I grab my car keys and lock the apartment again. In no time, I'm back on the road, heading toward her apartment. I don't care if she doesn't want to see me, if she won't let me in. I want to shout out my apologies to her from the road if that’s what it takes.
I park in front of her building and press the buzzer by the door. I look up to where her windows are. They're dark. I press the buzzer again and again, hoping, praying that she'll answer.
She doesn't. When the door opens and someone comes out, I wait until the last moment and slip into the building. I run up the three flights of stairs and hammer on her door.
"Keep it down," a neighbor shouts. "She’s not here."
I had known it all along. The dark windows had been a dead giveaway. Nicole always left a bathroom light on when she was home.
I walk back down the stairs, taking them one by one. It's the slowest I've approached stairs all night. I push my hands into my hair. What the hell am I going to do now? I don't know any of her friends or her parents. I have no idea where she would've gone. I don't know where to start looking.
There's nothing left to do but to get back in my car and go home. I ride the elevator back up, unlock my door again, and lock it behind me. I walk to the living room and sit down on the couch. I drop my head into my hands.
Is this how it's going to end with her? Is this the way it's going to be? I hadn’t wanted this. None of it. Maybe I should've told her what was going on in my life. She deserves to know, after all. But this. I never wanted this.
I wanted to say goodbye, eventually. I wanted to tell her. I’d been dreading it, and I put it off. I hadn’t wanted to lose her until the very last minute.
Maybe this is for the best, though. This is one way to end things. Tying all the loose ends, right? She would've been upset with me, anyway. She wouldn’t have understood. No matter what I did, whether it had all come out like now, or if I’d made up some other reason, it would've ended in heartache for the both of us.
Maybe it's best that I leave it here.
I strip off my clothes, leaving them in a trail to the bedroom and switching off lights as I go along. I crawl under the covers naked and put a pillow over my head. I want it all to go away.
By the end of the weekend, it'll all be over. My life here will be wrapped up as if it never happened, and I'll leave the country, escaping back to a place where the heartache and my past don't exist.
This is it. It's for the best.
It's over.
Nicole
When I flee Thomas’s building, I don't go home. He would've come looking for me there, and I don't have what it takes to face him. Instead, I go straight to Lisa’s place. He tries to phone me twice before I switch off my phone. I want nothing to do with him.
I press the buzzer to Lisa’s apartment until she answers in a sleepy voice.
"It’s me," I say. She buzzes me up right away. I'm crying. I climb the stairs to her door. When she opens, she jolts.
"What happened?" she asks.
I walk into the apartment and collapses on the couch. My cheeks are stained with tears, my makeup is probably leaving streaks down my face, and I shiver with cold even though it's a warm night.
"You were right," I say, talking through my tears. "It's all just a mask."
Lisa sits down next to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. "Tell me what happened," she says.
I do. I tell her everything, from the moment we arrived at his penthouse and Jessica was there, until I left.
"He's the crown prince of a country or something, and he’s leaving. Like, soon. He never told me."
Lisa shakes her head, frowning. "This doesn’t make sense," she says. "I don’t understand."
I shake my head, too. "I know. It’s so confusing. But he lied to me. About everything. And the women. God, he must've had so many. I was such a fool thinking he was different than the rest of them. You were right. I hadn’t known him at all."
Lisa rubs my back and makes shushing sounds, trying to comfort me. There's nothing to be done, though. There's no way to heal a broken heart or to reverse betrayal.
"I came here because I was scared he would come looking for me," I say.
Lisa nods. "You know you’re welcome here, anytime."