Page 16 of The Other Plan

“You?” I snorted. “You may be gorgeous, Jenna, and you may have had me fooled back then when I was young and stupid, but I can see from the fact you’re not even going to attempt an apology or an explanation, that you aren’t even close to the person I thought you were.”

“And neither were you.”

We stood in a stare-off, and her dark eyes narrowed to match mine.

“What you did was unforgivable,” she finally spat out.

“And what was that? Laughing with you? Kissing you? Falling for you? Please, Jenna, enlighten me as to what I did that was so unforgivable that you walked out of my life without a word.”

The anger in her eyes softened into an unmistakable sadness. With a swallow, she dropped her gaze to the ground. “You... you cheated on me with Janine.”

“What?” I choked out the word. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I saw you!” She looked up from the ground, and the anger returned to her fiery gaze. “I walked in and caught you red-handed!”

“Jenna,” I said, stepping forward, but she stepped back. “I did not cheat on you with Janine! Where in the hell did you even get that idea?”

“I saw you, Carter! I went to my room that night to meet you, and when I opened the door, I saw you on her bed with your shirt off, holding her in your arms. I. Saw. You.”

She straightened her shoulders and speared me with invisible daggers.

As she said it, I closed my eyes and let the memory of that night come back to me. When it fully emerged, I softly shook my head. Finally, it all started to make sense. Why she’d left. Her anger. The fact she thought of me as the villain in this story.

A villain I wasn’t.

“Oh, shit. Jenna, I’m so sorry, but you got it all wrong.”

“Wrong? I freaking saw you, Carter! I stood there in that doorway and saw you with my own eyes. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t breathe. So, I ran away, and I’m still so glad I did. You had me fooled, Carter. But no one has been able to fool me since.”

“Jenna, I didn’t cheat on you with Janine. I had no idea you showed up that night and walked in, and I can see how bad it probably looked, but I swear to you on my mother’s life that I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but I lifted my hand.

“Just let me explain. Please.”

Lifting her eyebrows and pursing her lips, she cocked a hip and exhaled a quick breath. “Fine. Whatever. Explain.”

“I went to your room that night to pick you up. Janine opened the door, and she was wasted. I mean, slurring speech, wobbling all over hammered. When I asked where you were, she just started sobbing and tossed herself into my arms. She was so drunk I barely understood a word she was saying, but something about some guy blowing her off, I think.”

“So, you slept with her to make her feel better. What a great guy.” She rolled her eyes.

“No. I did not sleep with her. What I did was walk her to her bed and sit her down while I got her a glass of water. When I came back over, I gave her the glass of water, but she proceeded to projectile vomit on me like she was in the freaking Exorcist. I pulled off my shirt because I didn’t want the puke to seep through to my skin. Janine was so embarrassed she started sobbing harder, so I sat down and gave her a hug to calm her down and make her feel better. That was it. I was hugging your inebriated roommate and shirtless because my shirt was covered in her puke.”

Her face dropped with my words as she stood stammering at me. “But... no. You cheated on me. I saw you.”

“Think hard, Jenna. Did you see me kissing her? Having sex with her? Anything at all? Or did you see us sitting on the bed hugging?”

She tugged her lip between her teeth as she furrowed her brow.

“Yep. You can see it, can’t you? You can see exactly what I just explained to you. A shirtless man comforting the roommate of the woman he loved.”

“But... but it looked so...” Her voice drifted off as she shook her head. “I swear I thought... so you didn’t? But... oh my God. Then that means that I...” The realization of her mistake devastated her expression as she looked up at me. “I left you for no reason.”

Hearing her say the words didn’t erase the agony I’d experienced finding out that she’d gone, or the sadness I’d felt over the past decade wondering what I’d done wrong, but knowing it had all been a mistake lifted some of the weight of my sorrow.

“You left me for no reason,” I repeated. “It was all a misunderstanding. A terrible, awful misunderstanding. I would never have hurt you like that, Jenna. Never.”

“I... I’m so sorry, Carter. I can’t imagine what you thought of me.”