5. Bad Love, Good Friend

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Willow dragged her feet across the hall at the end of the day, feeling like her apartment door was a mile away. She finally reached her doorstep and started to put in her code - she had changed the one that Knox had put in and locked him out of her place. To say that he had been pissed, would be an understatement. 

As she pushed open the door, she was suddenly manhandled and the next moment, she found the air knocked out of her lungs and her back against the wall inside the apartment, the door swinging shut beside her. 

Knox was in front of her, caging her between his arms, his eyes frantic. 

"What?" Willow managed to rasp out, breathless by the proximity. "What do you want?" 

"Why are you avoiding me?" Knox asked if it was not the most obvious thing ever. 

"Knox, I am tired. I don't have the energy for this." She tried to get him to take his arms off the side of her head but instead, he just moved in closer, his chest flush with hers. 

"That's what you said yesterday." Today morning. She wanted to correct. But she decided to keep quiet about it. 

"And I am still tired." 

"Who were you actually with last night?" He asked. 

Willow furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. What was he talking about?

Knox, being the idiot that he was, took her silence for confirmation. 

"You were with someone else." 

"I-"

"What's his name?" He seethed. 

"Who are you talking about? What he?" Willow finally asked. "Her name is Susan. I was with Suzie last night and then I went to the facility! Why are you getting mad at me for that?" 

Knox swore under his breath as he took a step away from her. Willow tried to move away, but he again had her caged.

"Why don't you understand why I am like this?" He asked. He begged for her understanding.

But Willow simply shook her head. "No. I don't understand and I don't want to understand. Knox, don't you think all of this is ridiculous? We are hiding a fake relationship. A fake relationship. It really does not make sense to be doing this now that you have a fiance." No matter how many times she said it, it still left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

Knox shook his head. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Why would you when you don't feel anything for me?" He said it so quietly that she couldn't hear it.

"What?" She asked her, her eyebrows pinched together.

"Nothing." He put space between them abruptly and then clutched his hair.

"Fine." He said.

"Fine what?"

"You will see." Knox decided and walked out of her apartment, leaving a confused Willow behind.

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Knox meant it when he said that she would see what he was going to do.

It's all she ever saw when she opened the news or her social media handle.

#KNIA was trending everywhere.

Going on dates and to events, holding hands, dancing, and kissing.

So much in love.

So much in love that it felt like she was being gutted alive.

So much in love that she wanted to rip her heart out of her chest just to stop the pain.

Willow called in sick and stayed home that Friday night. It had been two weeks since she had seen Knox in person.

Someone banged on her door.

She jumped to her feet, hoping it would be Knox. She shook her head, chiding herself not to be so pathetic but still hoping nevertheless that it was indeed him.

She looked at the security system. Her shoulders slumped to see that it was just Susan.

"Open up, Will. This isn't funny!"

Willow sighed and unlocked the door for her friend. Her best friend.

Willow let out a sob as she latched herself to Susan's startled form.

It took Susan a second but then she was returning her hug and consoling her.

"That's it," Susan said after an hour. "We need to get you a new man."

"W-what?" Willow looked up from the box of tissues she had exhausted. "No!"

"Yes!" Susan imitated her tone and got up from the couch. "Get ready. We are going clubbing."

"Clubbing?"

"Yes, darling. Clubbing. I know you live like a boring old hag though you are only twenty-three but this is something that we youngsters actually do these days!"

Willow rolled her eyes at Susan's sarcasm but shook her head. "I don't want to. Please Susan, let's just stay in and order chicken and beer."

"No can do." Susan wiggled her finger in front of her face. "Go put on the sexiest dress you have and lend me one too. We are going to go out and have fun!"

Willow thought about it for a moment. Maybe she needed a change of space. After all, why should she stay home and cry herself to sleep when Knox was having the time of his life with his Mia?

She deserved to be happy too.

"We will indeed go out and have fun." She decided, making Susan clap, jumping up and down in excitement. "But I don't want to get laid. I am not a rebound fuck kinda girl."

Susan sat back down, giving her a flat look. "Sweetheart, you are too pure for this world. How did you end up with an asshole like him?"

Willow hesitated. She wanted to tell the truth to Susan tonight more than ever. She needed to somehow lay some of the burden on her chest to rest.

And she almost told her. But then her eyes fell on the last picture that her family had taken.

Smiling faces of her mother, father, brother and her with lots of love and happiness reflecting in their eyes.

An accident seven years ago changed everything. It took her father and her brother and it left her mother a vegetable.

The doctors gave her no hope and repeatedly advised her to pull the plug but she could not let her only loved one go just yet.

And that was why she was with Knox.

Well, they were not together anymore.

"I- Let's just go have some fun." She sighed.

"Not with that attitude!" Susan protested. "Smile, woman! Fake it till you make it."

Willow mustered up the fakest grin that made Susan cringe.

"Let's go!" Willow exclaimed with feigned enthusiasm that fooled nobody.

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