My heart is in my throat, chest so tight there’s little room for the breaths I’m trying to force. “I don’t know what to say.”
She whimpers, and we don’t have to be on video chat for me to know how she looks right now, to know that beautiful face is blotchy and red and tear-stained.
It’s sick that I want to hold her, to comfort her, when she’s the one breaking me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says again, a broken record at this point. “I… I was drunk, and upset, and stupid and I—”
“Didn’t listen to me,” I finish for her.
“What?”
“You didn’t listen to me. Or, at least, if you did, you clearly didn’t hear me when I said I was doing this for us. I gave up seeing you for the holiday so that I could find a way for us to be in the same city. Together. For us to move in together. For us to…”
I can’t finish the sentence, tears stinging my eyes, nose flaring as I shake them off.
“But you didn’t call me,” she says through her tears. “We barely texted. This whole semester has felt like… like… like we aren’t even a couple.”
“We’ve had dates almost every weekend,” I argue. “We talk all the time.”
“It’s not the same. It’s not enough.”
“I know!” I scream. “Which is exactly why I flew to fucking Baltimore to get a job near your future school. So we could be together. So we wouldn’t have to do this anymore. And you…”
Again, my words are cut short, throat constricting with the effort to say them. I’m so sick I have to stand and pace for fear of actually vomiting.
Cassie is silent.
The longer she is, the more my mind races, the more I think about how many times I had the opportunity to do the same to her, but never would have even considered it.
I couldn’t stomach the thought of kissing another woman.
And the thought of her kissing another man…
I close my eyes, jaw popping, chest tight with a mixture of rage and the fiercest despair I’ve ever known.
“How could you do this, Cassie?” I ask, voice just above a whisper. “How could you so much as look at another man that way, let alone act on it?”
“It meant nothing. I was drunk, I don’t even remember what he looks like, I—”
“Well, that makes it better, doesn’t it? That just makes it all forgivable. I guess if I got get rip-roaring drunk tonight, I can kiss whoever I want and it’s fine, right?”
Her silence is answer enough for me.
“Tell me what you would do, if it were you,” I say. “If you were on this end of the call, and I told you I got drunk and kissed another woman. What would you feel?”
She sniffs. “You can’t possibly hate me as much as I hate myself right now.”
I let out a long exhale.
“Adam, I love you,” Cassie whispers. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. I swear, it will never happen again. It was a mistake. A stupid mistake. Please,” she begs. “Please forgive me.”
My chest is on fire as I pinch the bridge of my nose and fight back the emotion threatening to strangle me.
“I have to go.”
“No,” she cries. “Please, Adam. Please.”
“I can’t talk to you right now, Cassie. You have to respect that. Just… I need some time.”
“Adam—”
But I hang up before she can say another word.
My fist curls around my phone, desire to crush it surging through me. I shove through the back door and inside, instantly feeling suffocated by the heat coming from the fireplace. I jog upstairs before any of the guys can ask me what’s wrong, but I don’t miss the way they watch me, the concern in their eyes.
When I make it to my room, I slam the door shut, finally letting myself heave my phone across the room. It hits the wall and bounces off, the screen cracking when it hits the hardwood floor. And with the music loud enough to drown it out, I let out an animalistic scream, one loud and long enough to make my throat hurt when I finish.
I stand in the middle of the room, panting, and then the anger starts to fade, and my imagination turns even more cruel in its absence.
I can see it, another man’s hand sliding in to caress her face, her neck, tilting her chin up, finding those big, innocent green eyes staring up at him, those light pink lips parted and waiting, those soft hands twisting in his shirt…
I barely make it to the trash can by my desk before I vomit, mostly stomach acid burning my throat and my nose as I release.
I stay there for a while, waiting, expecting more before I finally kick back and lean against my bed. I can’t stop shaking my head, can’t stop closing my eyes tight and opening them again only to discover I’m not stuck in a nightmare the way I wish I was.