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Halfway through waiting in line I’d noticed him, sitting in the corner with his back to me. Holding hands with some tall, red-lipped blonde. Both hands. Fingers intertwined.
For a few seconds I stood there frozen, my mind conjuring up a thousand innocent reasons why my boyfriend would be having lunch with some long-haired blonde girl. But then he leaned in, and she leaned in… and they kissed.
Kissed is an understatement.
I was in shock, of course. The two of them practically made out at their little table, giggling and laughing while the customer behind me tapped my shoulder to urge me forward in line. Only the line didn’t matter anymore. My lunch break was over. My relationship, even more over.
And yet…
And yet somehow I knew this girl.
Who the hell is she?
At the time, my body refused to work properly. I wanted to storm over and make a scene. I wanted to yank my cheating boyfriend of three years backward by his hair, until he was forced to face me. And yet I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could barely even move. It was all I could do to make it to the shop’s door on two shaky legs. To spill out into the street with tears filling my eyes, and a lump in my throat so big it felt like I might choke to death.
The blonde.
Red lips. Big teeth. Bright smile…
She saw me on the way out, too. Her eyes had met mine and she’d stiffened instantly, before quickly looking guiltily away.
All the way home I’d wracked my brain, focusing every ounce of my attention on trying to remember where I’d seen her before. She didn’t work with Drake. Not that I’d seen, anyway. And it wasn’t someone even tangentially within our circle of friends, which was really his circle of friends, because I’d stupidly given up most of my past life to live in his current one.
Arriving back at our apartment my pent-up anger had burst forth all at once, exploding in volcanic fashion. I’d trashed everything that belonged to him. Thrown it straight out the window, after making sure there was no one else down there to be inadvertently buried beneath an avalanche of clothes, books, golf clubs, ski equipment, tchotchkes, and God knew what else.
I took all of it — every single thing. Every last gift and picture frame, every shared purchase we’d ever made together, because even keeping that stuff would only remind me of a shared life that never happened.
Finally I took the first photo we’d ever taken together… and held it preciously in my trembling hands. We were on the merry-go-round at a local carnival — one of those traveling state fair things that set itself up and took itself down over the span of a single weekend. We’d met at the ring toss. I was still holding the stuffed unicorn he’d won for me; the one that was upside-down and probably very confused in the middle of our front lawn now.
My hands shook as my eyes glassed over with tears again. The photo had always meant so much to me. The two of us looked so happy, so excited. We had everything ahead of us...
I could rip it in half right now, and that would be it. It could never be retaken. I could never go back.
Do it.
My fingers tightened, creating the beginnings of a crease that would turn into a tear. It would be so easy and cathartic, shredding the photo. Severing that last link between a past we enjoyed so much together, and a future I now knew would never happen.
BZZZZZT!
I stopped, letting the sound of my buzzing phone become the photo’s stay of execution, at least for now. It was Drake again. There were twenty-three new text-messages, of which I hadn’t read a single one. But now he was calling me…
“Hello?”
Drake hesitated at the other end of the phone, as if he hadn’t expected me to pick it up at all.
“Sloane?”
“Yeah asshole,” I spat acidly. “Who else would it be?”
“Sloane I’m so worried about you!” Drake cried. “You haven’t been answering my calls, my messages, anything at all! I was starting to think—”
“Who is she?”
For a split second I thought he was going to actually tell me. Instead, he decided upon more lies.
“What? W—Who are you talking about?”
“The girl!” I shouted tearfully. “The blonde you were sitting with at the sandwich shop!”
