Before Him

The way his eyes had promised as he’d said I do.

I don’t believe her. Not for one minute. That’s a stab in the dark—a perve at him in his swim shorts.

“Chelsea,” April mutters with a roll of her eyes. “Give it up already. You can’t wish it into existence.”

“What?” she snaps, shifting in her seat.

“That dog don’t hunt. Not for you, anyway.” April sends me an apologetic glance.

“That’s where you’re wrong because that dog hunts just fine,” Chelsea replies, deliberately avoiding my eyes. “He was no dud.” She glances up through her lashes, her look one hundred percent pure taunt. “Remember how I didn’t come down for dinner after we spent the day at the pool? I was with him.” She rattles off Roman’s room number and I begin to feel a little sick. “But it was your birthday,” she says, patting April’s arm. “So I said he should find himself a different bitch last night.”

“What the hell, Chelsea!” April yells, but I don’t join in. She can call me what she wants because, for some reason, my mind has jumped to that moment in the elevator last night.

I’d have remembered seeing you, he’d said.

You were on your phone. I remember how unease had flickered across his face at my answer. Was Chelsea the reason?

Then I’m an arsehole, he’d said, because you are too gorgeous not to be seen.

As gorgeous as Chelsea?

Is he that guy?

Maybe he never really existed in the first place.

No, I tell myself. It’s not true. Even if he slept with her, even if they had sex, that was before, not after me. Whatever happened, I need to hear it from him, not from the woman who was so obviously jealous last night.

It was your birthday, April, I recount. Hoes before bros? She’s not loyal type.

I feel the weight of Chelsea’s attention, and I glance her way. Unlike the rest of our tablemates, she looks supremely pulled together this morning. Her pale hair is piled artistically on the top of her head, and her sheer white cover-up doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination over her tiny red bikini. I’ve never felt more like a root beer to her champagne cocktail at this moment. Why would he want me when he can have her? I’m not going to think about that now. Not until I hear it from him.

“I tried to warn you last night,” she says, before muttering an apology at April’s insistence. She wasn’t calling me a bitch, just sticking to the dog analogy. My ass.

“Warn me?” I repeat. I will not buy into this. I will not show her my hurt. “Whatever you say.”

“Have it your way.” She folds her arms, her gaze like angry laser beams. “Anyway, he’s gone now. You know that, right?” I don’t answer, though I think I might be attempting my own laser looks right now. “He texted me from the airport,” she says as though she’s helping. “Woke me up. So early,” she adds in complaint.

“He texted you?” For all her toxic suggestions, this one hits the worst. Why else would she have his number? Doesn’t that prove the connection she claims? That they had sex? The possibility is enough to make me gag, but that they’ve spoken since last night? That spoils and degrades what passed between us. It ruins everything.

“You don’t believe me?” she retorts angrily, grabbing her phone from the table. She rattles off a bunch of numbers as I slide my purse onto my knee and pull out the notepaper.

3245 is all I catch, but sure enough, those are the last four digits written in his bold hand. To say I feel crushed is an understatement.

“It’s such a shame he had to leave like he did,” she says with a slow shake of her head. “Look at this.” Much more animated, she turns the screen of her phone to face April, whose gaze flicks down then widens with a start. “See? I wasn’t lying when I said he was hung.”

I want to vomit. Cry. Maybe drag her over to the pool to drown her. Instead, I swallow down this boiling anger as I begin to tear up the paper. I drop the remains to a used plate and watch as a couple of pieces lift at the edges before the breeze carries them away. The server takes the plate as conversations carry on around me. I don’t speak because this moment feels familiar. I might never have been cheated on before, but betrayal and I are old friends. Why would he ever choose me?

41

Roman

PRESENT

BROKEN

At least she’s stopped shaking. She looks like shit, but she’s breathing evenly now.

Her throat sounded raw and pained as she’d recounted the past. The cause of one hell of a panic attack. Her reason I’ve felt such a fuckup these past years. I thought it was my fault. I thought I hadn’t done enough. I’ve missed out on so much, and for what? A knee-jerk reaction to some stupid slut’s lies? I wonder what else she might’ve hidden.