Without You (Sequel (2018))

Overwhelming Jealousy

"So now you won't even talk to me?" I hear Eli huff, locking the front door behind him as I storm into the living room. "I told you she's just someone from uni, we lived in the same accommodation in my first year. She's just a friend!"

"Someone you lived with? She's someone you had a drunken make-out session with, don't play this down and take it out of context Eli! She was practically sat in your lap even after you'd introduced me! I wouldn't even care that you'd kissed her if it wasn't so obvious that she was still so into you!"

"Will you stop being so jealous! Until this week I've not seen her since the end of first year, before you and I first got together!"

"Well I'm sorry but the last time you claimed you could be just friends with a girl you'd previously been with it didn't end so well for us did it?" I snap back, firing the shots and not being totally fair to him.

"Seriously you're bringing up Nicki again? I thought we were past that, you don't get to say that you've forgiven me for something and then just keep using it as ammo anytime we have an argument! And you're the one stretching things out of context, I kissed her, that's all and again it was nearly two bloody years ago!"

"And I told you that's not the part of this that's bothering me!"

"You're so infuriating sometimes!" He shouts down to me, beginning to ascend the stairs to the first floor.

"Well right back at you!" I fire back, plonking down on the couch and burying my face in my hands in exhaustion.

About an eternity seems to pass by as I tell myself not to even dare cry. He's not worth it right now. With a final deep breath I pull myself up only to do a double take when I turn around and see him hovering on the bottom step.

"I'm not going to sleep on an argument," he states firmly, his blue eyes piercing into me. "No matter how pissed off we are at each other."

"I'm tired Eli," I sigh back, heading straight towards him.

I try and swerve past his strong frame to get up the stairs but he blocks my path, clutching my arm gently and forcing me to meet his eyes.

"I'm not letting you go still mad at me," he says calmly, infuriating me all over again.

"It's your fucking fault I'm mad in the first place! You and that bad Regina George impersonator," I argue, pulling my arm out of his grasp in protest.

He only uses both his free hands to clutch onto my shoulders instead and twist me to face him head on.

"Let me go! I want to go to bed!" I fight back, feeling myself acting like a stroppy toddler. "It's not fair! We've both had the same amount to drink and you're so much steadier than me!"

"That's because you're a titch," he laughs lightly, referring to the fact that I am almost a foot smaller than him.

"And you're a dickhead!" I argue back, finally managing to shove his hands off me.

"Totally, such a dickhead," he nods in agreement, smiling down at me.

"Don't do that! That's not fair, don't give me that smile," I scowl back.

He moves to the side and I storm upstairs, still mad at him though also aware that he's right; you should never go to bed on an unresolved argument. An unreasonable drunken one at that too.

***

I wake with a start a few hours later, sitting up suddenly in the dark, my legs shuffling under the thin bedsheets. Glancing to my left, I see Eli fast asleep next to me and the events of last night slowly trickle back into my brain.