with me when all I want is for him to go away.
Still, standing here next to him, I can't help but feel at ease.
Why did he have to do what he did?
Why did everything else change?
I go to the vending machine to get myself some pretzels and come back to find Alex with his head in his phone.
When I glance over his shoulder, I see that he’s reading my article.
27
Emma
“I read your article,” Alex says. “You really went out there like that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“That was a dangerous thing to do.”
“Not as dangerous as staying here with you,” I want to say, but I bite my tongue.
“So, what happened?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, struggling with the bag before popping a pretzel in my mouth.
“You did mention that you met him at your engagement party, but you didn’t mention me at all.”
“The article is not about you.”
“You met him at your parents’ house. Do you find that a little odd? What are the chances of him being this person that you were looking for?”
I look away. Maybe I should've thought of that earlier. Perhaps, it was all too good to be true.
Liam probably made all of that up and now my story is in print of who D. B. Carter is, in black-and-white.
What's going to happen when the real D. B. Carter approaches the magazine and tells them the truth?
The thought sends a chill down my spine.
What have I done?
Why did I write all of this?
“So… What happened when you went out to his house and found out that he's the guy you met at our engagement party?” Alex asks.
“You know what,” I say. “It's all in the article.”
“I have a feeling that you left a few things out.”
I dart my eyes to look at him with scorn and ask, “Are you really saying this to me right now?”
“Yeah, why not?” he asks nonchalantly.
The anger in the pit of my stomach begins to simmer.
I clench my fists and tell myself to take a deep breath to keep it at bay, but it quickly rises to the surface again.
“You are the one who cheated on me. You have no right to be jealous.”
“You are my fiancée and I am entitled to know where you are spending your nights.”
“Excuse me? Your fiancée ? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Emma, come on…”
“We broke up. We are over.”
“You can't be serious.”
“No, you can't be serious,” I say, throwing my hands in the air.
“I told you that I was sorry.”
“I don't care. We are over. You have been sleeping with your boss for five years. You were together longer with her than you were with me. Don't you see how sick that is?”
“It's all over now. I love you.”
“I don't care. I'm not going to put up with shit like that. I'm not my mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Are your parents having problems?”
I turn my body away from him, but he puts his hands on my shoulders. I shrug them off and take a few steps away.
“You want to know what happened with Liam?”
“Uh-huh,” Alex says, narrowing his eyes.
“You really want to know?” I say, tapping my foot on the linoleum floor. “I slept with him. It was nice. I liked him. Then he ended up being just another liar.”
“You did not sleep with him,” he says, shaking his head after a long pause.
“Believe what you want, but it's the truth.”
He drops his shoulders down and leans against the wall. He looks so fractured that I almost feel bad for him.
Almost.
Whatever he is feeling right now, he deserves every molecule of that pain. He hurt me and it feels good to hurt him back, but just like a sugar rush, the high from my revenge doesn't last.
“I'm sorry that I drove you to that,” he says after a long pause.
I bite my lower lip. I don't know how to take that.
It sounds like an apology, but it's really window dressing.
“You didn't drive me to do anything. We broke up. Liam is hot. We talked about writing and literature and I slept with him. I slept with him because I wanted to,” I say the words quickly to make little cuts with a sharp dagger on his heart.
Whether or not it’s successful, it's hard to tell.
“You're just saying that to piss me off,” he says after a while.
“Is it working?”
“No,” he says without giving me the satisfaction of seeing his reaction.
I hate to admit it, but he has won this round.
He