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Her moans cut through me like a knife.
Like someone—maybe her, maybe him; it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things—is slicing me open and my heart, now punctured, is spewing blood in different directions out of my chest and onto the floor and they are both just continuing on as I stand here dying in the entryway.
These walls are way too thin.
Paper fucking thin.
I didn’t care when I was the one moaning behind those walls but now that I’m the outsider inadvertently listening in, it seems rather fucked up. My chest caves with the weight of what I know is happening.
My skin warms and it’s almost as if in the ten seconds I’ve been standing in the entryway, I’ve caught some type of plague and my core is on fire with a disease that’s surely going to kill me.
Along with the heat, rage amplifies inside of me—hot lava, a spark of fury igniting in my bones and setting ablaze before I can control which way the wind takes it.
Unfortunately for these idiots (and for me), the wind leads me straight to the room I share with him and I fling the door open with the wrath of a thousand scorned bitches. He looks at me like I’m a ghost. Like I shouldn’t be here. Me. It’s almost laughable. I mean, it would be laughable if the pulsating under my skin could be controlled. If my life didn’t feel like it was being drained out of me. If I could fill my lungs with oxygen instead of pure, sadistic hate.
Suddenly the room goes blurry and there’s a naked woman straddling my man and she has gigantic boobs; it’s the first thing I notice and it makes me sick.
Of course she has gigantic boobs.
Her blonde hair—correction, her blonde sex hair—spills down her back and her overrated blue gaze meets my dark stare. I want to look away but it’s like a goddamn car crash, for lack of a better comparison, only instead of cars it's our lives that have gone up in flames all because he wanted to stick his dick in a rail thin blonde with huge tits and blue eyes.
“What the fuck?” My voice comes to terms with the scene playing out in front of me before my brain does, before my heart does. “What the fuck, Manuel?” I scream. No, not scream. I howl. I wail. I fucking roar. The sound escaping my throat is guttural, dark, and demonic but I don’t give a shit.
Before I can process the fact that I just turned into something straight out of The Exorcist, Manuel is up, throwing the blonde skank off his naked body and standing in front of me.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t fucking cry, Isla. I beg myself but it’s no use. Tears slide down my cheeks, stinging my skin. My shoulders shake uncontrollably as I get more and more irate the longer he stands here looking like a moron.
He speaks. How can it be that he already sounds so vastly different? That his voice sounds so distant? So far away, so much unlike the man I’m engaged to.
The man I’m engaged to.
My gaze floats down to the engagement ring on my finger that is now burning a hole into my skin. I thought I’d wear this forever. I thought I’d have to use butter to get it off one day.; after menopause when I’m puffy and can’t eat anything with excess salt.
Now, I need it off. I need this symbol of betrayal as far away from me as possible.
I yank it from my finger and throw it at Manuel who is talking to me, who is sinking down to the floor on his knees, who is pleading to me with his eyes; his dark eyes that I love. His dark eyes that I love, that fell upon another woman and decided—made the conscious choice—to bring her into our lives. To stick his dick inside her, to destroy us both.
There’s nothing I know in this moment.
Nothing at all, save for one thing.
I will never be the same again.
THREE
Isla
THREE MONTHS POST-HEARTBREAK
I always knew love was too good to be true. You know those low-budget rom-com movies that end in a happily ever after every goddamn time? Is that realistic? Absolutely not. Do people eat that shit up?Abso-fucking-lutelythey do.
It’s been three months without Manuel, three months since he betrayed me in the worst possible, soul sucking, life-altering way. Three months of barely eating, of picking myself apart to figure out what made Manuel stray. Three months of hating him, but hating me too, because I must have done something real fucking bad in a past life to deserve walking in on the love of my life screwing someone else.
I sit in the coffee shop, wanting to be surrounded by people. I want to immerse myself in the culture of one of the busiest cafes in my neighborhood. I’ve barely left my house aside from going to class and I can admit I haven’t been giving my all to my studies. This pisses me off even more because I’m letting him win. I’m digging myself further into the hole that Manuel Rodriguez shoved me in. And I need to stop.
I just don’t know how.
After Cynthia, I felt like I deserved the worst the world had to offer. Leaving your best friend to die with your abductor, even if it wasn’t in the plan, leaves a deep cut that never heals. Not even a little bit. Not at all. When Manuel asked me to be his, I felt like maybe, just maybe, I was worth more than I thought. Like not everyone in the world thought I was a terrible person.
