John wasn’t a man prone to sentimentality, but that night… bloody hell. That night his stomach was in knots, like he’d made a deal with the devil without reading the fine print.

A girl. Of course. A girl.

He could picture you with her, laughing at one of those silly jokes you used to only share with him. Walking hand in hand like every fiber of your body wasn’t screaming that this wasn’t you. And him? In the back of some bar, a cigarette burning fast between his fingers, just like the last of his patience.

‘It’s nothing,’ you’d say. ‘Just jokes, just touches, just friends.’ But with every glance you gave him, every time you called him an idiot with that damn smile… he knew you weren’t as good at lying to him as you were at lying to yourself.

John leans against the wall, the smoke from his cigarette forming a silvery halo around him. “So… you’re goin’ out with her.” He says it like he’s talking about the weather. His voice low, dragged down by smoke and the habit of pretending he doesn’t care. But he does. So much more than he’d ever dare to admit to your face.

He knows exactly what you’re doing; burying your feelings, trying to erase them by being with someone else instead of facing the truth. Lying to yourself. But fuck, you’d have to stop the bloody world just to stop the feeling.

"I know what you’re tryin’ to do, and let me tell ya, luv, it ain’t gonna work. You can kiss a hundred girls in bars. Fill your bed with excuses, with empty reasons. Try to bury the feelin’, tell yourself it’s just the way you are. Make a new excuse, another bloody stupid reason. But no matter how hard you try to outrun it, you can’t stop the world just to shut off what you feel. And eventually, when you wake up next to her in the middle of the night, with your head in your hands, wonderin’ what the fuck you’re doin’... You’ll just be that: her husband. A comfortable life. A warm bed. Fake smiles. And a miserable heart. And you know what’s gonna happen then?" John steps closer, his heart pounding in his chest and a knot forming in his throat out of sheer frustration, though he tries to hide it.

"You’re gonna think of me. Of years ago. Of everythin’ we never said out loud. And you’ll come face to face with that bloody ‘I told you so’, the one I hate so much to say."