Page 109 of The Bitter Words

The box is caved in. I pick it up and look inside. Two foils gone, one left staring at me.

Agony reaches into my chest and rips my heart out while its best friend misery throat punches me.

“Fucking great.” She grabs the package out of my hand. “Don’t expect me to discuss this with you. It’s none of your business.”

My limbs go numb and my body shakes. “Are you seriously having sex with someone else?”

“I already said, I’m not talking about this with you.” She shoves most of the contents from her purse back inside her bag. A small silver metal container remains in the palm of her hand.

“What’s that?” I point to it, feeling as if I’m in a twisted scene of a nightmare. “More storage places for your birth control?”

“Callum, stop asking questions I’m not going to answer.” She bears down on her teeth, grabs a bottle of water off the counter, and runs into the separate room where the toilet is.

She locks herself in and I stare at the closed door with my soul seeping into a billion drops of raw, bleeding torture. I can’t believe what she’s done.

My Lily wouldn’t just turn her back on me and walk away for good. And she sure as hell wouldn’t be sleeping with another man.

Yes, she would. She thinks I was with Zara.

I can’t escape Zara, Sebastian, or Leon. I hate them all so fucking much.

My vision distorts. I move on pure adrenaline and pound on the wood between us. “Open the door, Lily! I’m not going anywhere until I find out who this motherfucker is!”

“Callum, leave.”

“Not on your life, love.” I rest my palms on the frame, waiting for her to come out.

She stays on the other side for two long minutes while picture after picture of her fucking another guy slice through my thoughts. I wanna tear the images from my brain.

I grab my head and press on my temples with the heels of my hands, trying to clear the terrible reels that are flipping through my mind on repeat.

My guts cramp and knot as my world implodes. All myhopes of us working this out and getting back together fade away.

I get an instant headache and shuffle away emptier than I ever thought possible. It’s the same kind of internal damage as the morning I woke up after Leon first raped me. A huge piece of my soul is carved out of me.

My walk to the kitchen is nothing but a slanted reality. Not sure I’m breathing, I have to hold myself up by sliding against the wall until I get to the lower level.

I step down from the last stair and amble to the stool I was sitting on before this horror story took place. Bren’s standing on the other side of the center island.

He swallows something. “You look like someone cut your balls off. What the fuck happened?”

In a daze and not wanting to admit to what I know, I stare his way. “She doesn’t love me anymore.”

“You know she’s only saying that to hurt you.”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Oh, come on. You’re the only person she’s loved. That doesn’t disappear overnight.”

I nod in agreement, with my inside hollow. “You’re right, but we’ve been apart for months. Maybe she’s moved on.”

He studies me for a moment. “What did she say when you were upstairs?”

“Um…” I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “It’s not what she said, it’s what I found.”

“What was that?”

“She had a box of condoms in her purse. I looked inside and all but one were gone.”