Why now?

{Sequel} 5 - Tears

Dec felt weird after that conversation. On the one hand, he was glad that they had talked. But on the other hand, he wished they hadn't talked about it again. It made it all so... real. Well, of course he knew it had happened, but it was night, they were drunk and it felt already so far away, although it had just happened less than 24 hours ago.

Dec thought about what he had said to Ant in the doorway when he left.

I feel bloody awful, I love Ali!

And it was true, it was really true. He had never loved someone as much as he loved her. And at the same time, this thing happened. And it all made it so much more clear to him that something was wrong with him. With his marriage. Would he just go and do stuff like that if he was happy? Would he just give in to something like that, cheating on his wife like that if everything was alright?

Okay yes, it was with a man, and yes it was with Ant of all things, something he had fantasised about so many times before. But mainly when he had been a teenager, when he had been in his early twenties, not now. Not when he was newly married and for once everything went right in his life.

He had always been the one with the somewhat unstable life. Ant had married 10 years ago, had been together with Lisa for 20 now. Ant had never had a scandal, never had any speculations about him in the press. Well, not to the extend Dec had anyways.

The eligible bachelor, the loner, the eternal bachelor, then the typical "Is he gay?"-stuff. And once when he had been seeing a guy secretly and the press had almost found out and only a large sum of money shut them up and his management had to make a deal with them to never publish those pictures. So clearly, there were people out there who knew. His sister knew and he was forced to tell his management, he still remembered this awkward conversation, and he was happy they had never brought it up again.

Dec thought about why he had never told Ant. Why Ant didn't know about his bisexuality. Surely, Ant wouldn't push him away, they had a few queer friends and Ant didn't care about their sexuality. No, it wasn't that, Dec knew that. It was because it was Ant. It was because Ant was the one Dec had fancied when he was 15, Ant was the reason he had discovered he liked men as well. It had all started with him. So Ant couldn't know. Their friendship was vital to their career and so dear to Dec that he did not want to risk telling Ant. And above all, Ant would be so so mad that he had kept that secret from him, from his best friend.

Dec's head hurt because of all this thinking and he sipped on his now cold tea to calm down a bit. He still felt shit, this talk hadn't solved anything and he knew it. Why would he do this to Ali? Why would he hurt her like that? Yes, it was a man and yes, it was Ant, but it didn't matter who it had been with, he had cheated on his wife. The one who had picked him up when he was at his lowest, the one who had stood by his side until now, through everything. And still. Dec thanked her like that. As he had said to Ant, he felt bloody awful.

There was a feeling in his body he had never felt before. He was mad, mad at Ant, absolutely mad at himself, mad at this world and the life he was living, mad that he couldn't just live his life like he wanted to, mad that he didn't appreciate what he had, mad that he was a coward, mad that there was this huge secret in his life that weighed so heavily on him.

But all this anger didn't lead to rage, it led to sadness. Utter sadness and the feeling of losing complete control of his life.

The doorbell completely pulled him out of his thinking and he took a deep breath and wiped his tears away quickly. Ali couldn't see him like that.

And he actually smiled a bit when he walked to the door. Ali had a tendency to forget her keys - or anything really - sometimes, which was actually quite funny because she worked as a manager, as their manager to be more precise.