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“Yes.” Fuck. “I… I shouldn’t have let this get so far. I should have stopped this sooner.”
Her eyes flared, and she sat up, wrapping the sheet tighter around her chest and tucking it in so it wouldn’t slip. “Are you kidding? You’re ending this because I told you I love you?”
“You shouldn’t love me, Georgia.”
She crossed the room to me and stood boldly before me. “That’s for me to decide. I’ll be the one to judge who I should love and who I shouldn’t. The question is, do you love me back?”
Yes. “No.” The word rang out between us, harsh, cruel, irreversible.
She reared back as if I’d hit her, and I forced myself to look at her, to witness the damage I’d inflicted, all the while keeping my features even, detached. A tear hit her cheek, and it felt like a saw was severing to my limbs.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Two years we’ve been doing this. For two years you’ve been coming to me. What did you expect? That I’d let you fuck me forever without developing feelings?”
Shame, hot and miserable, rushed through me. “I should have ended it a long time ago.”
She shook her head, her features twisted in fury. “No. Fuck that and fuck you.” She shoved my chest. Hard. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice cracked with desperation and emotion. “You feel something for me. I know you do. I see it in your eyes, and I feel it in the way you touch me. Don’t lie to me and tell me you feel nothing.” She crumbled before my eyes, her body caving in on itself as she openly began to cry. “Please. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
My body vibrated, shaking uncontrollably. I was barely hanging on. I took a step back toward the door. “I don’t feel anything for you, Georgia.” I do. I feel everything. “I don’t love you.” It’s a lie. “And I never will.” I took another step back and then one final one, reaching the door. I turned away, my eyes closing and my breathing ragged. “You’ll never see me again.”
“You’re a bastard. You’re a miserable, cowardly bastard,” she yelled. “I hate you. I hate you so goddamn much.”
I nodded, my hand on the door. “Good. You should.”
I made it out to the parking lot and veered to my right before I came to a tree and started punching it. Over and over until my bones cracked and my skin was pulp. I sagged against it and stared up at her apartment building. Was this who I was? Was this the man I had allowed myself to become? Suzie would have been ashamed. I was ashamed.
I’d been lying, keeping secrets from my best friends for two years, all the while I was fucking their beautiful, perfect cousin, and now I broke her heart. I was a monster. And I was tired of being a monster. I was tired of being so hateful to myself. Tired of drowning in an endless sea of guilt that had become so familiar to me, like a second skin, that not only did I not know how to shake it, I reveled in how I hurt myself because of it.
Only I didn’t just hurt myself this time.
I hurt Georgia.
A surge of something I couldn’t name swarmed up through me and had me running to my car. My hand burned, swollen and bleeding, but I reveled in that too. The pain made me sharp. It solidified my resolve. I drove across town, deep into Boston, and rang the buzzer on Zax’s front door. Grey wasn’t in town. He was on tour. His first solo album after Central Square was released a few months ago, and it caught like wildfire.
“Yeah?” Zax’s growly voice came through the buzzer.
“It’s me.”
He buzzed me up, and I ran up the steps instead of taking the elevator, blood dripping from my hand, leaving a trail of my crimes behind me. I pounded on his door, and when he swung it open, terror and relief hit me.
“What the fuck, Lenox? Are you okay? What happened?” he asked as he took in my bleeding hand and harried disposition.
I was about to lose my best friend, but it was no less than I deserved. But I couldn’t fix myself until I wasn’t hiding this from him anymore. “I fucked Georgia.”
He stared at me, unsure what to make of that before his features visibly hardened and his jaw locked. “When?”
“For two years. I’ve been fucking her behind yours and Grey’s back for two years.”
His fist launched, knocking me straight in the cheek, just below my eye. I flew back, slamming hard against the door as searing, white-hot pain shot through my face. I forced myself upright. Forced myself to face him, as I’d forced myself to face Georgia.
“Fuck!” he yelled, backing away, his hands in his hair as he started to pace. “Georgia?! You’ve been fucking Georgia like that behind my back? Why?”
I didn’t have answers for him. None that mattered. What was I going to say? Because I needed her. Because I couldn't breathe without her. They were useless things to say, and they didn't make anything better. I had no excuse for what I had done with Georgia.
“You should know, she told me she loves me tonight,” I said quietly.
He was about to rip me apart. Knock me out where I stood. He’d just barely been holding himself back. “I suppose I don't have to ask what you said in return. I can see it all over you.” His gaze hit my shifty body and fucked-up hand. “Two years, huh? I hope it hurts, you stupid motherfucker. Giving up a girl like her. I hope it hurts like hell.”
I lowered my head and stared at the floor, and Zax fell silent.
