Kelly and Dad came into the dining room, and Kelly complimented how great dinner looked, as always. I rolled my eyes and didn’t even give a fuck if she saw.
“I’ll go check on the chicken,” Mom called.
“Oh, I’ll come with you,” Kelly said. She and Mom went to the deck to check the grill and Dad headed out with them, winking at me on the way. I forced a smile at him, and as soon as they were out of sight, I hurried out of the dining room and rushed out the front door.
Cane was standing beside his car with a cigarette pinched between his lips. He’d just gotten off the phone, lowering it and staring down at it with a grimace.
“What the fuck, Cane?” I hissed before the door could even shut behind me. He looked over his shoulder with a continued grimace, but when he caught sight of me, his eyes softened for the first time that night. “Why is she here?” I demanded. “Why would you bring her back around after what we did? And so fast—you couldn’t wait two more days until I was gone?”
“Kandy…please, just go back inside.” He shoved rough fingers through his hair. “I’m not in the mood for this shit tonight.”
“No—fuck that, Cane. You tell me why you would do something like this? You haven’t answered my calls or texts in days. You’ve been completely ignoring me after checking in with me every day, and then you show up with her? I mean, I know I’m inexperienced, but was it so bad that you had to go back to Kelly?”
Cane’s head shook, his jaw tight and flexing. “Just move on from me, like I told you to do.” He tossed his cigarette down and stepped on the butt of it with the tip of his shoe, then walked around me to get to the door.
“Cane!” I wailed after him. “Talk to me!”
But he didn’t. He kept walking and didn’t bother looking back.
“Please,” I begged, but my voice had cracked and was much softer than before. He was walking through the door before I could blink my tears away. The tears stung and my throat thickened. I couldn’t believe this. He seemed so into me—so determined to hold onto me and keep me as his…but then this happens?
I bit back tears as long as I could, looking around my neighborhood, feeling like everyone was watching. I couldn’t cry out here, and I didn’t want Mom or Dad to see me, so I rushed into the house, where Cane was nowhere in sight, and hurried for the stairs. Before I could make it to the staircase, though, the downstairs bathroom door swung open and stopped me in my tracks.
Kelly walked out with a gasp, holding a hand to her chest. “Oh, Kandy, I’m so sorry—”
“I need to get to my room.” The tears were becoming harder and harder to control, so I lightly shoved my way past her and ran up the stairs. I didn’t give a fuck if I was being rude. Fuck her. Fuck them both.
“Kandy?” she called. “Is everything okay?”
I ignored her. As soon as I made it to my room, I let my walls crumble. I sat on the edge of my bed and curled over. I felt a pain in my stomach I’d never felt before—an ache that I knew would never dull or be soothed unless a certain someone came to fill that aching hole.
But that person was an asshole.
He was a heartless bastard.
He never gave a fuck about my feelings.
He got what he wanted and then disappeared. And not only that, he shoved another woman in my face. It was like the two days we spent together meant absolutely nothing to him.
The tears were salty and hot, and I tried hard to muffle the sounds so that, if someone were to pass, they wouldn’t hear me. Instead, I drew my knees up to my chest, buried my face into my thighs, and bawled. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe, and truthfully with my thighs in the way, it wasn’t easy.
I believe five minutes passed by before I heard someone knocking on the door. I jerked my head up with a gasp and waited to see if the person would go away. They didn’t. There was another knock on the door.
“What?” I called.
“Kandy, it’s me. Kelly.”
I frowned then. I didn’t want to see her right now. I was angry with her, when I honestly shouldn’t have been. She didn’t know about Cane and me. She didn’t know that he’d stolen my virginity with pretty words and lies and was now treating me like a piece of shit. Now that I thought about it, I would have been better off giving Carl my virginity. At least with him, he wouldn’t have been so quick to walk away or ignore me.