The Truth About Us

by Megan D. Martin

Now, as I looked at her, I could see the same thing in her bleached hair and fake tan – she was gorgeous and simple.

  I don’t need that anymore.

  I think I’d known this truth for a while, but I hadn’t wanted to let go of my crutch – Evie. She was my vindication brought by my success. Proof that I had moved on with my life. I owned my own business, I had a nice new apartment, and a beautiful new girlfriend. I had my shit together – I wasn’t some pathetic asshole who was still stuck on the girl who’d stomped all over his heart.

  “I’m sure there are a bunch of guys who want you, Evie. I mean, fuck, you bring them up enough. Maybe you should call them.” I jerked the car door open.

  “What the fuck, Tyler? What are you – are you breaking up with me?” Her voice was shrill, angry.

  I sighed. “Yeah, looks like it.” I sat down.

  “What? No!” She stepped in between the door and the car so I couldn’t close it. “No one fucking breaks up with me!”

  Again, I shrugged.

  “Is that all you know how to do – fucking shrug your shoulders? Wait a minute.” She paused. “This is about that bitch you dated, isn’t it? You’re breaking up with me for her, aren’t you?”

  I chuckled like a fucking asshole. It didn’t matter that all I wanted to do was leave this parking lot so I could be inside Rowan. The reason I was breaking up with Evie didn’t really have to do with that. I had never looked at her as something long term, just someone to occupy my time with until I didn’t want to anymore, and that time was now.

  “Are you laughing? Seriously? You’re a fucking asshole. Screw you, Tyler!” She stormed off across the parking lot toward her car. I watched her go. She wasn’t sad, or heartbroken, even. I knew that, I could tell. There was no sadness in her, only rage that she was the one being dumped.

  I knew I should probably feel at least a little bit bad, but I didn’t. Instead I pulled out my phone.

  Tyler: You home?

  Rowan: Yup.

  I smiled and put my car in gear.

  Rowan

  Breathless, I laid on my bed as Tyler rolled off me, my body still tingling from my orgasm. I couldn’t lie, I’d been disappointed earlier today when I hadn’t received a text for our usual lunch interlude. I’d worn new teal panties. This, however, had made up for it. I hadn’t expressed my disappointment or told him about the panties. No, those were feelings – things lovers expressed. Tyler and I were not lovers. We were fuck buddies, something significantly different.

  I didn’t look at him now that the sex was over. This was where he climbed out of my bed, got dressed, and left – our normal. It’s what I did when our roles were reversed at his place. However, he didn’t get up right away. Instead, he laid next to me, wholly nude, breathing heavily. I frowned up at my ceiling, taking several breaths before glancing over at him. He too stared up at the ceiling.

  When we were together like this, I made sure not to look at him too closely, not to take in any details. After all, those were the exact things that didn’t matter. Though right now, with his eyes cast upward, and his half sleeve of tattoos only inches from my face, I allowed myself to have a quick look. I’d been curious about them since I saw him at the bar all those months ago, back when it was still hot and dry out. They’d only been peeking out of his shirtsleeve then, but now they were on full display.

  A dragon stared back at me from his skin. Correction – a woman with the scales and wings of a dragon peered at me with her angry, fire-red eyes. Her gray-scaled body encircled his bicep. In fact, she was entirely black and white, save for her red eyes. She was the main attraction on his arm, but the tattoo artist made her appear like she had ripped her way out of his skin with her claws. Behind her, black and white muscle and bone had been inked in, as if she had exposed it in her desperation to escape. Just there, in that exposed part, I noticed words. If I hadn’t been so close, I probably wouldn’t have seen them; they were almost an optical illusion mixed in with the torn muscles.

  Never look back.

  I sucked in a breath. He’d spoken those words to me at the concert right before everything had fallen apart again.

  “There’s this voice in my head, Rowan, it’s telling me not to look back. Never look back, but I can’t seem to fucking help it when it comes to you.”

  I glanced back at the dragon, her long hair was braided and blowing in the wind behind her. A knot formed in my throat.

  “What is it?” Tyler asked, forcing my gaze away from his tattoo and back up to the ceiling.

  I cleared my throat. “Uh, nothing. Just looking at your tattoo.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “She’s something else isn’t she? I always wanted a tattoo, but couldn’t decide.”

  I glanced back at Tyler. He had his chin tipped down looking at the tattoo.

  “It’s nice. What made you decide on the dragon?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

  His eyes met mine and I could see it there. His answer. The truth of why, of who. He didn’t have to say it out loud.

  Why is he still here?

  He should have left already. We weren’t supposed to talk – that wasn’t part of this.

  He swallowed and looked away from me. “I broke up with Evie today.”

  I sucked in a breath, still staring at the stubble on his face. “Why are you telling me this?”

  I didn’t want to know these things – the intimacies of his life. These things – they’re what caused complications before. I didn’t want that. I wanted things to remain the same.

  “I don’t know.” He sighed.

  I looked away from him.

  Why are you still here? I wanted to ask. I didn’t though. Instead, something else came out of my mouth. “I’m moving soon.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Dad’s house. Once I get done cleaning and going through things, I’m going to move in there.”

  “He’d be glad you were coming home.”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think so too.” The lump in my throat seemed to swell even larger.

  Silence filled the air. That awkward silence, the one we hadn’t suffered through since our fuck buddy relationship began.

  “I should go,” Tyler said after what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t respond, just stayed in bed until he was gone, the resounding thud of my front door slamming a confirmation.

  I hated the tears, the ones that leaked from the corners of my eyes now that he was gone. All I could see was the she-dragon, ripping through his skin with her red eyes and her braid. Never again.

  Me. The tattoo was me. I didn’t know why I was so affected by this, by our short-lived conversation, but I was. There was an ache in my soul I couldn’t understand or explain. I tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t leave.

  It lingered there with red eyes.

  “Bro, can we talk?”

  I poked my head out from under the car I was working on. Vic stood over me, an ominous look on his face. I frowned.

  “Sure, man, everything okay?”

  He didn’t respond, just waited for me to move and follow him. We went to the back of the shop to the empty break room.

  “Look,” he sighed. “I don’t want to be the person to tell you this shit, but before I do, I’m gonna tell you, you should have listened to me a long time ago.”

  I cocked my head, and chuckled nervously. “What the fuck are you talking about, man?”

  He shook his head, like he hated this whole situation.

  What situation? I wondered.

  “I saw a video a little bit ago. It’s so messed up, man. It’s… shit, I’m just sorry.”

  “I don’t understand, Vic.” I shook my head. “A video of what?”

  “A video of Rowan.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  He pulled out his phone and made a few clicks and handed it to me. “I thought I should be the one to show you, and not Darren. Because he’s going to.”

  A video played. Two p
eople were kissing in a bedroom. A beefy, broad dude had his back to the camera, a huge cross tattooed on his back. I recognized it immediately, Darren’s tattoo. His hands were all over the woman in front of him. He had her pressed against the wall, until he moved back and turned toward the camera to do something, but my gaze didn’t stay on him. Instead it was glued to the woman who wore only a bra and panties, a long side-braid trailing over her shoulder. Her eyes were half open. Eyes I knew.

  Rowan’s.

  “What the fuck is this?” I glanced between Vic and the video.

  “I’m sorry, man. Darren has been sending it out to everyone, saying he filmed it the other day.”

  “No.” I shook my head, feeling pressure behind my eyes. “That’s not real.” I shoved the phone at him.

  Vic’s eyes were wide. “Ty, you saw it man, it’s her. It’s Rowan. She’s been cheating on you with Darren.”

  I knew that’s what I’d seen on the video, my eyes had watched their bodies touch, their mouths. I fucking saw it. It couldn’t be true.

  “No. She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Tyler, come on. You even said that she’s been acting off for months now.”

  “Yeah, but last night…” Last night had been different. We had been together. We’d had dinner. We’d been intimate in ways we never had before. “No, she wouldn’t do this.”

  “Bro, don’t deny yourself the truth. Fucking look at it.” He shoved the phone back in my face. They were naked now, in the video, their bodies pressed together, Darren tugging on her braid. Rowan’s fucking braid.

  I jerked my head away. I couldn’t. I couldn’t watch it. But I couldn’t deny it either. Pain exploded in my chest. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, a tray of plasticware by the sink, and hurled it against the wall, sending white utensils everywhere.

  Vic tried to say something more, but I didn’t hear him. It was like all sound had been blocked out as my heart pounded in my chest, shredding a little more with each beat. I pushed out of the break room and into the shop. Darren stood not far away at the side of his bay. He leaned against the wall, talking to another tech and drinking an energy drink. He saw me coming before I reached him; a foul smirk covered his face.

  “What’s up, Tyler?” But he knew what was up – his face said it all.

  “You better not have fucking touched her!” I got right in his face.

  “Oh yeah, you think you’re the only one that can tap that pussy?” He chuckled. “I’ve been fucking her for months, bro, and she’s been loving every single minute of it.”

  Months?

  Rage erupted from somewhere deep inside me, driving me to incoherency. The next thing I remembered was pain, a horrible ache in my face and head. I tasted blood in my mouth. Darren leaned against that same wall, his body sagging, his hand pressed against a bleeding wound on his cheek. People talked all around us. Arms held me back, but I wasn’t fighting them anymore. I let them pull me outside into the parking lot.

  “Go the fuck home and cool off.” George’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Now!”

  I didn’t speak. I didn’t say anything else. I just continued to taste my blood and feel the ache in my face, but it was nothing compared to the one in my chest.

  I’d been home for almost two hours by the time the front door of our apartment opened, revealing Rowan in the doorway. I’d been pacing non-stop since the second I walked in. I wanted to call her – I wanted her to help me make sense of what I saw, but I didn’t. I couldn’t talk to her on the phone. I needed to see her in person. I needed to hear the words from her mouth, to see her eyes.

  She frowned when she saw me. “What happened to you?” She sat her bag and purse down by the door, and came forward, her hands immediately going to my face. I didn’t know how bad it was. I hadn’t looked in the mirror, hadn’t bothered to clean away the dried blood.

  “What’s happened?” I jerked back from her touch. “I think you know what’s happened.” Her gaze widened, panic and horror covering her features.

  I knew it then, of course, the video should have been enough proof, but I had expected her to look surprised, shocked, outraged and then to prove to me, some way, somehow that what I saw on that video wasn’t true.

  “You’ve been fucking him. Darren?” I said his name as a question because I couldn’t believe it. To cheat on me, I didn’t understand that, but with him of all people?

  She swallowed, her face paling. She fiddled with the end of her braid. “Tyler, I…”

  “No, don’t fucking do that. Don’t try to let me down easy. I saw what you fucking did! I watched that bullshit.” The images came back. His hands on her, until they were naked, kissing…I couldn’t take it. I shoved the closest barstool. It fell over with a loud thunk on the tile floor.

  “I’m sorry.” Her words were small, quiet.

  I turned back to her. She was crying now, tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, now you’re going to cry? What the fuck do you have to cry about, huh? You’ve been having your cake and eating it too.” I nodded, my head bobbing up and down like a maniac. “And all this fucking time, I’ve been working late, trying to keep my shit together and my job intact so he wouldn’t fuck with my shit. You were in on that too, weren’t you?” I flexed my fists. “I’ll bet you laid together in his bed, or, fuck – our bed, laughing about it, didn’t you? About how I was so freaked out that I was logging ridiculous amounts of hours just to make sure he wasn’t fucking up my shit. I bet in all your extra free time away from me, you were with him, weren’t you? That’s probably why he did it. Right? You knew how much pride I put into my work.” I pointed my finger at her. “You knew I wouldn’t quit because of this, because of you, because of your dad and our relationship. You fucking counted on it, didn’t you? You manipulative bitch!” I shouted the last words at her. She cried harder now, not looking at me, just looking down at the floor.

  I had expected her to interrupt me while I filled in all the gaps. I expected her to correct me, to tell me I was wrong about all those things. She didn’t.

  “So, I’m right, aren’t I? About all of it.”

  Rowan didn’t respond right away, her shoulders shaking with her sobbing.

  “Fucking tell me! Answer me! You owe me that much!”

  “I-it’s true.” The words came out a harsh sob ripping through the air and strangling that last little thread that held my heart together.

  Tears pressed at the back of my eyelids for the first time in years. Everything had been a sham – almost three years of relationship was all made up of lies. I thought back to that day I saw her, that first day in the hot parking lot. I could still remember the way the heat pressed down on my shoulders, the way she moved, the way my heart sped up, the way I fell in love with just a look. I’d been foolish then, stupid, and even more so now. She’d been gone, distant now for months, but I had hung on to that love I’d felt since the moment I laid eyes on her. That love was supposed to be enough. I was going to love her through whatever she had been going through. It turned out she had been going through Darren this whole time, fucking him while she was with me.

  My heart took another smack when I realized what that meant. I had been Rowan’s first and I had planned to be her last, her only. That wasn’t true anymore, maybe it had never been true, maybe it had all been lies.

  “This is over.” I grabbed my wallet off the bar.

  “I know,” she whispered just as I reached the door.

  She didn’t even want to fight for it, she didn’t even want to deny what she’d done to save face. “I’ll be back tomorrow, when you’re gone, to get my things.”

  “Tyler.”

  I turned back around, not recognizing the stranger who stood in front of me.

  “At least let me clean up your face before you leave.”

  “Fuck you.” I slammed the door of the apartment with such finality that I felt in my soul.

  My fingers gripped the steering wheel as I drove toward Tyler’s apartment. I
t had been three days since our last fuck buddy meet-up in my apartment, when I had looked at his tattoo and things got awkward. I hadn’t heard from him since then, and I hadn’t attempted to contact him either, at least not until tonight. It was Saturday and I’d hoped to hang out with Stacie, but she and Chad were having a date night. I’d decided to spend the night in with Ranger, a pastime I used to love, but tonight I couldn’t seem to sit still. I was antsy.

  Finally, I decided it was because of the uncertainty the other night had left between Tyler and me. I didn’t want our fuck buddy relationship to end – not yet, and not because of old feelings. Things had been going just fine until he decided to stay. Staying was never the answer, not when two people were just fucking.

  I wanted that back – the simplicity, the running from old men at dilapidated mills. I needed it. My text asking to come over to his apartment had been answered right away with an affirmative. As I made my way there now, I realized how abnormal this drive was. Tyler lived about ten minutes from my apartment, not too far, and in a much nicer complex. The whole trip seemed foreign to me, even though I had made it several times over the last few weeks. Even though the sex had become a staple of my days, the fact that it was Tyler and he lived in some ritzy apartments still hadn’t completely settled in my mind.

  As I made my way to his third floor apartment, I ran my hand along the black iron bannister, smooth under my fingertips. My heart pounded with excitement. The last few days had held a lot of uncertainty. I had missed this rush of meeting up with Tyler.

  He answered the door on the first knock. I sucked in a breath at the sight of him. He was shirtless, only wearing his low jeans, the tops of his boxer briefs peeking out from his waistband. He held a cup in his hand. “About time.” He stepped back so I could come in.

  “Didn’t take too long, only ten minutes.”

  He didn’t respond to my comment, instead moving around me to sit on his gray sectional couch. This was unusual. Usually, the moment the door opened we were on each other, pulling off clothes and getting to the good stuff.