The Game You Played by Anni Taylor

There was a group of us. Drinking. Thinking about women. Cursing about women. Bragging about women. The usual.
    An Australian movie started on the TV. At the beginning, there was a scene of a girl out on a lake with her boyfriend, in a rowboat. The boat overturned when the man stood, and the girl fell in the water, drowning, caught up in reeds beneath the water. The girl was Phoebe. Watching her drown provoked a visceral reaction in me.
    I called her up that night. She said she was mostly doing commercials and getting bit parts in movies here and there. She was seeing some actor slash musician guy, but her focus was on her studies. She was going to leave for London once her study at the Australian Film Institute finished.
    I needed a plan.
    First I borrowed a sizable amount of money from my parents and conjured up a small real estate business. I cleaned myself up, stopped drinking, and got myself a decent wardrobe of clothes. I took on a friend as a business partner—Rob—who’d been working as a junior real estate agent at the time. With his basic knowledge and my bravado, we faked having a wealth of expertise. We were hungry, and we worked harder and longer than anyone else. I packed money away like a squirrel packing nuts in its cheeks.
    Eighteen months later, Phoebe had made the move to London. She said she was happy. She’d met a new man—another actor—aptly named Flynn. She and Flynn were doing stage performances together. They were dirt poor and sharing a tiny flat, but I could hear the undercurrent of excitement in her voice. They’d already been to France and Germany together. Life for her had become an adventure. I wasn’t part of that adventure.
    I hated Flynn instantly.
    After that, I’d look up the performances that she told me Flynn would be in, and I’d call her when I knew he wouldn’t be around. I wanted her all to myself.
    Then came the day she didn’t sound the same. I was too stupid at first to know that she was holding back the tears. Flynn had scored a small movie role in Ireland, and he was away on set. He’d called her and told her that he loved her but he needed some space. He’d asked if she wanted to explore an open relationship. He’d told her his feelings for her wouldn’t change.
    I knew what that meant. It was guy code for I want you, but I want other girls too. But I’m probably not going to be able to handle seeing you with another man. So how about I leave you dangling on a string while you let me see other girls? In return, I promise not to leave you.
    I knew because I’d had the same thoughts myself, the year I was with Kate. Not that I’d actually gone ahead with verbalising the prospect of an open relationship to her. I didn’t know if I’d really want to do it.
    I caught a flight to London the next day.
    Being in the real estate game had taught me one thing—to move on an opportunity the instant it presented itself.
    On the pretext of me being a friend to Phoebe and needing her to show me around London, we dined out at night and caught art shows during the day. I went to every show she did. I bunked in with her, sleeping on the floor. Until the night I took Phoebe to a bar and bought her every cocktail known to mankind.
    Flynn had called her at the start of that night, to apologise, saying he was flying back from Ireland especially to see her. He was coming tomorrow. She’d dissolved into tears, but I didn’t give her time to think too long about him.
    When Phoebe and I had returned to the apartment, I’d pretended to take a call on her apartment phone from a strange woman looking for Flynn, calling the phone from my mobile. I told Phoebe the woman had called herself Flynn’s girlfriend.
    Phoebe and I woke up in bed together the next morning.
    When Flynn came to the door in the morning, it was me who answered it. I told him to fuck off , in those exact words.
    I left Rob managing the real estate business for the next three months. I wasn’t going to allow Flynn