Chapter 78
Ethan's POV
The hallway tilted sideways and I had to put my hand against the wall to steady myself. "What?"
"That night." Her voice was still flat, still detached, and she wouldn't meet my eyes. "After you left. I went to a bar and I got really drunk and—" She paused, glancing back into the apartment again. "And I don't remember most of it but when I woke up the next morning I was in his bed and we had—we'd had sex."
I couldn't breathe. The air had turned solid in my lungs and my vision was tunneling down to just her face, to the way she was looking at me with a mixture of guilt and resignation and something else I couldn't identify.
"That was the night we broke up," I heard myself say. My voice sounded strange and distant. "The same night I walked away. You went straight to him."
"I know." Her voice cracked on those two words and more tears spilled over, tracking down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Ethan."
Part of me wanted to believe she'd been forced. Wanted to tell myself that she'd been too drunk to know what was happening, that it wasn't really her choice. I was searching desperately for some way to absolve her, to make this something I could forgive. But then the other details started filtering through the haze of my desperation—the way she hadn't let me inside, the oversized shirt she was wearing that was clearly a man's, clearly not mine.
"Is he here?" The question came out before I could stop it, harsh and accusatory. "Is he in there right now?"
She looked back over her shoulder one more time and then nodded, just once. Something inside me snapped clean in half.
I drew my fist back and slammed it into the wall next to her door. Plaster crumbled under my knuckles and pain exploded up my arm. She jerked back with a small frightened sound and suddenly I was crying too. Hot angry tears blurred my vision and made my breath come in ragged gasps.
"I don't blame you," I choked out, lowering my fist and staring at the dent I'd left in the wall. Blood was welling up across my knuckles but I barely felt it. "I don't—fuck, Emily, I don't blame you. I blame myself. I'm the one who said we should break up. I'm the one who pushed you away. I practically drove you into his arms and now I have to live with that. I have to know that I'm the reason you—"
I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't articulate the images that were burning through my brain. Couldn't give voice to the jealousy and rage and sick twisted hurt that was eating me alive from the inside out.
"The worst part," I continued, and my voice had gone hollow now, all the fight draining out of me, "is that I don't even care. I should care. I should be disgusted or furious or at least have enough self-respect to walk away. But all I can think about is that I still want you. Even knowing you fucked him—even knowing he's in there right now probably listening to this whole pathetic scene—I still want you back. What does that make me? What kind of person wants someone after—"
I stopped because I was going to be sick. I could feel bile rising in my throat. I pressed my injured hand against my stomach and tried to breathe through it.
"I hate myself," I said quietly. "I hate myself for still wanting you and I hate myself for leaving and I hate myself for not being enough to make you choose me over whatever the fuck he's offering you. But most of all I hate that I'm standing here begging when I should have enough pride to just walk away."
She was openly crying now. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs. I wanted so badly to pull her into my arms but I knew I'd lost that right. I knew that she wasn't mine anymore, that maybe she never really had been.
"I should go," I said, taking a step backward down the hallway. "I should leave before I say something even more pathetic or do something stupid like beg you to tell me it didn't mean anything." Another step back. "But for what it's worth—and it's probably not worth much at this point—I love you."
I turned and started walking toward the stairs, moving on autopilot while my brain tried to process what had just happened. I tried to figure out how I'd gone from desperately hoping for reconciliation to having my worst fears confirmed in the span of five minutes.
Behind me I heard her door close quietly. That soft click felt like a period at the end of a sentence, final and irrevocable. I made it down two flights of stairs before my legs gave out and I had to sit down on a step, my head in my hands while I tried to remember how to breathe.
She'd slept with him. The night we broke up, she'd gone straight to him. And now he was in her apartment. He'd probably been there all night. Had probably just finished—
I couldn't think about it. Couldn't let myself go there or I would actually lose my mind right here in this stairwell.
I forced myself to stand up and finish descending the stairs. I pushed through the front door into morning sunlight that felt too bright, too cheerful for what I was feeling. My truck was still parked across the street and I walked to it mechanically. I got inside and sat there staring at nothing.
I'd done this. I'd made the choice to leave, to prioritize my pride over fighting for her. And she'd made her choice too—had chosen him, had let him touch her and fuck her and apparently stick around for round two because he was still there this morning.
The rational part of my brain tried to remind me that I'd been the one to end it. That I had no right to be angry at her for moving on. But the rest of me—the part that was currently being ripped apart—didn't care about rational. Didn't care about fair or justified or any of those concepts that were supposed to govern how people behaved.
All I cared about was that I'd lost her. That she was upstairs right now with him instead of with me. That I'd had something precious and I'd thrown it away because I was too scared and insecure to fight for it.
I started the truck and pulled away from the curb, not knowing where I was going, just knowing I couldn't sit there anymore staring at her building. The city slid past my windows in a blur of color and movement that didn't register.
But as I drove, something else started creeping into my thoughts. Something pathetic and desperate that I couldn't quite push away. She hadn't said she didn't love me. Hadn't said she didn't want me anymore. She'd just said she slept with him—had assumed I couldn't accept it.
What if I could accept it? What if I told her I didn't care? That I could live with it? That I just needed her back in whatever form she'd let me have her?
I was losing my mind. Had to be. No sane person would even consider this.
But then again, I hadn't been sane for sixty hours now. Hadn't slept in three full nights. Hadn't eaten anything that stayed down. Hadn't been able to focus on a single coherent thought beyond the desperate need to get her back.
Maybe I'd already been crazy.