“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.
“Well, Raph and I have been together for almost a year,” she says. “So, you must be lying.” Her tone is sharp, and my heart sinks into my stomach.
“I’m not lying,” I say, gesturing toward my coat. “Raph and I are dating.”
“Impossible,” she snaps.
“Security!” another woman calls. “This woman shouldn’t be back here.”
My eyes find Lily, but she’s gone silent.
“Wait, I’m confused. I can prove that we’re dating,” I try again, pulling out my phone and swiping to a photo of me with him. The woman looks at it unphased, and so I bring up our text message chain and attempt to show them our texts, but there’s no reaction from any of them.
“Maybe you should go, Claire,” Lily says, moving to join the group. Monica locks arms with her and throws me a wicked grin.
Oh, my god. Everything makes sense at once.The tickets he gave me, the general admission line, his reaction the other day when Lily showed up at the restaurant. His hesitation for me to come to a game, and his disinterest in meeting my family and friends. How little we actually see each other.
Andi was right. I’m just Miss Monday, and this woman in front of me is Miss Tuesday through Sunday.
Lily’s kindness was a ruse to out me as the other fucking woman. They played me.
“Do you have something to say for yourself?” Lily asks. I look up, and all of the women in the room are sending daggers through me.
“I…I thought we were friends?”
“No, babe. I’m not friends with puck bunny whores.” The other women snicker under their breath, and blush crawls up my neck.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammer. “I really had no idea. He told me you broke up. If I had known I wouldn’t have?—”
“Wouldn’t have what?” Monica asks. “Slept with my boyfriend?”
“Pathetic,” one of the other women scoffs.
My heart rails against my ribcage, and the room begins to spin. Holding back tears, I flee, taking off my jacket and dropping it to the floor. I’m suddenly overcome with nausea. I don’t know how I could have been so naive. How I didn’t see all the signs as clearly as I can see them now.
Moving down a hall, I turn a corner and find a bathroom. Tears stream down my face. How did today go from all of my dreams coming true to this big of a shit show? Fumbling for my phone, I try my sister, but there’s no answer. I try her again, but nothing.
Checking her location, I see she’s at Isaac’s apartment, so she’s not going to be checking her phone for a while.
Staring at my reflection, my stomach rolls, and I put my phone back in my purse. Turning on the sink, I splash water on my face, attempting to clean off the mascara running down my cheeks and slow my breathing.
A flash of pink enters my periphery, catching my attention. I shift my gaze away from the mirror, finding a custodian with a short pink pixie cut beginning to clean the bathroom.
“It’s late,” she says.
“Oh, I know. Sorry. I’m on my way out.” Reaching for a papertowel, I pat my face dry with the rough material and then walk it toward a trash can near where she stands.
She smiles, and her plum colored eyes make my breath catch.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“You strike me as someone who will,” she muses, digging in her cleaning cart.
“What makes you say that?” I ask, tears welling in my eyes again because I’m not sure I will be.
It dawns on me that I’m not sad that Raph and I are over—even if he doesn’t know it yet. I don’t think I can get over the mortification of finding out the way I did. How, once again, I trusted someone who I thought could maybe be my friend and she let me down. And I don’t know how I’m going to relive what happened when I inevitably have to talk to him to end things once and for all.
