“Are you sick? Why’d you come over to get me sick? You look like hell. Oh my God, you’re not pregnant are you?”
Hailey just stared at him for a moment and blinked a few times trying to understand his reaction. She decided to plow through.
“I’m not pregnant and I’m not sick. Can we sit down?”
Gage remained silent for a second as he sat back on the couch, moving his box of tissues back to the end table. What a charmer.
“So, um. Geez, where do I start?”
“Is this about last weekend?” He took a deep sigh and looked away. Hailey just sat there in confusion.
“Look, it was just a strip club. You can’t not get a lap dance when you go to a strip club.”
He really wasn’t making this easy. And she was getting closer and closer to being over it.
“Actually, you absolutelycango to one without getting a lap dance. There isn’t a rule. But, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
Gage remained stone faced while Hailey took another deep breath. She decided to just rip off the bandaid.
“I was drugged and raped at the restaurant party the other night. I’m not hurt or anything, I don’t think. But that’s why I look like hell, I guess.”
He stared for a beat too long and Hailey was starting to wonder if he heard her. Oh boy, did she wish he just didn’t hear her.
“What the fuck, Hailey? You actually cheated on me?”
“Um, what? No, did you hear me? I was drugged and raped. I wasn’t even conscious the whole time.”
Red was starting to take over Gage’s face.
“Why would you get so wasted? God, I didn’t think you were a slut. You were probably dressed like one.”
Information overload. Was he serious?
“Okay, wow. Let me try this again. I barely had half a cup to drink. There were drugs in it. The drugs took away my ability to basically do anything. I was not wasted. And not that it matters what I was wearing, but I had on jeans and a T-shirt.”
“You must have been asking for it somehow. Who was it? You been sneaking around behind my back with someone at the restaurant?”
Hailey lifted her hands to stick her fingers in her ears to make sure they weren’t filled with wax. There was no possible way she heard him right.
“I haven’t been sneaking around with anyone and I definitely wasn’t asking for it because I was fuckingdrugged. Are you kidding me right now? Have you heard of the word consent? What am I thinking? Of course you haven’t.”
Hailey reached back up to rub her forehead. That headache was coming back.
“I dunno, Hailey. You must have done something for him to think you’d like that. Man, you owe me big time.”
“Ioweyou…?” That was it. She was done. “Are you fucking kidding me, Gage? I have been nothing but faithful to you and have never flirted with anyone while we’ve been together, meanwhile you check out every pair of tits you see and apparently you’re getting lap dances. But it’s not okay for me to get fucking assaulted?”
She stood up and looked around, confused at how this was unfolding.
“Hailey, come on. I know you’re sad all the time. This was bound to happen when you go out and get drunk. You always act crazy when you drink.”
“Did you just blame me being sexually abused on my depression?” Hailey let out a laugh that was anything but comical. “You know what? Every single person in my life thinks you’re bad for me. My depression gotworseafter we started dating. You make me feel like shit more often than you make me feel good about myself. You don’t even pay attention. You have never done anything thoughtful for me and you want to spend more time withyour friends or jerking off to porn apparently than you do with me. I amexhausteddefending you to everyone. There’s no love here. I’m all out. Love is 86ed here. You don’t even care about me in the bedroom. I shouldn’t have to beg for an orgasm, dammit.”
Gage just shook his head and looked down at the floor. Then he muttered, “This is too much work. You’re impossible to please.”
“Ya know what? You’re right. Maybe you should go for something a little bit more low maintenance, like a fucking blow-up doll, or a pie.”
She charged into his kitchen and grabbed a pint of cookie dough ice cream she had left in the freezer then she grabbed a plastic spoon from one of his cabinets. Like hell would she let him have it.
