by Sophia Ryan
“I can’t live here after what you did. I can’t even look at you without wanting to hurt you.” She shrugged Zoe’s hand off and moved back to the closet for her shoes, but Zoe wrapped her arms around her, not letting her move.
“You can’t go!” Tears streamed from Zoe’s panic-stricken eyes. “I love you. Don’t leave me. Please!”
Kristin broke her grip and pushed her aside.
Zoe collapsed onto her bed and curled up in a ball, crying, begging her, over and over, not to go.
Kristin packed enough to last until she could come back for the rest of her things when Zoe wasn’t there. She zipped her suitcase, lifted it onto the floor, grabbed her backpack, and headed for the door.
“Oh, God, Kristin, don’t go!” Zoe jumped off the bed and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Please!”
Kristin stared down at her. “How do you feel right now, knowing that I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop it?”
“I feel like I’m dying inside.”
“That’s how I feel, too, because Sean broke up with me. It’s how I feel because there’s nothing I can do or say to convince him to take me back. What makes it even worse is that it was my best friend who helped bring this pain down on me.”
“I’m so sorry! I’ll fix it. If I can fix it with Sean, will you stay?”
Kristin shook her head. “It can’t be fixed. He said so.”
“I can’t live without you.”
“You’ll have to learn because we’re done.”
Kristin stepped out of Zoe’s grip, opened the door, and walked out, closing the door behind her. She heard Zoe’s wild cries all the way down the hall. Only with the closing of the elevator door did they stop.
****
Sean jolted up in bed at the pounding on his door and grabbed his phone. Bleary eyes scanned the time, barely four in the morning. He cursed the early visitor.
“I’m not leaving, so you might as well open the fucking door.”
The shouted words were slurred, but he recognized Zoe’s voice. She’d wake the whole damned dorm if he didn’t answer. He flipped on the lamp before crawling out of bed, storming to the door, and flinging it open.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Get out of my fucking way and I’ll tell you.” Zoe pushed the door open and stumbled past him into the room.
She smelled like she’d showered with tequila and looked like she’d been tossed by a couple of wind storms. Her normally styled hair was in wild disarray, a big hole in the knee of her leggings showed smears of blood, and her unbuttoned sweater hung off her bare shoulders, giving her no protection from the biting cold weather.
She tripped over her own drunken feet and fell to the floor on hands and knees. She was laughing so hard she could barely move but managed to roll over and sit up.
Sean picked her up and set her down on his desk chair, then pulled the throw off his bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her skin felt like ice, and her lips held a blue tinge. He shook his head as he stepped away from her. Arms crossed over his chest, he glared at her.
She glared back, her eyes traveling up and down his nearly naked body. “You know, I hate your guts, but Kristin was right…you’re totally hot, and I can see why she was horny for you twenty-four/seven.”
The sounds of a crowd forming outside his door made him turn around. Mason, Randy, and several other guys from the floor had gathered in his doorway.
“Mason, Randy, get in here. Rest of you, go back to your rooms.” He thought it would be a good idea to have witnesses, seeing that he had a drunken woman in his room at four-fucking-o-three in the morning.
Mason and Randy, shivering in their boxer shorts, T-shirts, and bare feet, shuffled inside blinking their sleepy eyes at the light. Sean shut the door.
“Mason.” A smiling Zoe started to rise from the chair, but the movement seemed to make her dizzy because she plopped back into the seat. “I miss you. I never shoulda broke up with you. Come kiss me.” She listed to the right and almost fell out of the chair, but Randy, who was closer, rushed to her and caught her.
She looked at the hand on her arm and followed it up to the worried face above her. “You dick. You broke our deal.”
Randy jerked his hand away and moved back to stand by Mason, crossing his arms over his chest.
“What’s she talking about?” Sean glared at Randy. “What deal?”
Randy shrugged like he didn’t know, but his wide eyes told another story. “She’s fucking drunk, man. She’s doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Mason stepped forward and knelt in front of Zoe, taking her hand in his. “Zoe, what—”
“Oh, Mason. Mason. I love you soooo much.” She leaned in to kiss him, but he dodged her sloppy alcohol-soaked mouth.
“What are you doing at Sean’s at four in the morning?” he asked.
“Sean? Oh…the fucker.” She stood, but her legs weren’t cooperating. She swayed, falling into Mason. Her hand moved to her head. “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to…” Her hand moved to her mouth.
Sean grabbed the trash can and handed it to Mason, who sat Zoe back down and put the can between her knees.
“God, I feel like shit,” she said after the moment passed.
“How much have you had to drink?” Sean asked, eyeing the pallor of her face.
Zoe’s bleary eyes found Sean across the room, and she took in his angry stare. “Not enough,” she responded. “I can still…feel.”
Drinking to kill the pain. That was something he knew about since losing Kristin. Sean shifted on his cold feet, staring at them instead at the eyes that were burning a hole in him. “Why are you here?”
“I did it.”
“Did what?”
“I broke up you and Kristin.”
His face tightened, and his arms dropped to his side and into balled fists. “Did she send you here? Well, it’s not going to work. I’m not taking her back, no matter what you confess to.” He opened the door and motioned for her to leave. “Go back to her and tell her—”
“Kristin didn’t send me here. She…” Zoe hiccupped once, her face scrunched up, and tears flooded out of her eyes. “She’s gone,” she moaned.
Panic sliced through Sean and forced the question from his mouth in spite of his efforts to hold it back. He shut the door. “Gone where?”
“I don’t know,” she said, wiping her tears and her runny nose on her sleeve. “I don’t know,” she said again, the words filled with panic, right before she leaned into the trash can and threw up.
Mason held her hair back for her, then pulled off his shirt and gently wiped her mouth and tear-streaked face when she was done expelling the alcohol her body hadn’t absorbed.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Mason turned angry eyes to Sean. “Leave her alone. She’s not in any condition to answer a bunch of questions. I’m taking her to my room.” He held her around the shoulders and helped her to her feet.
“She came to my fucking door!” Sean bellowed. “She’s not going anywhere until I know why.”
Mason sat her back down, but kept one arm around her in a protective stance Sean half admired, considering she’d dumped him and, hell, cheated on him with Kristin.
“She found out about my plan and she packed her things and left. She hates me! Says she can’t even look at me.”
“Your plan?” Sean asked.
Her gaze zagged to Randy, who looked away and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“Zoe, what plan?” Sean repeated.
She looked back to Sean when he barked at her and answered him sharply. “Kristin was mine before you came along. We studied together, partied together, ate together, worked out together, had the hottest sex together. We were happy until you ruined everything!”
Mason was the only one in the room stunned by Zoe’s confession. He dropped his arm from her shoulders and rounded on her. “You and Kris were lovers?” He turned away,
putting his hands on his stomach as if he were going to be sick. He turned back to her. “You’re a lesbian?”
“No, I’m not a lesbian. I just…I like sex. I love you…and I love Kristin. And she used to love me until Sean came along.” She said his name like a curse.
Mason stumbled away from her and slid down the wall onto the floor, his head in his hands, trying to absorb this biting new reality.
“Okay, so you don’t like me much,” Sean said, prompting her to continue and not get sidetracked. “I get that. What did you do about it?”
“I thought of a way to break you guys up so I could have her to myself again. And it would have worked if somebody hadn’t sold me out.” Her eyes shot venomous darts at Randy, who wilted under her assault.
“What was your part in this?” Sean stared down at the slighter and shorter man who looked like he wanted to disappear into the wall.
“She said you were the only thing in the way of me having Kristin to myself. So I agreed to help her break you guys up. Plus she offered me sex.” His eyes darted to Mason, who looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of him. “Sorry. She’s really persuasive. And scary.”
“We know what she did for you. What did you do for her?” Sean asked.
“Told you about that video of her and Kristin.”
“So it came from her?” His chin pointed to Zoe.
Randy nodded.
“Did you tell anyone else about it? Show it to anyone?”
Randy looked like he’d been insulted. “No. I would never do that to Kristin.”
Sean turned back to Zoe, who was all but falling asleep in the chair. “Zoe!”
Her eyes popped open and found his.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I have to stop the pain.” She clawed at her chest and stomach and started crying again. “When Kristin left, I told her I felt like I was dying. She said that’s how she felt when you left her. How could you do that to her, you bastard! She loves you so much. She thought you loved her, too. She said you were the one.”
Sean knew the ache of betrayal, the feeling of wanting to die because it would stop the pain. “If she loved me so fucking much, she wouldn’t have cheated on me,” he shouted.
“You’re an ass!” she yelled back then laughed. “That video was from the day after you walked her home from Randy’s. Can you believe it? She’d known you a few hours—hadn’t even gone on a date with you yet—and she wanted you. She was already fantasizing about making love with you. She was already…”
Zoe’s breath caught in her lungs at the words she had to say. “She was already falling in love with you. It was my hands, my mouth, that made her come, and she called out your name! You wouldn’t take care of her, but I did.” She poked a finger against her chest. “I did. And she still wanted you more.”
“Did she have sex with you after that?”
She covered her mouth with her hand as if she were going to be sick again. “I tried to…after your breakfast, after your stupid walk in the rain, after the night of the movie…” She shook her head as if trying to fling away the memory.
The night of the movie—the first time he’d touched and tasted her delicious breasts.
“She told me no. Said she was with you and wouldn’t cheat on the man she loved.”
Sean felt a tingling in his body and a weight lifting as the numbness began to melt slowly away. His heart raced at the glimmer of hope that Zoe spoke the truth. “Why should I believe you? This is probably another lie you two cooked up to make me look like an arse.”
“You hurt her, bad, and you are an ass for it—but I know you did it because of what I did. I know exactly how she’s feeling, and how you’re feeling, because I feel that way too. And it sucks. I want to fix it so none of us feels this way anymore.”
“If by ‘fix it’ you mean getting Kristin and me back together, it’s not going to happen.”
“Fuck, Sean!” Randy exploded from the corner. “Quit being so damned stubborn. If Kristin loved me the way she loves you, I’d do anything—forgive anything—to keep her in my life. Do you want your pride or do you want an awesome woman who’s beautiful and kind and hot and loves you more than…Do you know what she told me? She was crying her head off and she said she loved you more than her next breath. Shit, I almost fuckin’ cried. Sometimes you can’t have absolute proof about things, you just have to trust. If you can’t see how much she loves you and how lucky you are, then you don’t deserve her.”
“They’re right,” added Mason from his spot on the floor. “Kris is the most caring and honest person I know. She’d never betray or intentionally hurt anyone, especially someone she loves. She loves you and you broke her heart for it. If you ask me, she’s better off without you.” He stood and pointed to Zoe. “Can I take her home now, or did you want to torture her a little more?”
“She cheated on you, dumped you for no reason, and treated you like shit. How can you just forgive her like nothing happened?”
“It’s what you do when you love someone.” He picked Zoe up, cradled her in his arms, and carried her to the door.
Randy opened it for him and followed him out. He paused just outside the doorway and turned back.
“You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t fix things with Kristin,” he said.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten the part you played in this.” Sean added.
“No, I didn’t think you had.”
Randy shuffled next door to his room, giving Sean time to absorb everything he’d heard.
A different intensity of pain sliced through his body. Guilt. Remorse. Regret. Shame. That he was so quick to toss Kristin aside after all they’d meant to each other. That he didn’t trust in the love they shared. That he wasn’t even willing to consider her point of view.
He shut and locked his door and climbed back into bed. He was no fool. He realized that Zoe could be lying, even though her slurred, emotion-filled words rang of truth. Kristin had showed him her love in so many ways, in and out of bed. Maybe he had taken that love for granted. Hearing Mason and Randy and Zoe describe her love for him certainly shined a whole new light on it.
She loved him. Hadn’t cheated on him. He believed it. He felt it. And his heart swelled at the truth confronting him.
As the sun rose over the Sandia mountains, so too did the solution that would rid him of his pain. He would win her back. He could live without his pride, but he couldn’t live without Kristin.
Chapter Seventeen
Kristin moved into a one-bedroom apartment in the University-run housing complex for married and grad students. It felt odd not having a roommate, but being alone would give her the time she needed to work on her thesis and to work on mending her broken and battered heart. It would never be as whole as it was before Sean, Zoe, and Randy had their way with it, but it could be better than it was now, which was full of cracks and eaten away by the acid of grief.
There were days when all she did was go to class, come home, and cry. Sean was the last thing she thought about before going to sleep and the first thing she thought of when she woke. He filled her dreams almost every night.
She planned out every word she would say if he called and asked her to forgive him and take him back. When the break up was new, her response was a desperate and immediate yes. As she got used to being alone, her response was an angrier, “how can I trust you again.” After almost a week had passed since she confronted him, with no word from him, she no longer thought about what she would say because she was sure the call would never come.
They were truly over, and it was time she took his advice and began the painful first steps of moving on.
****
Sean’s finger hovered over Kristin’s name in his phone list. Call her, you coward, he taunted. Apologize. Beg her to forgive you and take you back. He pulled in a shaky breath, released it, and hit send. It rang and went straight to voice mail.
Even though he had rehearsed what he woul
d say when he talked to her, had a response for just about every argument she might come up with to not see him, when the tone to leave a message sounded, he suddenly couldn’t remember one word of it.
“Kri…” His voice died on her name, his throat so dry he couldn’t swallow. He covered the phone and cleared his throat, trying again. “Kristin, it’s Sean. We should talk—I mean, I’d like to talk to you about…us. Meet me tomorrow after your class at that coffee shop in the library…you know, the one we went to after our walk.”
****
Kristin’s heart beat so fast it propelled her feet forward faster than her brain could command her to turn and run away. Her stomach spun as her eyes searched frantically for Sean’s face in the crowd of coffee addicts occupying the dozen or so tables in the small shop. She heard her name and looked toward the area in the back, where several couches and coffee tables offered space for more leisurely sipping and conversation.
When her eyes found his, the breath left her lungs in one whoosh. The welcoming look in his gaze brought it back and lifted the corners of her mouth into a tentative half-smile, though she didn’t quite have the confidence to make it a real one. She dug her thumbnail into the flesh of her finger, the pain ensuring her this was no dream. Her pulse buzzed in her ears and in her head, rejoicing but scared shitless in the moment.
Sean moved toward her, and she toward him. They met in the middle of the room and stopped, facing each other, trying to read the emotions hidden behind eyes locked tight.
“Hi,” he said.
He looked happy to see her. “Hi,” she responded, cautious but happy.
“How are you, darlin’?”
He called her darlin’! But could she trust him? “Fine. You?”
“Better now that you’re here.”
His hand cupped her face. Joy rushed through her at his touch and sped up her heart. She breathed in sharply and whispered his name.
As if that were the signal, they rushed into each other’s arms, their mouths fitting and mating, pouring out the love—the hunger—they had stored up since being apart.
When someone bumped them and muttered, “Get a room,” they parted. Smiling, his eyes shining, he took her hand and led her back to the spot he’d claimed on the couch for them. They settled down onto the worn cushions next to each other and kissed again.
