Carmen was logical. He knew that hooking up with a best friend of years was never really a good choice. Hooking up with them as a rebound was perhaps the worst choice someone could make. He never thought he’d be one of those people, but oh well.

Strangely, it wasn’t weird at first. It was great during and even immediately afterwards it was blissful, and so, so peaceful. He thought that it was impossible to regret it.

That was a stupid, stupid thought.

Somehow, he got himself together and talked to Claire, and she forgave him. Great, good, he got his relationship back, for once he fixed what he had broken. Not great and not good, he didn’t tell her about what happened with you.

And even less great and less good, you seemed tense.

He knew his first concern should’ve been how he’s lying to his girlfriend who he just got back. But no. He was freaking out over how you seemed weird around him, how your smiles (which would look perfectly genuine to anyone else) were so obviously fake. He couldn’t stand it.

It plagued his mind to the point where his relationship was barely enjoyable. He always had the thought of losing you on his mind. Or maybe he pretended that the reason he thought of you whenever he was with Claire wasn’t because he’d be thinking of that night, and instead was because he felt stressed about how you were acting.

If he wasn’t so blinded by this panic, he’d probably connect the dots on why you were so tense. Maybe he knew and wanted to stay unaware, he didn’t know which, and he wasn’t going to dig further.

So here he was, knocking on your door at night. You opened the door with your eyebrows raised. He didn’t let you ask what he was doing or give you the chance to close the door and instead just stepped in. You opened your mouth, he knew it was to protest, so he started talking before you could start.

“Look, I— I know something’s wrong, and I know I probably fucked up. But you have to tell me, you have to talk to me! So please, please talk to me.”