Brian looks over to me. When our eyes meet, I know he knows I know about what happened with Maddison. There is almost regret in his eyes, but then his eyes flash toward where Dean is reaching for me again, and I see in his eyes the moment it clicks what is going on.
Brian’s chest puffs out as he takes a deep breath. “What the-....ARE YOU FUCKING MY GIRLFRIEND?”
Before I know what is happening, Brian has made it the rest of the way down the stairs and is charging toward Dean. I scream out “Brian! Let me expla-” Wham.
Brian’s fist connects with Dean’s face. I scream again “Brian stop!” He doesn’t listen and tries to take another swing. Dean is much bigger than him, so this time he avoids the punch and grabs Brian’s arms and holds him down against the wall. “Calm down Brian.”
Brian just screams out. “My dad is fucking my girlfriend, and I’m supposed to calm down!”
Dean lets him go and falls back a couple steps.
I can tell Brian is going to go at Dean again, so I jump in between them.
“Brian. Stop.” My voice is firm, and Brian pauses this time to look at me, so I continue.
“Go upstairs. Now. We need to talk.” Brian takes a deep breath like he is going to argue, but then he relents and starts heading upstairs and I go to follow him.
Dean tries to stop me. “Caroline-.” but I cut him off.
“No Dean. I can’t deal with you right now. Just let me go.”
Dean looks like he is going to protest but then stops and just nods his head at me. I take a deep breath and march up the stairs.
I walk into our room and shut the door behind us. Brian is sitting on the bed with his fists curled in the blankets. After a moment he decides against it and stands up and begins pacing back and forth.
I am silent for a moment because I don’t know where to begin. Should I tell him about my birthday and how we knew each other before I knew he was his dad? Or just keep it simple and tell him it happened after I found out about Maddison.
Brian speaks first. “You slept with my dad?” The question comes out almost as disbelief like he thinks now that we are alone I might contradict it. I take a breath and then just quietly say. “Yes.” I don’t give him any more details. He looks angry at me at first, but then I tilt my head to the side and raise an eyebrow at him. He looks down to his feet ashamed now that he remembers I know about Maddison. “How did you find out?”
I let out a noise of disbelief. “Does it matter?”
He shuts his eyes for a minute. “No, it doesn’t matter.” Then he walks over to the bed and sits down. He pats the spot next to him, so I go over and sit next to him.
“I want you to know I never meant to hurt you, and I still care about you.”
I don’t know if I should believe him or not. I’ve never had a boyfriend cheat on me before. Maybe this is standard protocol to apologize, so they don’t feel bad about themselves.
Surprisingly, I am not screaming at him, calling him names, throwing his shit everywhere. We are both pretty calm. Maybe it’s because of what just happened downstairs or maybe it’s because deep down I knew we weren’t going to work out.
“I want to believe you, but what you did hurt me.”
Brian closes his eyes again. “I know.” He turns toward me and grabs my hand.
“Nothing happened between me and Maddison until your birthday.”
I look to his eyes and I think he is being sincere. He continues. “We kissed that night before your birthday.” He sighs and then goes on. “It seemed like things weren’t working out between us, and Maddison was having a hard time and I wanted to comfort her. After it happened, I told her I couldn’t do that while I was with you, so I planned to talk to you the next day. I felt guilty though. I kept saying nothing was going on between us and then suddenly there was. That’s why I was late picking you up that day, and then you turned your phone off and I didn’t know where you were. I just sat at your place thinking all night, and I kept feeling like I was such an asshole for letting this happen. And then when you came home that night, I felt even worse. I remembered how much I cared about you, and I wanted to try to make it work.”
The last part surprises me a little. “But you kept seeing her?”
Brian shakes his head. “No. Not at first.”
I’m surprised again. I thought for sure he was with her the whole time we were together. He continues. “Once we moved in together, things weren’t the same as they were before. I don’t know if it was what happened on your birthday that changed things or if living together just made us realize we weren’t meant for each other. I could tell you were pulling away. We hadn’t even had sex since we moved in together. Then this whole apartment flooding thing happened, and I know it’s not an excuse and we should have broken up before I did anything with Maddison, but I didn’t want it to be awkward. I didn’t think you’d want to stay here with me after we broke up and if I left, I didn’t want to feel like I was kicking you out.” Brian pauses and then raises his eyebrows at me. “Altho
ugh now I'm not so sure you would have minded staying here all alone with my dad. Huh?”
I cringe. “Can we maybe not talk about your dad?”
Brian lets out a small laugh. “Oh sure. So I have to sit here and apologize and you can just avoid the conversation all together.”