Chapter 12

It all suddenly started to make sense. As Alex stood there, unable to move and watched her rush out of the pub, he started to understand everything perfectly. The night that he got drunk wasn't about her letting him drink more beers. It was about…

"Holy crap!" he said to himself, but the whole pub heard it.

"What is it, honey?" Molly asked, totally ignorant of what had just happened between Claire and Alex.

"I… I gotta go." He said and ran out of the pub, hoping that he would still be able to catch Claire and talk to her. Although he didn't really know how to talk to her or what to say. 'Hey, I'm really sorry I slept with you and didn't remember it. I hope we can just forget about it and move on.' Everything that he felt like he could say just seemed so ridiculous. And he couldn't understand how he could ever, ever forget making love to Claire. And it threw him even more off balance when he realized that he was thinking of it as making love and not sex. This was definitely not the way Alex Ryan operated.

When he left the pub it took him a while to find Claire's ute. He could see that she was inside. When he got closer to the car he realized that she wasn't crying, but the expression she had on her face broke his heart into more than a thousand pieces.

For a while he just stood there observing her and trying to come up with something to say. Something that made sense. But his mind was totally overwhelmed with the piece of information that he had just learned and didn't know how to behave.

His thoughts were interrupted by Claire's firm voice. "Go away!" she said without even turning around.

"How did you…" he wanted to ask how she knew he was there, but he realized that it didn't really matter. What mattered was what he was supposed to do. He had no idea. On the one hand he wanted to run and get as far from all this as possible. But on the other hand there was his best friend, hurting, and he wanted her hurt to stop. It was just so much harder to comfort her when he was the one who put her in this condition in the first place.

"I said go away!" she repeated.

"We need to talk." He said gently although he was still not sure what to tell her.

"Says who?" she said abruptly.

"Claire, please…" he asked as he walked up to the car. He was now standing right next to the driver's window.

"Just leave me alone Alex!"

"I can't. We really need to talk. Please come out of the car."

One part of her wanted to leave and just never talk to Alex again in her life. But she knew it was not possible. She knew she would have to face him sooner or later, so maybe sooner was the best way to go.

She slowly opened the door and got out of the car. When she got out, her face was only inches away from Alex's. She couldn't help but shiver when she saw his intense look on her. She quickly stepped away from the car so that she was now about a meter away from Alex.

"I don't even know why I'm doing this." She finally said. "It's not like we have a lot to talk about. Unless you want details of…"

"Claire, stop." Her coldness was really hurting him, but at the same time he knew that he was the one responsible for the way Claire was being with him.

"Can you ever imagine sleeping with a girl and her forgetting that in the morning?" she finally started firing at him, which in some twisted way he found easier to deal with than her shutting him out. "Your ego will probably have to jump off a bridge or something."

"Claire…" he tried to say something in his defense, but before he could utter a word, Claire started talking again. And maybe it was better. Because he had no idea how to explain his behavior the other night.

"But you know what? The mere fact that it happened is not even the worst thing. The worst thing is that I was the one who let it happen. Because you know what, as much as I hate you for not remembering, I think I hate myself even more for letting it happen. You were drunk and I knew you had no idea what you were doing. And ironically, a thought that you might not remember that the next day even crossed my mind. But I shut it out, I tried not to think about it. I needed not to think about it, about anything. Because if I had been thinking, this would never have happened." She paused for a little bit trying to remember what else she wanted to say to him. "But when you kissed me and told me that you loved me, I just totally lost it. I stopped thinking. I turned into someone like those women who drug the guys they like so they can sleep with them…"

"Do women really do that?" Alex asked, but he realized that this was so not this conversation. And finally he plucked up to the courage to ask something else. "Then why did you do that? Why did you sleep with me? Why didn't you slap me when I started hitting on you? Why didn't you tell me to go to hell? Why, Claire? Why?" he desperately needed to know answers to those questions. He didn't get it. Whenever he would joke about the two of them being an item, she would get really pissed off. When Peter took them for a couple, Alex had never seen her so offended in his life. So why this time she didn't kick him or laugh at him. "Why?" he asked once again and studied her face intensely waiting for an answer.

For a moment she looked into his eyes and knew that she had to tell him something. And she couldn't lie to him anymore. She couldn't lie to herself anymore either.

"Because I… Because I think I'm in love with you." She finally admitted and realized how ridiculous that sounded. This was Alex's chance to make fun of her.

"What?" he wasn't sure if he heard it right.

"I said I'm in love with you." She repeated and this time he noticed a tear rolling down her cheek. "I don't know if I didn't realize it or if I was trying to deny it because I was afraid you wouldn't feel the same way. I was afraid that you would never treat me as anything more than a friend and that's why I couldn't resist you. I just… I wanted you so badly and I think I just took my chance, because there you were, saying all those beautiful things and I've wanted you to say them to me for such a long time… And you were always running after all the leggy blondes. Hell, you even dated my sister! And then Peter came along and you were obviously not available, so I went for it and convinced myself that I loved him."

Claire stopped talking for a moment. She needed to take a few breaths and wipe a couple of tears from her cheeks. She hated to be breaking down like this in front of him, but she also felt relieved that she finally told him everything that's been building up inside her for all this time.

"I don't know how all of this could have happened. All I know is that this night changed everything for me. For us. And it was great. And even though I said I would give anything to turn back time, the truth is that I wouldn't. I wouldn't trade this night for anything." She felt like she said the absolutely last thing she wanted to say to him. "And you don't even remember it." She wiped another tear from her eye and opened the door to the ute. "I gotta go." She said quickly as she got into the car.

She started the engine and drove off. She couldn't stay there with him looking at her like that. She had no idea she would get this emotional with all this. She knew this was going to be hard, but she didn't realize it would be this hard. And she was so scared of what was going to happen next. But she was glad she told Alex everything, she was glad she longer had to keep the secret that was driving her insane. She just wasn't glad about the fact that she might be losing her best friend.