The whole place is waking from Jake’s anger and I see the place start to empty of people, leaving just me and him.
But they don’t matter to me. The girl doesn’t matter to me. Nothing matters anymore. Because I’ve just lost the one thing that did truly ever matter.
Everything now is inconsequential.
Jake’s hands are in his hair, he’s pacing the floor. He looks like he’s in physical pain.
“I didn’t even know she was in here. I swear.” I’m not sure if he’s talking to me, or himself right now.
I still can’t seem to feel anything. It’s as if the agony of seeing him in bed with her was so severe, the instant it hit my vision, my body instinctively shut down.
“I didn’t sleep with her, Tru.” He’s standing before me again. “I swear to you. On everything I love, I swear I did not sleep with her. You have to believe me.” His voice is desperate.
I drag my eyes to his, my mind still frozen, suspended in this horrific time zone he’s trapped me in.
“Say something, please.” His voice begs me.
My eyes move from him, over to the messed up sheets on the bed.
I feel a tear trickle out of the corner of my eye.
“No, Tru, no! You have to listen to me – I didn’t have sex with her. I swear to you. After we fought and you left, I was so angry, but then I calmed down, and I missed you so much, and I wanted to tell you how sorry I was – that I love you – that I would do whatever you wanted me to – I’d go to rehab if it meant keeping you in my life. But I didn’t know where you were – no one did, and I couldn’t call you on your cell because I was a dumb fuck and I broke it. So I took the car and drove around the city for hours, looking everywhere trying to find you – but you were nowhere – and I was getting so worried, so I came back here to the hotel, and I sat in the bar facing the lobby, waiting for you to come back.”
“But you didn’t come. And I sat there for hours drinking, and watching the door, waiting, and I was going out of my mind over you, and then before I knew it I was drunk, and these people had joined me in the bar. And I was hurting because you’d left, so I drank more and more, and then I took some coke, and the next thing I know they’re all back up here drinking and partying, and you still weren’t back Tru … and I took more coke … and,” he rubs his swollen, glassy eyes. “I just remember coming in here, and then I must have passed out. But I wasn’t with any girl – I promise you. I would never do that to you. She-she must have come in here after I’d passed out and–”
“Why?” My voice comes out broken, so I try again. “Why would she come in here?”
“I don’t know!” His hands go to his head. “I don’t understand any of it, but I’m telling you I didn’t have sex with her.”
I hear his words, but I don’t believe them. I don’t believe him.
It’s over.
Everything I envisaged with him, our life together, gone.
Tears start to trickle down my cheeks in quick succession, one after the other. I feel like I can’t breathe, like someone is compressing down hard on my chest, taking the life right out of me.
Then Jake’s grabbing hold of me, pulling me to him, crushing me to his chest, his arms tight around me, his face buried into my hair.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry,” he repeats, his voice broken, as I sob silently into his chest, my tears slick against his skin. “I love you so much. I’ll make this right, I promise you. I’m so sorry.”
His heat is all over me. I breathe in through my nose. He smells of Jake, everything Jake.
Everything I love.
There’s no trace of perfume on him, or any womanly scent of any kind, but then what does that account for anyway. I saw it clear with my own two eyes.
Jake in bed with her.
And then that’s all I can see. I can see his hands on her, just like they were that redhead’s in Paris. Touching her, kissing her, being with her like he is with me. Saying the things to her which were once reserved only for me.
And that’s when the real pain hits in all its excruciating glory.
I never knew a pain like this existed. All consuming, and it’s crushing me to nothing.
I need him to stop touching me. I need him to stop talking. I just want him away from me. Far, far away from me. I can’t have his tainted body anywhere near me.
He’s wrecked everything, forever.
I start to move in his arms, trying to free myself, but he keeps his hold tight on me.
“NO!” I push myself free from him, staggering backwards.
He looks pained and afraid.
“Tru … please…” He holds his hand out to me.
And standing here, looking at him, disgusted by him, by what he’s done to me – to us, I know what I have to do.
I can’t live this life with him, no matter what I may have thought earlier.
I could have handled the drugs.
But not cheating.