60

LAURA
“Fiancee,” I murmured, monotone, almost five minutes later.
It was like an out of body experience when Alex had taken my arm and gently led me inside to sit on the couch. It was a good thing, because a few more seconds standing and my legs would have probably given out from the magnitude of the shock.
“Oh dear,” I heard the woman murmur. The one who claimed she was Alex’s fiancee, that is. “Why does she look like she’s seen a ghost?”
Alex didn’t respond. He lowered to his haunches in front of me and took my hands in his.
“Baby, this isn’t what it looks like-”
“What do you mean it’s not what it looks like?” The woman cut in. “Didn’t you tell her you’re engaged?”
“When she leaves, I’ll explain everything to you. Please,” Alex continued, ignoring her. My vision was blurry so I couldn’t see the expression on his face clearly but he sounded panicked. Scared even.
If this wasn’t what it looked like, then why was he scared? Why did he look so fucking guilty? Why wasn’t he denying that she was his fiancee?
Why wasn’t he calling 911 and reporting that there was a mad woman on the loose?
“Leave?” She intoned, disbelief coating her words. “I don’t know about leaving.”
I blinked, clearing my vision and the first thing I saw was Alex. Of course this was because I was facing him, but I hated it because the look on his face?
The way he looked terrified and shaken from the very roots of him? The smell of fear basically emanating from him?
It broke me. Shattered my heart into a tiny million pieces because it was all the confirmation I needed that this woman was telling the truth.
This woman was his fiancee.
His fiancee.
Alex was engaged.
What in the actual fuck?
“You’re engaged,” I murmured.
It wasn’t a question, but Alex shook his head anyway, rather adamantly. “Laura, you-”
“Is she lying?” I jerked my chin in the woman’s direction, making deliberate effort to not look at her. “Is she not your fiancee?”
He exhaled harshly. “It’s much more complicated than that and I’ll explain it all to you when she-”
I lost it, raising my voice. “Yes or no, Alex?”
His head dropped, shoulders sinking. “No,” he answered softly. And with that one word, he cleaved me.
This wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.
And it hurt like fucking hell.
He looked so sad and hell, I hated seeing him like this. But because I didn’t trust myself to not try to comfort him, I tugged my hands out of his.
I slid out from between his legs and got to my feet. He got to his feet too, albeit slowly and wearily, eyes on me the entire time. He wasn’t even acknowledging the other woman in the room.
“You are engaged to be married and you didn’t tell me?” I snapped.
“I’ve been trying to call the engagement off,” he said quietly.
“What?” The woman gasped, storming out of the kitchen with a bottle of water.
I found myself getting irritated at the audacity she had walking around like she owned the bloody place, then I remembered she was his fiancee so she technically did.
How had she even known where the kitchen was anyway?
Probably because she’d lived here before.
My stomach roiled. Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to look at her anymore.
Fuming, I turned my anger on the cause of my current predicament. “So you admit to lying to me?”
“I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you.” The words were gentle and soft. So soft, they could have been carried away by air.
“A lie by omission is still a lie! You had several opportunities to tell me, but you chose not to because you absolutely loved deceiving me, didn’t you?” I shook my head, crossing my arms across my chest like I wasn’t a few seconds away from falling apart. “How long did you plan on keeping this up?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Everything that happened between us was real. Every single thing. I never lied to you.” I was just about to rip him another one when he hurried on. “I didn’t tell you about this. I know I fucked up. But you know how long it took to convince you to go on a date with me. Every moment I spent with you was me trying to get you to spend more and I didn’t want to risk telling you about this situation when plans were already in motion to end it.” He was panting, breathing hard and gesticulating wildly. I’d never seen him like this. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell you but I was too scared and I didn’t want to-”
“Now, this is all very angsty and I’d love for you lovebirds to continue,” his fiancee cut in again. “Trust me I absolutely hate to interrupt you, but I’ve got to ask Alex, what is this thing you keep saying about ending our engagement?”
I turned to her, bewildered. Was this how a woman was supposed to react to finding out that her fiancee was cheating on her?
“Get out,” Alex said quietly, still looking at me.
My heart stopped and I blinked. Did he just tell me to get out?
After finding out that he’d been lying to me this entire time?
I stared at him in disbelief, but then he said the words again. Except that this time, he was facing his fiancee. “I said get out.”
She drew her head back. “Oh, you were talking to me.”
My heart calmed a bit when I realized that he had, in fact, been talking to her and not me. Not that it helped this situation in any way.
“Who the fuck else?” He snapped at her and she flipped her hair over her shoulder, adopting an indifferent look.
“One, don’t take that tone with me. Two, I’m in New York for a bit and I’ve got nowhere to stay so…” she shrugged, leaving the sentence hanging.
I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to sink even further but on hearing those words, it did.
She was going to be staying here. With him.
“How do you just show up unannounced expecting me to accommodate you?” Alex asked, incredulous.
“I texted you about thirty minutes ago, I believe.”
I shot Alex a betrayed look and guilt clouded his expression. “I was busy. I didn’t see it.”
I wasn’t sure if he was telling me or her.
He could have been saying the truth because we’d been out and I wasn’t sure if I’d seen him on his phone, but how could I believe any word that came out of his mouth anymore?
His fiancee shrugged. “That’s your problem. I’m your fiancee after all, aren’t I? You can’t kick me out.”
The fight left me.
I was suddenly so terribly exhausted. Too exhausted to be dealing with this. I needed to leave. Now.
And because I didn’t trust myself to be alone right now, I grabbed my phone as I turned in the direction of the staircase, texting Balery. “I’m leaving,” I announced to no one in particular.
I didn’t even reach the staircase before Alex stopped me with an arm on my elbow. “Laura, don’t-” I fixed him with a scathing look that had him dropping his hand. “Please you have to believe me.”
I had so much I wanted to say to him. So fucking much, but I was in so much pain and there was a lump the size of a fucking boulder stuck in my throat. I wasn’t sure I could force sound past it without bursting into tears-and I couldn’t.
I couldn’t cry in front of this woman.
I refused to.
Hurrying up the stairs, I sent a simple text to Balery; I need you to come get me now please.
Her reply came less than a minute later; On my way.
That was it. No questions asked. She probably figured out that from the tone of my text something was off and in that moment, I was so glad I had her, I almost lost the grip I had on my tears.
I wasted no time hurrying upstairs, aware of Alex following close behind me but I paid him no mind.
He’d hurt me in the worst way anyone could have ever done. He’d lied to me, for fuck’s sake, making me feel like I was the most special woman on earth. Like I was the only woman he saw.
Which was obviously a fucking lie because he was engaged.
I was a fool. A bloody joke.
How apt that the one time I decided to give love a try, it ended with me being played so damn good, there’d been zero suspicions on my end.
On getting to our room-oh, how foolish I felt thinking that-I stormed into the closet to pack a bag. I was trying to select some underwear when I realized that my hands were shaking so badly, I couldn’t get a good grip on them, so I slammed the drawer closed and braced my hand on it, shutting my eyes as I tried to calm my racing heart.
I am not going to cry.
I am not going to cry.
I will not cry.
I kept reciting the words in my head, breathing through my mouth.
Shit.
I’d gotten played. Me. I couldn’t believe it.
I knew he was there even before he spoke. “Stay.”
The pain in his voice tugged at me, calling at my need to comfort. To go to him. Even when he’d hurt me this way.
“Please,” he begged again, voice sounding closer. “Don’t do this to us.”
A bitter laugh escaped me, dry and rusty, exactly like I felt in that moment. “There is no us. There never was, apparently.”
“Don’t say that,” he croaked.
“You pursued me!” I cried. “In Miami, you wouldn’t let me be. I thought you wanted to make me yours so badly. We’d have gone our separate ways and all this would have never happened but you wanted us to meet when we came back.” My breaths grew ragged, sobs wracking my chest. “The things you said… You told me you loved me, and all that time, you were fucking engaged.”
As if he couldn’t bear to stand anymore-like he didn’t have the strength for it-his knees hit the floor and he yanked at his already scattered hair. “Don’t go,” he begged. “Laura, talk to me please.”
Staring down at this torn, defeated version of the man I’d thought I knew, was when the first teardrop slid down my face, and with it, the truth hit me.
I loved him.
How sad that it took him breaking my heart for me to realize that it had been in the palm of his hand all along.
That it had been his from the start and I never once stood a chance against it.
My phone buzzed with a text from Balery saying that she was outside.
Time to go.
“You know what I find most surprising?” I asked softly, more to myself than to him. “The fact that I told you about my mother that night and you were able to look me in the eyes, knowing that you weren’t any different from her ex.”
My words hit their mark and whatever remaining light he’d had in his eyes died a fast death.
He inhaled raggedly, pressing a hand to his chest, and it killed me to see him like this.
But he’d done worse to me and here I was, standing. He would be fine.
With one last memorizing look at him, I turned and walked out with my head held high.
It wasn’t until I was safely inside my best friend’s car that I let the tears fall freely.