“It’s absolutely my business when my boyfriend is sneaking around with other women.”
“Your boyfriend? You’re not, he’s not with you.”
“Isn’t he?” She scrolls through her phone. “Look. Here are our messages. He’s been texting me since December.”
She shows me screenshot after screenshot but my vision is blurring at the edges, it’s hard to even see his responses or the dates on the messages.
“I know this is hard to hear,” she says, her voice dripping with fake sympathy that makes my skin crawl. “But I thought you should know before you got in too deep. He’s done this before. Dated multiple women at once. Told each of us we were special.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Then why didn’t he tell you about Monday?” She leans in closer. “He’s hiding things from you, Juliette. And if he’s hiding this, what else is he hiding?”
I want to tell her to fuck off. To defend Romeo and believe that everything she’s saying is a lie.
But I can’t stop staring at that photo. At the proof that he had coffee with her and didn’t tell me.
“You should leave,” I say. My voice is shaking now. I can’t control it.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re trying to break us up.”
“I’m trying to save you from getting hurt the way I got hurt.” She puts her phone away with deliberate slowness. “But if you don’tbelieve me, ask him. Ask him about Monday. Ask him why he’s been responding to my messages. Ask him why he blocked me yesterday, after months of us talking.”
“Get out.”
“Ask him,” she repeats. “And when he can’t give you a straight answer, you’ll know I was telling the truth.”
She walks away and I stand there in the empty hallway with my hands shaking, trying to breathe around the tightness in my chest.
He had coffee with her. On Monday. And he didn’t tell me.
The Instagram DM flashes through my mind.Had such a good time at coffee yesterday.
It was real. It happened.
My phone buzzes again.
Romeo
Where are you? Please tell me you’re still at the rink.
I stare at the message through tears I didn’t realize were building.
I could call him. Could ask for his side of the story. Could give him a chance to explain.
But I already know what he’ll say. It was nothing. It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.
I need to see him. Need to hear him say it to my face.
I walk toward the locker rooms on autopilot, barely aware of where I’m going. Staff members pass me in the hallway but I don’t see them. Can’t see anything except that photo of Romeo at coffee, sitting across from his beautiful ex.
I find him outside the locker room. He’s pacing with his phone in his hand, and when he sees me his whole face floods with relief.
“Thank god. I’ve been trying to find you everywhere. I need to tell you something?—”
“Did you have coffee with Sienna on Monday?”
