Chapter 2: Why Don't You Love Me?

Being Best Man often meant having to play the role of the errand boy, especially on the big day.

Which is what found Chandler now running through the halls of the hotel upstairs, racing to find his counterpart, the Maid of Honor (also known as the groom's sister).

He hadn't seen Monica since last night immediately following the rehearsal dinner, when she had been drunk and despondent and had bemoaned to him how she would never find true love.

Chandler wanted to curse the old English fop who had, cross-eyed, mistaken his best friend for the mother of the groom. He also wanted to curse himself, for not being even more explicit in his comfort of Monica. In saying, 'Who wouldn't want you?' he had been the most forward he had probably been all year, dropping little hints and making jokes-that-weren't-really-jokes about them dating and being a couple. Chandler wished he had been more explicit. He wished that, instead of asking rhetorically who among men wouldn't want her, he had instead said, 'I want you.'

Then again, perhaps his actual phrasing had been just as well. He had been bold enough as it was, for him; had he been any bolder and made his feelings for Monica clear, feelings that had deepened for him ever since she had broken up with Pete over a year before, he could have run the risk of frightening her off. He wouldn't want to take advantage of her, at what had clearly been one of her lowest points – that would have been too transparent, and he cared for Monica much more than simply saying whatever she wanted to hear to get into her pants. Or behind the hem of that red dress she was wearing last night that had hugged her figure and nearly driven him mad….

Chandler rounded the corner and sprinted down the hallway, counting the numbers until he found the one corresponding to Monica's room. Well, really her and Rachel's room, since the fashionista had arrived late last night at the last second, hoping to… what? Stop the wedding? Object? If that was her aim, Chandler was quite disappointed in his blonde friend and hope she would restrain herself and respect Ross's choice.

Of course, he forgot to knock. In later years, Chandler would vacillate between whether it would have been better to knock or not. By all rights, the door should have been locked to him or anyone who didn't have the key card. As it was, for some reason, the door gave for him as he turned the handle and burst in without even thinking about it.

He spotted a lump in the bed and panicked. "Mon? Come on, get up! You have to get ready your brother is getting married today!" There was no movement, so Chandler raised his voice a little. "MONICA! Your brother is getting married TO-DAY!"

There came from underneath the bedclothes pretty humming and murmuring, as two lumps roiled and emerged from under the sheets.

Wait…. two lumps….?!

Both Rachel and Monica, bleary-eyed and bushy-haired, now appeared from under the sheets of the bed. The bed they had apparently shared even though there was another perfectly good single bed standing empty right next to theirs.

Squirming a little, the girls finally landed their gazes on Chandler and both froze at how he was gawking at them stupidly in disbelief. Staring at how, even when covered by the bedclothes, it was clear that Rachel and Monica were both naked.

… Chandler's first thought was dismay at exclusion. Two of the hottest women he knew had apparently slept together… and he had missed it! Joey had missed it; his roommate would have a conniption! The kiss these two girls had shared for the boys' benefit, in order to get their apartment back, had been hot and arousing enough. The realization that Rachel and Monica had at some point last night had sex should have been even more hot and arousing. And shocking! For it was shocking.

However, it was the second thought Chandler had, in light of this information, that really stuck with him. That was a feeling of deep betrayal. Gazing into Monica's mortified and stricken eyes, Chandler felt a lump gather in his throat and tears threaten to invade. He didn't dare to wipe any gathering moisture aware, for that would give away everything he felt about her, if he wasn't already giving all of that away on his face.

He cleared his throat. "Please get dressed, Mon. You too, Rachel. A Maid of Honor has her duties." He left unsaid what he expected Rachel's duty to be: stand there and shut up when the preacher asks if any object. Then, he windmilled from the room, the image of Rachel and Monica nude and in bed together, both looking thoroughly ravished, burned into his retinas.

He couldn't bring himself to look at Monica later, as the pair of them stood arm-in-arm ready to escort one another into the chapel. Chandler desperately wanted to, but was afraid that if he did, he would be left even more heartbroken.

…. Perhaps it didn't mean anything, what Monica and Rachel had done. Girls experimented all the time, right? Chandler was pretty sure that Phoebe had at least done some intimate things with other women, based on allusions in blips of conversation shared with their pregnant friend left behind in New York. Plus, Monica had been well on her way to tipsy the last time he had seen her, at the winding down of the rehearsal dinner. She must have gotten even further drunk, wandered back to her room with Rachel (who was pining over her lost love in Ross), one thing led to another, and then….

It was just the sort of thing two friends, particularly two friends who were girls, would examine in the morning before deciding to one day look back on it and laugh.

Yet, as he escorted his best friend and the secret love of his life down the aisle, Chandler couldn't ignore the one other feeling simmering at a low boil in his acid-fueled stomach:

Jealousy.

It was several weeks later, and the party Joey had thrown in their apartment (weakly predicated on the excuse that they had to celebrate the birth of Phoebe's brother's triplets) had turned into a raucous rave, filling up Number 19 and spilling out into the hallway.

Watching how Monica effervescently buzzed from across the room, Chandler fought to keep the resentful and envious glower from affixing onto his face as he glumly, moodily nursed at his beer.

He had been watching Monica and Rachel closely in their apartment ever since they had returned home from the wedding and Rachel had later returned from the honeymoon in Athens she had embarked on (alone) in place of Ross and Emily. There was no indication that the inebriated debauchery the girls had indulged in had been perpetuated once back home… but there was also not nearly enough awkwardness to indicate that Rachel and Monica were trying to move on or laugh off their compromising situation, either.

It was just a relief that Ross hadn't found out. If he were to find out that his baby sister and the woman he was probably still in love with had gone for a round between the blankets, after having his previous wife leave him for another woman… well, Chandler was pretty sure in that instance, Ross would have a stroke.

Chandler continued to take surreptitious glances at Monica from across the room, all while sipping from his Red Solo cup. Before very long, he was drunk. Keeping the woman he loved in his sights despite his slurring vision, Chandler at some point that night made his way across the room to Monica. Tugging her into a dark corner, he braced her up against the wall and kissed her deeply. He felt her squirm against him in surprise and shock for a moment. He waited for her to push him away. Plastered as he was, Chandler knew if she did reject this drunken advance, he would back off. He recalled having kissed her at a party once before, and while even drunker than this – so drunk that he hadn't remembered even kissing her – that it was she who he had kissed – until it came up in conversation earlier this year, long after the fact.

I stuck my tongue down that sister's throat. Chandler had thought he had kissed one of Joey's sisters.

That was me, Monica had corrected him, with a pointed look that Chandler had figured may or may not have been annoyed. He'd even apologized for that drunken kiss.

He wouldn't apologize for this kiss, though, even as he was encouraged when he felt Monica melt into it the slightest bit and kiss him back. Just the same, when they broke apart, she appeared thunderstruck.

"Why don't you love me?" Chandler choked out, tears in his eyes as his gaze roved over her lovely face. That perfect body. "Just love me. Why can't you love me? Date me. Love me."

Unlike at the beach house back on Montauk, or when playing cards in her kitchen after coming home from the beach house, Monica didn't answer him. At least not with her words. But her eyes said it all: pained.

Chandler saw that pained look in her eyes… and in that moment he knew. Whatever had happened in that hotel room between her and Rachel had changed Monica irrevocably. She could, would never love him… at least not in the way he wanted her to.

…. Chandler wondered if Rachel had arrived at this same realization as well, and feared the consequences if she had. Poor Ross, was all he could conclude, in the event that was the case.

Chandler realized in that moment that this was the end. And that he needed to protect this. This was intense. The love he felt for Monica was so intense. And it was because he loved her that he had to let her go. He had to guard her and her happiness with his life. He knew all of her, and accepted her for who she was… even if who she was meant that they could never be.

Somehow, he seemed to communicate all of that with just his eyes, without any words. It simultaneously heartened and saddened him when Monica, her sapphire eyes anguished and wide, her lips slightly parted, looped her arms around his neck and smashed her lips on his in gratitude and with deep pathos.

Concealed in shadow, Chandler and Monica embraced and kissed, holding each other as Chandler mourned how she was lost to him. As Monica mourned that she wished she didn't have to break his heart.