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“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I must have gotten the wrong apartment.”
“Who are you looking for?” the woman asked.
I forced an uncomfortable smile. “No one, I’m sorry,” I said quickly, glancing up and down the hall, trying to understand how I had missed Andy’s apartment. “Definitely the wrong address.”
Only, I wasn’t convinced. None of the other apartment doors looked recognizable.
“You’re Andrea, right?” the woman asked.
I froze, looking at her in confusion. How the hell does she know me? I nodded.
“Are you looking for Andy?” she asked with a smile. My heart immediately skipped a beat.
“Andy Stetson, yeah,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“Oh, then you’ve got the right place,” she said, opening the door to let me in. “He’s inside. Sorry, you caught us at a bad time.”
I felt my heart drop, and my stomach twisted and turned, bile rushing up into my throat. I felt like gagging, my eyes wide and my jaw dropping. “I –”
“Don’t worry, I think I can wake him up,” the woman said. “Come in, please. Don’t stand outside in the cold.”
I took a step back, slowly shaking my head.
The woman frowned, but her smile never left her face. And there was something in her eyes. Something insane and unpredictable. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head with more vigor, fighting back the tears that were stinging my eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart,” the woman cooed, but I could tell there was nothing warm about the gesture. “Did you think he was alone? I’m so sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. Quite the opposite, actually. “But Andy’s rarely alone, you know? And most of the time, he’s with me.”
A tear raced down my cheek, and I could tell that she noticed, because her smile widened. “You still want to come in?” she asked, her tone a little more challenging.
I bit my lip. I couldn’t stop shaking my head, my mind spinning in disbelief. How could he? How the fuck could he?
I raced down the hall as fast as I could, away from the apartment and the naked woman, away from the bastard I had snuck out of the house to check up on because I actually cared. That son of a bitch! Bobby was right about him!
“Bye!” the woman called after me. “I’ll let him know you passed by.”
There was this undertone to her words, as if she were letting me know that she had the upper hand; that she had gotten the grand prize and I had come in close second. It made me want to scream out in anger, but I bit my tongue and rushed down the stairs, crying freely now, longing for the comfort of my car. I suddenly wished I had stayed home, locked behind my bedroom door where I was safe, and the world was a little less cruel.
I should have listened to Bobby. I should have listened to Bobby.
I kept repeating the thought like a mantra, as if somehow it could give me some sort of comfort against the stabbing pain I was feeling in my chest. I clawed at my shirt, trying to reach in through my chest cavity and grab the pain, pull it out and throw it aside. It hurt so much.
I was almost at my car when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around, and just when I thought the night couldn’t get any worse, I gazed into the smiling face of my husband. Dennis was standing a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes flashing with rage. There was a nasty cut above his right eye, and his lower lip was swollen. Andy’s handiwork, obviously.
“Hey there, baby,” he said, his words muffled because of the swollen lip.
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sp; “Dennis,” I gasped.
“Did you actually think I’d let you out of my sight?” he asked, taking a few steps towards me, forcing me to take a few back. I bumped into the side of my car with nowhere to go.
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw you leave the house,” he explained. “Of course, I had to be careful because of that fucking police cruiser, but I wasn’t worried. I had a feeling you’d come here.” He came closer, closing the gap between us quickly. “You see, after my little fight with your boyfriend upstairs, I followed him. Found out where he lived. And when you left the house, I took my sweet time. I knew you’d come here. Checking up on lover boy?”
He grabbed my hand, twisting it hard and forcing me to scream out in pain. “You came to check up on him, but me? No! I don’t deserve your sympathy, do I? I came all the way to this asshole of the world just to find you, and you don’t even care about how I’m doing, do you?”
