Open Minded by Chloe Seager

Author:Chloe Seager [Seager, Chloe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

MENTAL CHEATING ISN’T BETTER THAN ACTUAL CHEATING

FLISS

I don’t want to sleep with Rowan.

The words that I said to Holly yesterday afternoon ring around in my head.

Big. Fat. Lie.

I’m not normally a liar. If there’s one thing I can say about myself, at least since I hit my mid-twenties, it’s that I’m unreservedly honest. I want what I want, I do what I want and I don’t hide it or apologise for it. But for the past few weeks, I’m going around fibbing all over the place. Pretending I don’t think things that I do.

It’s OK that I want to sleep with Rowan! It’s normal and natural and ridiculous to pretend that I wouldn’t. We’ve been having sex on and off since I was twenty-two. There’s a chemistry there that’s probably never going to go away. For years, Ash and I have lived under the mutual agreement that it’s fine to be attracted to other people. Now we’re not supposed to sleep with anyone else, so I feel like I can’t admit that I want to anymore. But it’s not like my feelings can just disappear. Or can they? Is that the idea of monogamy? Eventually, because you’re not allowed to have sex with anyone else, you stop wanting to?

I don’t believe that for a second.

I can’t help but feel all I’ve done is signed myself up for a life of dishonesty and sexual frustration.

I had one monogamous relationship before Ash. His name was James and he was charming and kind and a total sweetheart; actually, he was quite a lot like Ash. I met him during my last year of university. I was drawn to him from the start, but about six months into our relationship I knew I was still attracted to other people. Not just in a I notice they’re attractive way, but in a I am using every ounce of willpower not to have sex with this person way.

I ended up moving to New York after uni and we agreed to do long distance. I missed him and it was hard and I ended up getting drunk at a costume party and calling to tell him how I felt. I think there was some particularly fit guy there, dressed as a sautéed potato.

I thought he’d understand, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it. It was like he thought that I couldn’t love him like I said I did, if I still felt that way about other people, and no matter how much I told him that wasn’t true, we couldn’t see eye to eye.

The next morning, James broke up with me. He was so upset with me and I felt like I was going to die of guilt. I tore myself up over it for weeks. I took freezing-cold showers and stopped eating because I deserved to be punished. I felt sick every time I saw a potato. It absolutely crushed me that I’d crushed him.

That was around the time I met Rowan. I told him what had happened and waited for the inevitable judgement to follow.

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