“I don’t think this was just drunk texting,” I said. “I think you meant it.”
He shook his head, leaning back like he was physically distancing himself from the accusation. “Of course I didn’t. It was just drunk words, baby.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe the guy who used to kiss me good night and run to the store when I had cramps and help me carry my canvas boards across the city. But that guy wasn’t standing in front of me anymore. Or maybe he never existed the way I thought he did.
“You’ve been on this weird power trip since I started spending more time at the CCC. You hate that I’m talking to Landon, even though that’s all it is. Talking.”
A tiny part of me screamedthat’s a lie.I shoved it down.
“I was venting! That’s it. You know how I get when I drink.” His tone rose a little. “It was just stupid talk. I’d never actually mess with your art stuff. Come on, you really think I’m that much of an asshole?”
I wanted to say no. But the thing was I didn’t trust him anymore. Not fully. Not after the way he’d been acting. Thejealousy, the guilt-tripping, the way he always had to make me feel small when I talked about anything that mattered to me.
My eyes skimmed over the chaos, looking for something to focus on so I wouldn’t cry. Something on the shelf behind the couch caught my attention.
A glass jar.
It sat crookedly, half-hidden behind a stack of video games and a cracked speaker. Inside were a couple of mismatched paintbrushes. Not just any brushes. The same kind of brushes Landon had bought at the discount store.
I moved closer, pulse roaring in my ears. They had the same red handles we used in class, the cheap kind that always left bristles behind. One had dried streaks of tan paint still clinging to it.
“Where did you get these?” I asked, my voice low.
He didn’t answer right away.
I turned slowly. “Xavier.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe from your place or something?”
“No,” I said, exaggerating the word. “They’re from the classroom. I remember putting them in the supply closet. Half the set went missing the same night the place got trashed.”
His face gave it away before his words could.
“You lied to my face.” The betrayal hit like a body blow. “You broke into a classroom filled with kids’ projects and volunteer work and my art. And you kept these like a souvenir.”
“It wasn’t like that, Kira?—”
I backed away, like being near him suddenly made my skin crawl. “You know what the class means to me. You know how hard I work for it. And you still tried to ruin it. Over what, Xavier? Petty jealousy?”
Anger was such a foreign emotion to me that when I felt it, it overwhelmed me. It didn’t come in waves; it came like a flood,crashing through the dam I’d spent years building between calm and frustration.
I wasn’t used to shouting or slamming doors or saying things I couldn’t take back. I was the peacemaker, the fixer, the one who smiled through clenched teeth and made excuses for other people’s bad behavior.
But tonight? Tonight, it was like something inside me finally snapped. Like I’d been holding in so much for so long—so much disappointment, so many silent compromises—that it all spilled out of me uncontrollably.
Xavier opened his mouth, probably to spit out some half-baked excuse, but I was already at the door.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” I said. “That you did it, or that you tried to make me feel crazy for thinking you did. We’re done.”
I slammed the door behind me, hands shaking as I ran down the stairs.
What a way to kick off doing scary things.
Landon
I wiped down the counter for the third time tonight, the damp cloth gliding over the polished wood as I half-listened to the conversation filling the bar. The warm glow from the lamps around the space reflected off the row of liquor bottles behind me, their colors vivid against the dark shelves.
The Modern Muse wasn’t packed, but it was comfortably busy with groups of friends huddled in booths, a couple sitting close at the bar, and a few lone patrons nursing their drinks while scrolling on their phones.
