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Oh God, what? How? Why? He’d cheated on me for money? He ruined us for money? No. No. It didn’t make sense. Ream didn’t need the money. Why would he do that? How could he hide something so … so totally fucked up?
“Bab—Kat, it was a long time ago when I was a kid. Jesus …” He exhaled a long breath of air. “It was to pay off a debt. I didn’t … Christ, Kat, I’m not proud of what I did.”
“So, what? You’re doing it again?” God, I couldn’t even talk about this. What he’d done didn’t make me sick; it was that he was doing it now. That … that he hid it from me after I let him in. I picked up the small stainless steel garbage can and threw it at him. It missed, but it made a loud crash as it hit the wall. “Fuuuckkk. I let you in! I gave you all of me!”
He put his hands on either side of his head and curled his fingers around the short strands before slowly sliding down the door until he sat on the bathroom floor, his knees bent and his head in his hands. “No. Fuck no. Last night …” He looked up at me and there was confusion and bewilderment in his eyes, like he was lost in a nightmare of memories. Like me. “I don’t know what happened last night. I can’t remember shit. I left the bar earlier than the guys. I wanted to get back to you. I planned on cabbing it back to the farm and then I saw Molly outside and we shared a cab. Her place was on the way, but then …” He closed his eyes, brows lowered as if he was thinking. “She was crying about her ex-boyfriend being back, and she was scared he was in her place. So I went inside to make sure he wasn’t there.” He looked up at me. “Kat, I can’t remember anything after that. I swear. We may have had a drink together, fuck.” He hit his head with the heel of his hand. “Maybe I said I’d stay a while because she was scared.”
“So you were too drunk to know that you were fucking another guy and a woman?”
“They were her roommates, Kat. I don’t know shit. I can’t fuckin’ remember shit. I woke up an hour ago and Molly told me you and Crisis had been there.”
An ice cold hand gripped my chest and yanked—hard. Lies. To save himself after he ruined me. “Bullshit. Did you fuck Molly first? Who else, Ream? How many other men and women have you fucked since we’ve been together? Were you lying when you told me you hadn’t been with anyone since we were the first time? Drinking too much doesn’t cut it. And you say you used to do it for money? Well that doesn’t get you a fucking pass to cheat on me now. Thank fuck we used condoms because you’re a rotten piece of shit and I want nothing of you left inside me. Ever.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time and I was huddled with my knees to my chest, afraid to look at him, not wanting a single reminder of who he was. I wanted to erase him from me.
“Yeah. I am.”
His husky whispered words made me look up and it was a mistake. I witnessed the tear teeter on the edge of his right eyelid then in slow motion, it dropped onto his cheek. The debilitating ache in my chest tore a scream from my throat, and I scrambled to my feet.
I needed out of here. I had to get out of here now. “Let me out. I want out.”
Ream slowly stood and the devastation was clear on his face, the pursed lips, the drooping eyes, the trembling in his hands as he raised his arm to run his hand through his hair.
He moved to the side and I approached, weary and afraid he’d touch me. Because I couldn’t handle him touching me again, the last pieces of me tentatively held together would crack. Who was I kidding? I’d already cracked.
I turned the doorknob and his whispered words hit me. “You always did deserve better than me, beautiful.”
I don’t know why his words hit me so hard, because I did deserve better than a guy who cheated on me. But it was more than that. He’d always said that to me. He never thought he was good enough for me and now I knew why.
If he hadn’t cheated on me, if he’d told me of his past … I knew with everything in my heart that I would’ve loved him still. I’d have accepted that part of him because it made him who he was today. I understood why he’d said women were always just objects to him. It made sense. He used them; it had been a job. Had? No, it was.
I walked straight into Emily’s arms, and she wrapped me in her warmth as she led me away. I don’t know where we went, just that she held me for a really long time until I finally slept.
***
Days went by in a haze of grief stricken pain. Matt stayed at the farm the first few days leaving the bar to Brett to look after. Between him, Emily, and the guys I was forced to get out of bed every day and function. Georgie even came over and slept in my bed with me for two nights, holding me in her arms and never saying anything—so unlike her. Somehow she knew the silence was what I needed.
Ream disappeared. He’d even left his new phone on the kitchen counter. Everyone knew what had happened, that he cheated on me, but I didn’t mention what Ream said about his past. Maybe it was because I owed him for keeping my secret.
My symptoms were bad, the pins and needles affecting my hands and sprinkling across my stomach as well as my legs. I woke up every morning uncertain whether I’d be able to wash my hair because I’d lost feeling in my arms if I held them above my heart for too long.
