"John, we need to talk." I say. 

He jumps as the light turns on and he takes a second to calm himself. "Jesus, you scared me. I thought you'd be asleep." 

I shrug. "Couldn't sleep, I was a bit busy worrying about you. Ya know, since I haven't seen or heard from you since before you left for work yesterday."  I cross my arms and stare at him. 

He sighs. "Alex, I'm sorry, I went and hung out with Carrie after work and we just lost track of time and-"

"You didn't think to shoot me a text? Or to call me back, and let me know you weren't dead?" I ask. 

He frowns gently. "I said I was sorry, what more do you want from me?" 

"I want you to start caring, John." I state, to which he raises his eyebrows. "I want you to start caring about me, and my feelings. I can't just sit here every night wondering if my boyfriend is going to come home, and wonder whether or not I should be concerned about where you are." 

He then furrows his eyebrows. "I do care about you, you know that-"

"Do I? Because recently it hasn't been feeling like it."

"How do you figure?"

"Well for starters, you're never around! You're always hanging out with your new fancy friends, Carrie especially." I mumble the last two words and then continue. "We had guests over, your friends to be exact. You think they came all this way to see me? Peggy maybe came to see both of us, but Angelica sure as hell didn't. And how much did they see you their entire visit, hm?"

"Alex, we both had work and school still, we agreed we weren't going to let their visit stop us from doing those things." He huffed.

"That we did, John. But we did not agree on going out every night after those things, and spending no time with them." I reply. I don't understand how he wasn't seeing any of this, it's not like it was subtle.

"I spent plenty time with them, we went to dinner that first night-"

"And then you were gone every night after that. Hanging out with Carrie, and not coming back till God knows what time-"

"That's what this is about? Carrie?" He asks, interrupting me. I stop and stare at him, almost in disbelief. "You're jealous of me hanging out with my friend?" 

Of course I am. "No, don't be ridiculous. I don't care who you hang out with!" 

"Right, of course." He pauses. "Unless it's Carrie." 

"John-"

"No, don't act like I don't see your clear hatred for her. Every time I bring up her name, or you know I'm hanging out with her, you give me this look that just screams you don't like her. Which is fine, I don't care if you like my friends, but that doesn't mean you can tell me not to hang out with her."

"I never said you couldn't hang out with her-"

"But you implied it. You would prefer if I didn't." He snaps. 

"Yeah, I would. But that doesn't mean you have to listen to my preferences." I reply, finally getting to finish my sentence. 

He shakes his head. "You're ridiculous." 

There was a moment of silence as I sat on the couch, staring at the wall. I try to calm myself, before I say something I would regret, but fail to do so. "You know, you spend quite a lot of time together. What exactly are you two doing?" 

He thinks for a few seconds and then scoffs. "What? You think I'm cheating on you with Carrie?" Instead of replying, I just look up at him and shrug. "God, no! Why on Earth would I cheat on you with her, she's just a friend."

"A very close friend, who you spend almost every day with." I point out. "And I wouldn't put it past you, you were never one to stay with one person for super long. You get bored too easily. Tell me John, do I bore you? Does Carrie satisfy you in ways I can't?" 

He groans dramatically and holds his head with one of his hands. "I can't believe you don't trust me." He mumbles. 

"You never even answered the question! How am I supposed to trust you aren't cheating when you ignored the question and immediately went to defending yourself?" I ask, my heart racing with anger and worry. 

He just scoffed and shook his head at me. It was not a very comforting response. "We go out to dinner, we hang out and bitch about our classes, sometimes we paint, sometimes we drink, other times we hang out with other people. But all of it is as friends. It never means anything more, you are the only person I want to be with." 

I stare at him and sigh softly. "I just.. You don't act like you love me anymore.. I feel as though you would rather be anywhere but around me, since you spend most of your time away from me.." 

He frowns and walks over, squatting in front of me. He holds my hand and looks me in the eyes, and I feel like I could cry just from the contact itself. I didn't, but I felt like I could.

"Alex, I'm sorry I made you feel that way.. It wasn't intentional, I promise. I just.. All of this is new to me, and I just, well, I don't know. I wanted to experience it all." He kisses my hand and looks up at me. "I love you, Alexander. I never want you to think otherwise ever again." 

I stare down at him. Part of me wanted to push him away and tell him to sleep on the couch tonight. That part was still mad at him, and didn't want to believe his apology was sincere. The other part of me just wanted so bad to feel loved again. I wanted him to hug me and I wanted to get over this argument as quickly as possible.

"I love you, too, John." I smile gently at him. "I'm tired, we should get to sleep." 

He nods and smiles back at me. "I think so." 

We head to the bedroom and I cuddle up close to him after we both get changed. The embrace was warm, and it felt nice to be this close to him again, especially after that conversation.

I didn't quite forgive him yet, he hasn't done anything to actually make up for it. But he is my boyfriend, and therefore cuddles are a mandatory thing.

I sigh contently and feel myself drifting off into a better sleep than the previous nights.

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