Picture of Melanie Walters, Ollie's friend and employee!

I had a headache. Alison was driving me crazy with her nonstop babbling, and the piles of papers on my office desk weren't making it any better. This was supposed to be a short business trip, but it looked like I was going to have to stay much longer. Instead of five days, a few months seemed more probable, and I was not really keen on it. I wanted to go back to California and enjoy my vacation there. Even the fucking room I was in right now was starting to drive me crazy because I knew it meant work. The office just chanted work, work, work from its every corner, wall, and every piece of furniture in it.

"Alison, shut up! I need to finish this shit if I want to get home earlier than by midnight!" I growled, taking a few of the papers and looking through them. I groaned. This was going to take forever to finish, and there was more to come tomorrow.

"Aw, don't be mad, honey. We didn't see each other for such a long time, and now that I'm here you are going to ignore me?" she said, feigning being hurt. As I mentioned before, we were together only because of a business deal, so our relationship had nothing to do with love. If I had to somehow describe our relationship, it would be friends. And the bitch took advantage of it to no end.

"Alison, I am tired, and I need to finish all of this." I motioned towards the pile of papers, giving her a meaningful look. "You can either help me or leave. We can go for a drink tomorrow or some other night." I tried to play it nicely because even though she could be irritating as hell, I still loved the woman. She was beautiful and smart and could be funny and snarky if she wanted to. There was one problem though. She was a bitch that enjoyed driving people mad just to see their reactions and not many people had nerves for that.

After a minute of complete silence and her curious eyes digging holes into mine, her expression changed.

I was fucked.

"What's wrong?" she asked, and I had to suppress the groan that threatened to escape my lips when I realized my mistake. I totally forgot one of her other annoying 'talents'. She could always tell something happened. Alison and Nelson were the only people on Earth who were capable of that if I didn't count Oliver, who was much better than either of them. He could always tell what was wrong, which, luckily, my friends couldn't. They just knew something happened.

"Nothing, I just want to finish this as quickly as I can and return to California. I had plans, and my father decided to ruin them just because he could," I said, not looking at her and continuing to stare into the paper in my hand. I wasn't lying, not exactly. I just didn't tell her the whole truth.

"Bullshit. Spill or I will take all those documents you have to check and throw them out the window. Have you been outside since you got here? The wind today is quite strong, Vic." She smiled her sweetest smile and crossed her legs. God, couldn't she ignore her inner voice or whatever shit it was that told her something was wrong for once? I would definitely appreciate it once in a while because, although it was great you couldn't really lie to your friends, I wanted to keep some shit to myself sometimes. And doing that was not easy with Alison. Nelson would cave from time to time and let it go, but this witch? Never did she let me off the hook. Never.

"Look, Al, I don't really wanna talk about it." I didn't even finish the sentence, and she was already on her high heels, stomping her way towards my desk and taking a few of the papers in her hand. How could women walk in these shoes was beyond me.

"What did you say? I think I didn't catch it." She shook the papers in her hand and looked at the window, the stupid smile still plastered on her face.

"You are so fucking annoying. Did I already tell you how much I hate you?" I groaned and put the papers I was holding on the table and leaned against the chair, letting my head fall against the headrest. Looking at the ceiling, that definitely screamed work as well, I closed my eyes and sighed.

"Oliver is in the city. Nelson met him in a Café nearby, said he owns it, or something." I couldn't believe I was really going to talk about this. She knew about him, knew what I did to him. We decided to tell each other every bad thing we did in the past so we would be prepared for possible complications. The whole 'past will always hunt you' thing was a real deal sometimes, especially when you lived in the public eye. I still felt the sting of her slap I got when I finished the tale of my and Oliver's relationship. She was one of those kiss-someone-else-and-we-are-done people. I understood the core of it, but really, what if you got drunk and kissed someone just because you were having fun and were quite out of it? A kiss was nothing that special, and breaking up with your lover over it? Even if you were together for more than a year? That was just ridiculous.

"You mean your ex? The one you cheated on? That Oliver?" Her voice was, for once, serious and full of some kind of emotion I couldn't recognize. Opening my eyes and looking at her, I could see her eyes narrowed, and she was no longer in her messing-around mood.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked when I nodded and looked straight into my eyes.

I couldn't help the laugh that escaped my lips. It looked like she expected a positive answer, as in me contacting him or some fucked-up thing like that. She had to be crazy.

"Nothing. There's nothing I can do about it. We broke up five years ago. He has his own life now. He manages his own shop, shares a house with his boyfriend, and they want to adopt a child. He's already forgotten about me a long time ago, so there's no real reason for me to go there. And even if I would go there, what would be the point? We have nothing to say to each other." And it was the truth. It was already five years. We had different lives now, and I doubted he would appreciate me showing up in front of him.

"There's no need to feel nostalgic over this. It just surprised me. I didn't expect he would live here and manage a shop. I will be okay tomorrow." I tried to smile but failed miserably. I was lying through my teeth, and she knew it. There was no way I was only surprised. I was never able to forget about the idiot, and he haunted me in every dream every damn night I was sober. The only thing that helped to stop the dreams was alcohol. It was ridiculous, really. How could a simple person affect my life so much? Yeah, we were together for over two years, but people broke up even after more years and were able to forget easily. Why was this so different? I felt like a psycho or something. The moment Nelson mentioned he met him, I had this urge to run straight to the shop so I could see him. It felt like I was been possessed by some angry spirit, and it was ruining my life. Or maybe Oliver cursed me after that incident, and this was some kind of a lifelong curse that was going to follow me until the day I die.

"Are you serious right now?" she asked, startling the shit out of me. She was looking at me with a big scowl on her face, her expression saying only one thing. She was pissed off for some reason.

"I'll bet my whole fortune he hasn't forgotten anything. If he really is at least a little bit like you described him, then your action is still deeply buried inside of his heart, and even if he is not showing it, he thinks about it, at least from time to time. As a fellow person who hates cheaters from the bottom of her heart, I can tell you one thing. We always wonder why. Why would he do it? What did I do wrong? Was it even me or was it him? Could we avoid it? Was I not good enough anymore? Did he even love me? How many other guys were there? All those questions are definitely still running through his mind, and he is not able to get rid of them because he doesn't know the answers. There was no real closure for either of you, and I think it would be best if you would man up and go see him. Tell him why you did it. It will help him, and it might help you too. Both of you need to move on, and even if what he told Nels is true, as I said, he still has it deep inside of him. It's like a big fat cockroach that refuses to die even if you cut it to pieces."

I was repeating all the questions she mentioned in my mind, and as I was answering them to myself, I recalled our conversation months ago, pausing for a moment.

"Wasn't it you who poured her beer on my head when I told you the reason why I did it? You told me it was ridiculous, and that I was a bored, sickly spoiled rich boy who didn't know what he wanted. How the hell could that help him get the so-called closure? And how is that supposed to help me?"

She sighed and shook her head, looking all sad a disappointed. I had no idea how she did it, but there were times she made me feel like a little child that just got scolded by his parents. And this was one of those moments. I hated feeling like this. It made me feel weak.

"What?!" I growled, waiting impatiently for her answer. It took her a few more seconds, which felt more like hours, to be honest, before she finally opened her mouth to speak.

"It doesn't matter what the reason was. You could tell him you were bored. Even such a stupid reason would free him from wondering forever. Trust me, he will be satisfied with your answer, whatever it is. Even though it's one of the most stupid reasons I've ever heard come out of the cheater's mouth, he will finally understand why it happened. Not knowing anything is the worst thing that can happen in a situation like this." She came closer to me and placed her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it and sinking her long as fuck nails into my skin.

"If you won't go and talk to him, I'll publish that picture on twitter," she whispered in my ear, making the blood in my veins freeze, and walked away, swinging her perfect hips at me as if she just didn't drop the bomb ready to go off.

What a bitch.