Addicted to Love: Dillon & Kristina

hard as he tries, much as she denies, can they be saved? (title from Robert Palmer)

A/N: small, M-rated, same-sex scene ahead

Kristina and Kiki were friends since they were roomed together their freshman year of college. I met Kiki when I helped my childhood friend Michael move his little sister into her dorm. The moment Michael and I laid eyes on her, we were both infatuated, much to Krissy's annoyance. Unfortunately for me, Mikey was quicker, and he and Kiki began an infamous three years of off and on shenanigans. Which was whatever, because I dated pretty regularly, pushing thoughts of anything but friendship with her out of my mind.

Kristina saw right through that.

"You are so in love with her," she told me on her couch one night. Michael and Kiki were locked in her room while I watched a movie with Kris and pretended not to know what was going on beyond that door.

"I am not," I said. Kris rolled her eyes and went back to watching the screen.

It was their graduation night, when things finally lined up with me and Kiki. Her relationship with Michael had been over for almost six months—their longest break, and final one according to Michael who was smitten with some new woman.

Michael's father hosted a large party after the ceremony, and in the middle of the festivities Kris pulled me and Kiki into an empty room.

"You're both my friends I love you guys," she said, "but this is stupid. You're being stupid. You both want each other, so have at it."

Then she left and locked us in the room. We had at it. Kristina banned both of us from sharing he details with her.

Kiki's great. The sex is amazing. Being part of a couple is rewarding. But…you know the last scene from The Graduate? It's kind of like that. The audience (sans Michael) was rooting for us to end up together, and when we finally did it was like, what now? I knew everything about her, which was both a comfort and a bore.

Seven months in, and I'm bored. I think she is too, but she likes this calm and stable thing we have. I can't talk to anyone about it because it makes me feel a bit like a loser, and failure. This was supposed to be it. She was the one for me, before we had each other. But, I'm content, for the most part.

Kristina stays with friends or temporary lovers these days. She occasionally comes back to the apartment that she and Kiki share, but she rarely sleeps there. Not since I started dating her best friend. It's weird, because Kris also became my best friend over the years, and then she sort of disappeared. She drifts from job to job because she can afford it on her trust fund and she hates being in one place too long. She has commitment issues, according to anyone who's ever met her. Michael worries because he thinks she's hanging with the wrong crowd (like she's in an after school special) and doing drugs. She is; she "dates" scum and smokes pot. It helps with her anxiety, she explained. I love the girl, but I don't worry about her as much as Michael. He takes his big brother role very seriously.

All this to say, I don't expect to see Kris during the week, not at her apartment—to which I now have a key—not on the central couch in the apartment, not completely naked on the couch, not with some busty blonde going down on her.

I had in my headphones when I came in and closed the door behind me, but the blasting stereo was louder than my music. I pulled the buds out of my ears and stared at the two women on the couch, and I'm sure this is some bizarre dream sequence. I don't know why my mind would conjure this, but that's the only explanation I can come up with.

I should leave. I should leave. I'm leaving before they can notice I'm even there.

But I get caught. Kristina's head turns in my direction and our eyes meet. I open my mouth to say something, to apologize, but I can't. She looks scared for half a second, but her budding orgasm contorts her face. Her mouth opens, she's still staring at me when she comes. Your best friend's O-face is something you will never be able to forget—I know that as soon as it happens.

Her pupils are blown and her chest is heaving—did I miss when she grew breasts?—and she smiles at me. She looks back at her lover, and quickly reverses their positions, the blonde—I think Kris introduced the classmate months before as Megan?—still oblivious to my presence.

I rush out of there before I can see any more.

The next time I see her is a couple of weeks later on Michael's birthday. She keeps shooting me looks in the restaurant, like she's worried I'm going to bring it up. So I don't. Another month passes before I even hear anything about her. Kiki tells me that she's out of town partying, that she wishes she could afford to party for a living. But it means we'll have the apartment to ourselves, so.

Then, nearly a month after that, Michael asks me to pick her up from the airport. He has some emergency meeting at work and Kristina hates being driven around by their father's people. He wants me to make sure she gets home safely.

"Of course. No problem." What else was I going to say?

When I pull up and she spots me, I don't think I'm imagining how her face falls. She doesn't have any bags.

"Hey," I say when she slides into the passenger seat. "How was Mexico?"

"I was in Tokyo."

"Why?"

"Why not?" It's how she lives her life, asking that question.

"Well I would know your recent whereabouts if you stayed in contact with us."

"I talked to Michael."

"Yeah, but…" I didn't notice it at first, but she looks sad staring at the road before us.

"Did you have fun?"

She nods with a smile that doesn't light up her eyes the way they used to.

We drive for forty minutes in silence, with the exception of the radio she keeps messing with. When I pull into the parking garage of her building, she doesn't move to get out of the car.

"I was in love," she speaks into the quiet, as if answering a question I never asked.

I didn't expect her to say that, or anything at all. But I'm back in friend mode, prepared to hear about her broken heart and the person that broke it. I'm almost positive that it's the woman I walked in on her with. Was she scared, this whole time, to tell people—tell me—that she was interested in women? Was that the reason for the distance?

"You were?" I ask tentatively.

"Yes."

"Not anymore?"

"I don't know."

"And the person you…what happened?"

"Fell in love with someone else. Some fun, smart, gorgeous blonde. So typical." She scoffs. "It's my own fault."

"No, Kris…"

"It is. I've been doing shit like this my whole life. Making it easy for people to leave me. My mom left me when I was five. Did you know that?"

I did know. Michael told me years ago when I asked about Kris's mother.

"Growing up, I don't remember ever wishing she had stayed. I just wished that she had left sooner. Before we made memories that I would remember for the rest of my life. That's the cruel part; I know what it's like to have and love a mother; I know what it's like when you realize you're not enough to make her stay. I wish she took the memories with her, but I still remember her, in bits in pieces."

In all the years we've known each other, she's only ever been Michael's carefree little sister. I don't even recognize this dazed, frail woman next to me. I don't know what to say.

"I dated in high school, because that's what we did and that's how we proved ourselves. But I never dated them long. I dated them for an even shorter time in college. I was the free-spirited party girl. It was a role, and I played the hell out of it. I used to tell people, 'I don't believe in monogamy.' 'Fuck whoever you can, whenever, however. Fuck 'em, and leave 'em.' That's why it's so ridiculous for me to fall in love. I never wanted it. I hated fairytales with happily ever after, because I knew the truth. Love does die. It fades. It leaves. It hurts.

"I wished I could be different. Or, the same. Like other girls. Like Kiki. Normal. I would want to be in love, to have someone be in love with me. I would be part of a couple, part of something real and important. You know what I mean?"

It's a rhetorical question, but I answer anyway. "I know exactly what you mean." She's skeptical, I can tell. Unsurprising, since I've been in love with love since I was a kid. I'm always trying to live up to the legend. She's been doing the exact opposite. But I get it, the appeal of being part of an 'us.' It can be…addicting.

Like my relationship with Kiki. Or my obsession with my college girlfriend. My all-in attitude with my two high school girlfriends.

"Are you in love with Kiki?" she asks me.

Am I? "I love her."

She looks away quickly, then back again with a question in her eyes. "Say it again."

"I love her? I love her." I told anyone who would listen that. I believed it. I was proud of it.

"That's not what I asked you."

It's not, but lying to myself is one thing. Lying to her, it feels impossible.

"I know."

She looks hurt, and I remember that she was Kiki's friend first. She helped push us together. If I hurt Kiki, I hurt both of them.

"Do you ever regret…being with her?"

"No, no. I'll never regret it. She's amazing."

"I know. I don't want her—either of you—to get hurt. She's crazy about you. Just, don't hurt her, okay? If you don't really want to be with her, just let her go."

She didn't cry before, when she was talking about her mother abandoning her, but she's crying now, though she's quick to wipe away the tears. Her look is fierce, a warning.

Things start to fall in place as I watch her.

"Kris? Are you in love with Kiki?"

She looks scared again, but shakes it off. Again, she gives that sad, fake smile.

"Thanks for driving me, Dillon. I'll see you around."

She's out of the car, inside the building, and I'm still staring at where she was just sitting.

We don't talk about it again. Kristina mostly stays away, crashing here and there. Kiki and I enjoy the silence of each other's presence; we never argue. It's so quiet between us, but not comfortably like before. Now I know that someone else loves her better than I do, with her whole heart, and is getting nothing but heartache in return. I feel guilty.

It's been a couple of weeks, and we're lying in bed when I ask Kiki if she's heard from Kris lately. It's very rare these days to see Kiki upset, but the tears are almost instant. She tries to swallow them down.

"I…no, not really. She hasn't…We don't really talk anymore." Then, softly, "I miss her."

I feel guiltier.

I wonder if Kristina fell in love with my girlfriend before or after we started dating. When she was dating Michael? Always? I think always.

I have no right to tell Kiki how Kris feels. But I do anyway.

"She loves you." I might have to clarify that. Friends can love each other. This is different. I look at her, and the guilty way she bites her lip and looks away, the burdened sigh, tells me that I don't need to explain.

"How long have you known?" I ask.

"Always." I thought so.

"And you? Do you…Are you…?"

She sighs again. "It's complicated."

I don't think so. I might be the biggest obstacle for them, and I'm cool as a cucumber.

"Why?"

"She's my best friend," she squeaks out. Kiki doesn't have any family, so I understand her distress. She doesn't want to lose her.

"She's my best friend, too. I think, us being together, it hurts her."

"I know."

"It's why she's never around anymore."

"I know."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"How?"

She's thrown by the question, and struggles to come up with an answer.

"How do you love her?" I ask instead, curious.

"Like the whole world."

Her answer is so quick and certain, so full of desperate love, I feel like the wind is kicked out of me. At worst, I had expected, more than a friend. Not a…declaration.

"And how long have you known that?" I sound more hurt than I intend to. I can tell she doesn't want to tell me, but I suspect I already know the answer to that too.

"Always." I thought so.

"I didn't know what it was. For so long I just thought, what I felt was normal, because I never really had friends before. And when I made more friends, I knew that she was special."

I swallowed hard. "Five years is a long time not to love the one you love."

Her laugh is dry. "Yeah." she raises to rest on both elbows. "Are you angry?"

How can I be? "No. Not angry. I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't think this was a possible outcome. I just…I guess I didn't realize how strongly you would…"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I only want you to be happy. Both of you."

This is the mature part of me speaking. Not the hurt little boy whose parents were too busy fighting and making up and fighting to give him the love he craved. Not the teenager who fell head over heels for the first braces-clad girl to show him interest and mistook it for true love. Not the part of me that is now being rejected for the second time by the same girl for yet another one of my best friends. I'm temporarily ignoring the beating my male ego and self-esteem is taking right now.

She lets me hold her for what feels like hours. I think she is having some issues letting go of and moving on from this too. We'll hold onto safe for a little while longer. The outside world is scary and it's waiting for us. We'll be forced out of this room eventually by basic necessities—toilet, food, love—but now, I'll savor the comforting and boring moment.