“Two months.”
It takes everything I have not to break down next to her.
Call it a heartbreak party.
If I lose it, she’ll know everything.
I have to get out of here.
I snatch my phone and fake getting a text message before jumping to my feet. “I have to go.”
I should hug her, give her a kiss on the cheek, and tell her everything is okay.
But it’s not.
Nothing is okay.
There’s no way I can spew out that bullshit without breaking down.
I have to see him.
I need to kick him in the balls … scream at him … and … divorce him.
“You cheating, lying scum!” I explode as soon as James answers his front door, throwing the diamond ring in his face.
The ring I only wear when we’re together.
Never in public.
Not counting when we got hitched in Vegas and spent the weekend there.
Hot tears swell in my eyes.
I cried and cursed him the entire ride here.
I hate myself for how stupid I am.
“What the hell?” he asks.
He knows why I’m angry.
That’s why he told me not to go to the dorm.
Why he asked if she was there.
“You’re sleeping with Margie!” I shout.
“Who?” He rubs his chin, playing stupid while standing in the doorway.
I sweep my arms out, and my voice cracks. “My roommate! You’re screwing her!”
“Keep your fucking voice down,” he hisses.
“Screw you!”
The door swings open wider seconds before he clasps his hand around my elbow and tugs me inside, slamming the door behind us.
“Why would you do this to me?” I shriek, jerking out of his hold. “To us?”
My hands are shaking. My chin is trembling. My mind is racing.
James moves, standing tall in front of me, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Baby, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
No sign of guilt or regret is on his face.
No sign of him feeling apologetic for ripping my heart out of my chest and stomping on it.
No longer do I see the man I fell for.
Now, I see a man with slicked-back dark hair, wearing an expensive button-up and black pants and a phony smile on his face.
James Cordry is a good-looking man in his thirties.
He’s a smooth talker. Successful. Intelligent. A liar.
The perfect storm for a naïve woman searching for love.
I loved him. Opened up to him. Changed myself and broke my values for him.
Did things I’d never thought I’d do—all in the name of love.
I was younger, inexperienced, and allowed him to lead every step in our relationship.
I shove him away when he reaches out and attempts to take my shaking hand in his. “Don’t touch me!”
“Carolina,” he says sharply. “Calm down. Why are you acting so distraught?”
“Why did you tell me you were busier earlier?” I question. “Is it because you were with her?”
“I had a business meeting. It got canceled. I texted you because I wanted to be with the woman I love. The woman who said I do to spending the rest of her life with me.”
“Liar!” I scream, slapping his hand away when he tries to touch me again. My heart knocks against my chest, breaking into pieces, and it takes everything I have in me not to fall apart in front of him. “Just tell me the truth. That’s all I want from you.”
He shrugs. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Tell me! Be honest!”
He drags his hand through his hair. “Nothing to tell, so stop your bitching. I’ve had a long day, and the last thing I need is you coming in, acting like a lunatic.” He shakes his head, his face burning. “Here I thought, I was in love with a grown woman, not a dramatic brat.”
“I’d rather be a dramatic brat than a cheater.” I glare at him in disgust. “We’re done.”
He stares at me, sure of himself, and laughs coldly. “Oh, Carolina, that’s where you’re wrong, baby. We’re not done until I say we’re done.”
“No, James, that’s where you’re wrong,” I argue with a scowl. “I’ll be filing an annulment first thing in the morning.”
A venomous smile crosses his face. “You do that, and I’ll let everyone on campus and your preacher father know what a whore you are.”
I inch forward and smack him across the face.
He winces, rubbing his jaw, but doesn’t back away. “Don’t do that again. That’s your only warning.”
“We’re over.”
He shakes his head. “You’re mine.”
“I was until you cheated on me.” I scoff. “I’m sure she’s not the only one you’ve been with either. I don’t even want to know how many women you’ve screwed behind my back.”
“Nah, she’s the only one, and it’s your fault it happened.”
Startled, I stumble back a step. “Excuse me?”
“You ditched me for your little high school fuck boy. I saw Margie at the coffee shop. I didn’t know she was your roommate until we fucked and she talked about you.”
“Yet you kept screwing her,” I seethe.
He shrugs. “She was good in bed.”
I move forward to smack him again, but he catches my wrist, tightly gripping it so I’m unable to pull away.
“I told you not to do that again,” he growls out.
I’m not strong enough to break his hold. “I told you I want a divorce. Go be with someone else.”
He snorts. “I don’t want someone else.”
I fight him as he pulls me into his living room and shoves me onto his couch. As soon as my butt hits the cushions, I bounce up to leave, but he shoves me back down.
“Please stop,” I whimper. “Let me leave.”
This is a stranger to me—not the James I fell in love with.
My first boyfriend is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Why do you even care if we’re together?” I cry out. “You can find a new girlfriend tonight!”
“You’re different than the others,” he says slowly … gently. “You were made for me. The other women, they wanted the thrill of sleeping with a professor.” He snaps his fingers and points at me, moving his finger up and down over and over again. “You, on the other hand?” He steps in closer, his feet hitting mine as I fight to control my breathing underneath him. “You love me for me.”
“Loved,” I correct. “I’ll figure out a way to forget that stupid marriage ever happened.”
I go to stand again, but he pushes me back down.
“Want to know why we’re not done?”
I break down when he tells me.
Tears. Arguing. Threats.
I spent three hours at James’s house, experiencing all of the above until I promised to keep my mouth shut and he let me leave.
He’s broken me in every way imaginable.
I don’t even know who I am anymore.
As I grew closer with him, I became distant with Rex.
Ignored my parents’ phone calls.
Skipped a few classes.
Tears return at the realization of how dumb I’ve been.
How blind.
As soon as I get into my car, I pull out my phone and find a text from Margie, asking when I’m coming back to the dorm.
I ignore it.
How do I explain this to her?
Tell her we’ve been sleeping with the same man … and I’m his wife?
James made it clear that telling anyone, especially Margie, was a big no-no.
“She’s angry, and she’ll get me in trouble,” was what he said.
“Good,” was my response.
“She spills information; I spill information,” he fired back.
No telling Margie for me.
Putting my car into drive, I go to the o
nly person who can fix me.
Regret barrels through me. If only I’d confessed to Rex during the dozens of times he begged me to tell him who I was dating, he’d have told me I was being stupid, being used, and to leave him.
Maybe I would’ve listened to him.
Too late now.
When James found out Rex was the hack master, he bought me a separate phone to talk to him on in case Rex wanted to look into who I was communicating with. I was betraying Rex in every way imaginable.
I’m sobbing hysterically when I call him in the dead of the night and say I’m outside his dorm.
His voice is sleepy when he tells me he’s coming.
My sobs grow louder, harder, as I run through the rain to the entrance of the dorm, waiting for him … for his comfort.
The door flies open, and Rex’s eyes widen, his lips snarling when he sees me.
Not wasting a second, I run into the arms of my security blanket, of the person who’s been there for me and I know will never break me.
Into the arms of the person I should’ve trusted.
The only man I’ll trust ever again.
My mind is blank as he walks me inside, and I cry in his arms.
“What’s going on?” His chin is trembling in anger. “What the fuck happened? Did someone hurt you?” The arms around me tighten at his last question.
“Not here,” I whisper, burying my face into his neck.
He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist while he walks us up the stairs to his floor. The hallway is empty—thank God—and the light stays off when we land in his dorm room.
His questions start as soon as he drops me onto his bed. “Lina babe, what’s going on?” His voice hardens as he asks the same question he did earlier, “Did someone hurt you?”
“Yes,” I say into the darkness.
“What?”
The air grows heavy, an anger I’ve never seen from Rex surfacing.
“It’s not like that,” I rush out. “No one … hurt me, hurt me.” I cover my face with my hands. “This is embarrassing.”
He falls to his knees and removes my hands, one by one. “I can take embarrassing.” He runs his finger along my jaw, wiping away drops of rain and tears. “Tell me.”
I sniffle, unable to look at him, to see the disgust on his face when I tell him. “You have to promise not to judge me … or get mad.”
“Lina, you know I’ll never judge you for shit. I’ll have your back, no matter what.”
I inhale a deep breath, and my words come out exactly how they did when Margie made her confession with a few word tweaks. “I’m dating a professor.”
“What?” he asks. Even though I can’t make out his face all that well, I can hear the shock in his voice. “Who?”
“Professor Cordry.”
“That motherfucker,” he hisses. “I’m going to kick his ass.”
“No, you can’t,” I sob.
“I can. He took advantage of you.”
Leave it to Rex to think it was all James’s fault, as if I had no play in it.
Everyone sees me as this perfect woman who makes smart decisions. Maybe I am smart, except when it comes to love … to men.
I shake my head. “No … he didn’t. I’m a grown woman.”
“You’re a naïve college student who’s never broken out of her shell,” he fires back. “Big damn difference.”
“We’re the same age—”
He cuts me off, “It’s different.” He rises to his feet, grabs dry clothes, and hands me a shirt. “Get out of those wet clothes.”
I pull my shirt over my head while sniffling before giving it to his hand he has held out. “Oh my God, I’m getting your bed wet.” The realization hits me.
“You’re cool.” He hands me the bottoms next.
I undress underneath the blanket, changing into the dry clothes, and he slides into bed when I’m finished. Some of my sadness wears down when he wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head.
“Everything is okay. You’ll be okay. You’re strong.”
I whisper my confessions to him.
How I met James.
How we hit it off and secretly dated.
How I found out he had been doing the same with Margie.
I don’t tell him about us getting married … or how James will always have the upper hand with me.
I drop out of college.
No one, except Rex, knows why.
I’m terrified of my parents’ reaction.
Rex and Josh moved my things out of the dorm, and I haven’t talked to Margie since the day she told me she was sleeping with James. I feel terrible, but I can’t be around her without feeling guilt, without getting us in trouble.
He has dirt on us both.
I poured bleach on the phone James had bought me and then tossed it in the trash can.
All of this to get rid of him.
It’s not that easy.
He knows my regular phone number. It’s what we talked on until things grew serious.
I move back home to get as far away from James as possible.
There will be space between us, and maybe he’ll forget about me and find someone new.
James thinks I’ll come back to him because if I don’t, he can ruin me.
24
Rex
“Can you repeat that?” I ask, unsure I heard her correctly as my jaw falls slack. “Did you say, you’re married to that asshole?”
My head is spinning as I digest her words.
Her gaze drops to the floor when she nods.
Certain I’m mistaken, I ask again, “You married him?”
“I did,” she whispers, failing to lift her eyes.
Questions hurl through my mind so fast that I struggle to grasp one to throw at her.
“How?” I seethe. “When?”
A heavy, unrecognizable tension consumes the room, and for a moment, I’m not sure she’ll answer.
She blows out a stressed breath, and her eyes are cold and teary when she raises them. I ache to stand and comfort her, wrap her in my arms, but her betrayal stops me. I need answers.
“It was a week before I broke things off with him,” she explains, taking slow steps before collapsing onto the chair next to the couch, her shoulders slumping. “He took me to Vegas for a weekend, and we went clubbing with his friends. I drank a lot, and somehow, marriage came up. It sounded like a good idea at the time. I was alcohol-and love-drunk and thought we’d be together forever.”
“If you were drunk, you can get an annulment. Problem solved.”
She clutches her arms around her chest, and our eye contact is wiped out again when she stares at the floor, releasing a heavy sigh. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Carolina, look at me, damn it,” I snarl, the ache to console her returning. “You file. Sign the papers. It’s done.”
My job as her best friend is to be her rock.
I’ve taken on that role. Loved that role.
I can’t be her rock if she’s hurting me.
My fear of our friendship being ruined has become a reality.
“He threatened to tell my parents,” is her ridiculous reply.
I scoff. “Did you think no one would find out about your marital bliss? Why’d you tie the knot if you had to keep it a secret?”
“Our plan was to wait until he was no longer my professor. Until then, we kept it low-key.”
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Those beautiful, deceitful eyes of hers widen. “Wow. Really, Rex?”
“Yes, really.” I scrub my hand over my face. “Why do you care about your parents? You won’t be the first person to divorce someone. They won’t like it, but they’ll get over it.”
“He …” She hesitates. “He said he’d grant me a divorce if …”
I wait for her to finish but get silence. “If what?”
She
swallows a few times. “If I stay away from you for a year and try to work things out with him.”
“Are you kidding me?” I shake my head, anger burning through me. “Scratch my earlier statement. That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.” My temples throb. “Are you considering it?”
A sharp pain runs through me at her lack of response. Even with what my father put our family through, I’ve never been so hurt.
“I don’t know what I’m considering!” she cries out. “All of this has just been thrown at me! I need to get my head straight. I just need time!”
“Time?” I fire back. “How long? A year, like he’s asking?”
“I never said that’s what I want,” she chokes out. “I said, he gave me that option.”
“Fuck this.” I stand and pull my keys from my pocket. “Someone needs to set this asshole straight.”
That someone being me.
I should’ve done this a long time ago.
“No!” she shrieks, jumping up from the chair and scurrying behind me, grabbing my elbow and attempting to pull me back into the living room.
I jerk out of her hold. “I’ll fix this for you. I promise.”
“Don’t threaten him,” she whimpers around her plea. “Please leave him alone. We can act like he doesn’t exist, and eventually, he’ll get tired of me and go about his way.”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “If he doesn’t? Will you stay married to him?”
Nothing makes sense.
Why does she give so many fucks about divorcing him?
I need answers.
Carolina won’t give them to me; therefore, I’ll get them from James.
I’ll fix this.
She dashes in front of me when I start walking again, blocks me from the door, and takes my face in her hands. “Don’t leave me.” Her lips tenderly brush mine. “I need you with me, Rex.”
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I grind out against her mouth, my teeth catching on to her lower lip.
“Please,” she begs, pulling away an inch before rubbing her thumb over my lips. “Do whatever you want tomorrow, but tonight, I need you. The man who’ll never turn his back on me. You—your love, your security, your arms around me.”
Tears slip down her cheeks, hitting her thumb and my lip.
Just Friends (Blue Beech) Page 20