Chapter 34 –– Jared Aard

Omar and I started talking after he asked me about the current state of my relationship with Jared. I told him about the fact that Jared who started to feel distant and cold towards me. He didn’t pay attention to me as much as he used to. Whenever I confronted Jared about it, he would just dodge the question and told me that it was all in my head. He didn’t want to communicate it with me, so he just left me wondering on my own.

Omar and I started talking more and more since then. Our topic of conversation mostly revolved around my deteriorating relationship with Jared, even though sometimes we did talk about some other stuff other than that. He also asked me to hang out with him sometimes, usually to go have lunch together. I didn’t really put any thought into it previously, since I was just glad that someone was willing to hear my side of the story.

However, never did I expect that Omar had something else in mind. He started to flirt with me and give me mixed signals, which made me feel uncomfortable. At one point, he was obvious to want to start something with me, which I rejected right off the bat. I told him that I only considered him as a friend and nothing more. I drew the line saying that I had to respect my relationship with Jared, no matter how bad the current state we were in. Omar respected my decision and started to distance himself from me. Not that I asked him to do that, but I guess it was for the best.

At one point, Jared started avoiding me altogether. Every time we were together, he would just ignore me. He kept giving excuses not to meet me and spent less and less time with me. He left me hanging, like I didn’t matter to him anymore. I tried to make contact with him, but he no longer cared about me.

One day, I saw him hanging out with his friends at a café where he first introduced me to his friends. He was laughing and having fun with them, a smile that I no longer recognized. It’d been forever since I saw him smiling like that. He looked like he was having so much fun without me. I approached him and asked if we could talk. The moment he saw me, his facial expression changed. He stopped smiling and frowned. We then talked outside of the café while his friends waited for him at the table.

I asked him what was going on and why he kept avoiding me. He didn’t give me a clear answer and avoided the question instead, just like he used to do. I told him I wouldn’t leave until I got the answer. He then told me that he wanted to break up with me because he felt that we were incompatible. I asked him for the reason, and if there was any way we could fix the situation. He said that it was all too late.

He also wished me good luck with Omar. I was surprised to hear him say that, and told him that Omar and I were nothing but friends. He didn’t believe me and didn’t want to hear my side of the story either. In the end, he made the decision on his own without even asking what I thought about it. I was deeply saddened by that. Not for the fact that he left me, but for the fact that he did not trust me, didn’t care about what I had to say, and didn’t care about how I felt at all. In the end, I drew the conclusion that he didn’t love me anymore and I had to let him go. There was nothing else I could do.

As a result, I lost all of our mutual friends, who were Jared’s friends to begin with. I was left with nobody, not even Omar. I was left all alone again, back to where I started. Two weeks later, I saw Jared with another omega already. I was super angry and frustrated. I felt so disrespected and betrayed. He didn’t even give any time to mourn about us and found somebody else already, while I was stuck here recovering from the wounds he left me with. I felt stupid for trusting my heart with him, thinking that he would cherish it and we would last forever. Everything was a lie and I felt stupid for having believed it.

Since then on, my fear of abandonment grew larger and I started having trust issues on people. I became skeptic of what people think of me. Even when someone told me I was special, I couldn’t trust them. The last time I heard that, it was just a white lie and it did not last long. People might mean what they said at first, but sooner or later, people will leave once they got bored of me.

While daydreaming on the rooftop, Noam heard a sound of a step that was approaching him. Even without looking, he knew who it was just from the sound of his steps. He turned his head around and saw the person walking towards him.

"May I?"

It was Jared. He came alone, leaving Enoch behind at the party. He asked for Noam's permission to sit next to him. Even though Noam felt like leaving already, he let Jared sit next to him for a while and hear what he had to say.

"Sorry I didn't tell you I was coming. I was too late to realise that the groom was your brother. I did not have the heart to tell Enoch that the groom's brother was my ex."

Noam didn't respond to what Jared said. He didn't have any response to his excuse.

"How are you doing these days?" Jared started a conversation.

Noam felt like he wasn't genuinely asking and just asked him for a small talk. Noam kept the conversation minimum because he had not forgotten all the pain Jared caused him.

"Could be better," Noam answered shortly.

Noam intentionally tried to avoid eye contact with Jared, despite Jared's efforts to look at him in the eye. It seemed like Jared had moved on and attempted to be friends with him again, like how they were before they were dating, but Noam outright rejected him.

"Your suitors seem nice," Jared added.

Noam took a moment of silence. He then made a sarcastic remark towards him.

"They are. Nicer than you, most definitely."

Jared felt offended but tried to be calm about it. Jared realised that Noam still felt bitter about him. He finally understood the attitude Noam was giving him.

"You know, we were friends before we started dating. Can we stop being immature and be like how we were? As friends?"

The moment Noam heard that, he felt a surge of anger in him that he couldn't contain any longer. He finally exploded and spoke his mind.

"Immature?"

Noam stood up and looked at Jared in the eyes. His face was all red, boiling with anger.

"You dumped me with no reason and left me hanging for months when we were dating. You accused me of cheating even though I outright rejected him when he tried to get close to me, to respect my relationship I had with you. I trusted you with all my heart and you broke it to pieces. You couldn't even communicate, what right do you have to tell me to stop being immature?"

Noam finally let out all that he needed to say to Jared. It'd been years since they last saw each other, but the pain still felt fresh to Noam.

"That was years ago, Noam. I was young and didn't know any better. Now that we're older, you wouldn't want us to keep being enemies, would you?" Jared said.

"Now that you're older, that you're so-called more mature, tell me. What was the reason that you stopped talking to me when we were dating?"

Jared took a moment of silence to think of a response. It was not that he did not remember, but it was that he couldn't find a way to tell him in a manner that would make sense to him.

"I––"

Jared stuttered as he tried to answer Noam's question. He tried to arrange the words in his head, but they couldn't come out as smoothly as he wanted.

"See. Just like then, you are still the same."

Noam finally left him and went downstairs, back to the party. On his way out, he saw Enoch coming up the stairs, who was searching for Jared. Noam didn't pay him any heed and went downstairs, pretending he didn't see Enoch.

Enoch saw and heard the whole thing, starting from when they were arguing. He finally knew the relationship between Jared and Noam that Jared had been hiding from him. Enoch felt disappointed that Jared didn't tell him about it, but he tried not to be bothered too much by it.

Jared then approached Enoch to tell him the whole truth. He also apologised for not telling him sooner. Jared started recounting the story between he and Noam.

Noam was one of my childhood friends. Unlike the others, he was truly one of a kind. When my friends and I were busy talking about what games we were gonna play, whom we had a crush on, which village we would like to visit, Noam had a dream of his own. His dream was unlike any other. Many had dreamt of going to the capital–– or at least to visit another village–– Noam, he dreamt of going beyond the surface. Something people rarely ever thought about.

He used to tell me the stories his grandpa used to tell him. He showed me the book that truly opened my mind about the world. A whole other world waiting to be discovered up there. I don't even know if I actually fully believed it, since everything sounded almost like a fairytale. To tell you the truth, I don't think I had the same amount of passion and ambition as Noam did. Yet, I did love seeing how his face lit up and his eyes gleamed whenever he talked about his dream. His tail would wag in excitement, his ears twitched subconsciously, and his pupils would enlarge without him realising it. That was the reason I fell in love with him.

When we were teenagers, I mustered up my courage to ask him out. He was totally my type and I loved it every time he shared his dreams with me that nobody else knew. It was as if I was the only one who knew that side of him. It made me feel really special.

Noam was not a very social person to begin with. He barely had any friends and preferred to be alone with his books. He was kind of shy and awkward. That was why, I introduced him to some of my friends so that he would get out of his shell. Apart from that, I did want to show off to my friends the guys I was dating. I felt proud to have such a cute guy as my partner, hehe.

The first time I got my rut, it was terrible. I couldn't control myself and almost forced myself into Noam. I felt terrible, but fortunately, Noam was willing enough to put up with me. Our first time was awkward, but I'm glad he was the person I did it with. I could still remember vividly how it went. One could never forget their first time, they say.

The longer we dated, the more clingy Noam became. From that point on, things went downhill.