maybe this whole relationship we were both pretending in was stupid.

Maybe I’d let them win and get what they really wanted by sending me those pictures.

“Colette,” I said quietly, barely getting the slightest glance from her to acknowledge that she’d heard me, “I don’t think either of us are really that invested in this relationship.”

That got her attention enough to look at me, her eyes narrowed.  “Are you – breaking up with me?”  Her voice raised an octave, and she looked incensed.

“You can break up with me, if you’d prefer,” I suggested, “but I don’t think there’s any future in this relationship.  We don’t really know each other at all and it doesn’t seem likely that that’ll change.”

To my surprise, she grabbed her drink and threw it straight in my face, looking absolutely furious – but beautifully so, because that’s what Colette did – as she gathered her things.  “How dare you!”  She fumed.  “This was a perfectly good arrangement and you want to go and ruin it with talking about the future!  Fine, I will break up with you!”  She flipped her hair over her shoulder again and stormed off, leaving me alone at the table.

I sighed very quietly, tried to clean myself up some with a napkin, then went to deal with paying for our food, doing my best to ignore the stares and whispers as I did, though internally I was cringing at every single one of them.

Instead, I found myself heading back to work and informing the bank manager that I would actually like the promotion he’d offered – the one that came with a transfer – after all.