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BOOK 1: Trashy Foreplay
1. It's the End of the World
Jules
It all comes down to a fucking toothbrush. The absence of it rips a hole in my heart. No, that missing toothbrush obliterates me, scattering any chance of hope I have that he’ll come back. Clutching my chest, I stumble from the bathroom back to my pitiful spot on the bed, but nothing lessens the sobs holding me hostage to this devastation. It sears and consumes. Makes breathing hard as hell. I can’t see past it, and the idea of going on with this gaping hole in my soul seems impossible.
I hear the front door of my apartment creak open, and the sound busts through my pain-induced neurosis. Sweat drips down my cleavage. It’s ten in the morning, but the temperature has risen to a humid ninety degrees, thanks to Oklahoma summer heat. It doesn’t help that the air conditioner decided to take a crap yesterday.
Fisting my hands over my chest, I watch the bedroom door—the one he left ajar when he stormed from my life an hour ago. Footsteps pad down the hall, and I curse that sliver of hope that makes my breath catch in my lungs.
I know it isn’t him—I fucking know it—but my naive heart speeds up anyway. The footfalls halt, and someone pushes the door all the way open. My sister stands in the hall, somehow impervious to the heat that’s making me sweat buckets. She’s put-together as always despite her ebony hair twisting into a messy bun. She’s not wearing any makeup, so I figure she must be on her way to a photo shoot. I wipe my eyes, hoping she’s in a rush on this Sunday morning and won’t notice that I’m falling apart at the seams.
“Oh, Jules.” She crosses to where I’m sitting on the bed, and the mattress dips under her weight as she settles next to me. “Chris told me you guys broke up.” Her perfect brows furrow in sympathy, but the tone of her voice belies her words. I love my sister. I do. But everyone knows she can be on the self-important side. Even so, just the fact that she’s here when she has somewhere else to be warms my aching heart a little.
“You saw him?”
She seems taken aback for a second. “Um, yeah. At the gas station. He looked like hell.”
The pain of the morning leaks from my eyes, no matter how hard I try to hold it back. “He just…”
Left.
Shaking my head with a sniffle, I dash the salty despair from my face. Will the tears ever stop? I’ve been heaving sobs since Chris made it clear no amount of bargaining or begging would stop him from leaving. The last words we said to each other were the biggest blow, and they torpedo through my mind now.
If you love me, you’ll stay.
Then I guess I don’t love you enough for this shit, Jules.
“He’s gone, Brit.”
“Maybe he just needs some time to cool off.”
I shake my head. That’s what I’d told myself until I spotted the toothbrush holder with only one left in it.
Mine.
Sitting there alone like me.
And I’d known. Chris never took his toothbrush when he “needed space.” He’d disappear for a day or two, but not his toothbrush. That fucker would remain in its rightful place on the bathroom counter next to mine, where it belonged.
Until today.
He’d packed every fucking thing he owned, down to that damn toothbrush.
“What happened?” she asks, brushing a few strays of blond hair from my damp cheeks.
I don’t know what to tell her. The guilt’s been eating me alive for the past two weeks. All the gory details are going to come out soon anyway, and I’ll have no choice but to deal with the blowback. But finding the words to explain what I’d done…
It’s hard as fuck, because I have no conceivable explanation.
“It’s my fault.” I really do need to get this off my chest, and Brit is the closest thing I have to a confidant since my best friend moved to Seattle a few months ago.
“You can talk to me.” Her hand settles on my shoulder, and I wonder if she can somehow hear the struggle going on in my head.
“Remember when Chris and I took a break a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “He took off for a few days. But you worked things out, right?”
