“I know what you asked me.” I tried to sound angry, but it didn’t work. My own voice sounded foreign to me. I heard a higher-pitched, more terrified version of myself. “I want to know why you would even think to ask me that.”
“Because a reliable source said that he saw you go under the fucking bridge with Owen right after I left, and when he went to find Owen, that prick had your fucking underwear in his pocket and was bragging about how you finally gave it up to him.”
As soon as he said it, I lost all hope for what could have been. The accusing look in his eye. The cold, hard stare burning a hole right through me. The way I felt like a slut under his gaze, even though I hadn’t done a single thing to deserve such a look. What I believed Jake and I had didn’t really exist after all. His look told me that. He’d heard a fucking rumor from some ignorant asshole friend of Owen’s—like the rumors I hear every day—and he assumed it was true. He believed I was capable of betraying him so easily. I felt my walls going up. I was building it, brick by fucking brick. The old Abby was being put back into place. Part of me was heartbroken about it, but part of me couldn’t help but feel relieved. Deep inside, no matter how much faith I let myself have in Jake, somehow I’d known this moment would come eventually.
I just didn’t think it would’ve come so soon.
“So that’s what you really think of me?” I said in almost a whisper, sinking down to the curb of the sidewalk.
Pelicans dove behind us for live bait in the fisherman's buckets. Children laughed hysterically when they pulled up pin fish on their lines. People buzzed by on scooters, the inexperienced drivers spinning past us without so much as a glance in our direction. It was like we weren’t even there, like none of it was really happening. All around us, life was still going on. But inside, it felt as though my heart had just stopped. It stood as still as Jake did.
“Just answer the fucking question.” His voice was angry, but there was something pleading about it, too. He wanted the truth but only on his terms. He wanted me to tell him that I hadn’t done anything and that he had nothing to worry about. He wanted me to tell him it would all be okay.
But, beneath that, he doubted me. He doubted us. He questioned it even though I had freely given him all of me.
Every broken part of me was his.
Somehow he thought that after what we’d had together the night he left, I could run to the nearest bed —Owen Fletcher’s bed — and dive right in.
It dawned on me then why this was so significant. Why I couldn’t just tell him it hadn’t happened and move on.
I had been questioned by people my entire life.
Nobody had ever believed my word as the truth. No matter what happened to me—even the most unthinkable things. When I’d told anyone about them, nobody had ever trusted that what I was saying wasn’t a lie.
I’d thought Jake was different than everyone else. I thought what we had was actual trust.
I was wrong.
The clouds released the first of the afternoon rain, soft at first then harder, until sheets poured between us. Tourists screeched and scattered for shelter. Jake and I just stood there and stared at one another, the water dripping off of us as if it wasn’t happening, either.
“Abby, just tell me!” He was frustrated now. His forehead was furrowed, and his eyes looked hurt and concerned, but his voice sounded like pure vinegar.
“I would never do that to you.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I couldn’t believe he would ask me that, after everything I’d shared with him.
The rain concealed my tears. I looked down at my boots to compose myself.
“You can believe whatever you want,” I told him.
“I want to believe the truth,” Jake said.
But, it was the truth. Whether he believed it or not.
“No, you don’t. You heard a rumor, and you immediately believed that I fucked Owen.” I shook my head. “You doubt me. I let my walls down with you. I showed you how much you meant to me. I told you things I’ve never told anyone else.” My voice cracked. “I showed you my scars.”
He would be the last person to see them.
“Doesn’t matter, though. A few minutes after you ride back into town, you accuse me of screwing someone else. You don’t know me like I thought you did. You’re not who I thought you were.” I didn’t wait for him to answer. I just started walking past him, toward the apartment.
“Bee.” He grabbed my elbow. I looked up at him so I could see his beautiful sapphire blue eyes for what I imagined was going to be one last time. His lips were tight and his grip on my arm was even tighter.
I shook him off and kept on walking.
I was glad for the rain now, to cover my tears so Jake couldn’t see them. He didn’t deserve my tears. He didn’t deserve my pain, or the faith that I’d placed in him.
I heard his boots on the gravel trailing behind me.
“Bee!” he yelled.