Four Days Later
It feels like an eternity since I walked in on Danger and Effa, the memory still burned in my brain. Nothing I do can stop thenightmare image from seeping into my mind every chance it gets. Awake or asleep, it haunts me, and so I suffer, alone in my childhood bedroom at my mother’s house. I haven’t gotten out of my bed for anything other than the bathroom, and I try to limit that to two or three times a day because the warmth of my bed is far more comforting than the harshness of reality.
Mom comes and talks to me every day, and every day, I tell her I’m fine when I’m not. I’m drowning in a sea of misery, and she knows it. She isn’t stupid. She’s keeping a close eye on me. Knowing if she doesn’t, I won’t have a lifeline to hold onto.
My eyes are so sore and puffy from the endless amount of tears I’ve shed, and I continue to cry overhim.
The prick that broke my heart.
I can’t shake the feeling of betrayal and loss.
And the fact that he just let me walk out of the hotel room where I caught him in bed with not just another woman, but ofallwomen… Effa.
A fresh wave of nausea hits me as tears cascade down my face, and I curl into a tight ball under the covers. The image hits me full force, and I clench my eyes shut, trying to rid myself of the thought of what Danger and Effa must have been doing in my absence.
A gentle knock on my door causes my eyes to flick to it. I sniff and wipe my cheeks.
“Go away,” I call out, but the creak of the hinges on the door tells me that whoever this is will be coming in anyway.
Pulling back the covers slightly to see who it is, my eyes open wide, and a gasp escapes me when I see Mom in the doorway, and next to her is…Danger?
What the hell?
Swallowing hard, I look at Mom, and she gives me a look, asking,Do you want me to kick him out?
I love her for that, but as I glance back at him with his brows furrowed and his stance slouched like he’s in pain, it softens my hatred just enough to hear him out. He’s flown to Adelaide to see me, so I should at least hear what he has to say.
“It’s okay, Mum.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” She shuts the door gently behind her.
I sit up on the bed, swiping at my cheeks, then gaze down, looking at the array of used tissues sprawled across my bed, floor, and bedside table. I quickly gather them up when Danger walks to me and sits on the edge of my bed.
He hesitates, his eyes somber as he looks me up and down. “I hate seeing you this upset.”
“Well, you caused it by sleeping with Effa.” I don’t hold back. Why should I? It’s the truth. With the bite in my words, it is more than evident.
He exhales and grabs my hands to stop me from my tissue hunt and stash. It forces me to glance up at him. Danger’s looking deep into my eyes, catching me off-guard.
“Lunar… I didn’t sleep with Effa.”
A slight gasp echoes through the room, and my heart leaps into my mouth. I slowly shake my head in disbelief. “The fuck you didn’t. I’m not fucking blind, Danger. That image is burned into my very soul.”
He shakes his head ever so slightly. “No.”
Furrowing my brows, I don’t miss the tingle spreading through my hands from his touch, but I refuse to surrender so easily.
He hurt me.
Badly.
Raw and relentlessly tore at my soul.
“Then why was she in your bed?”
He averts his gaze, and tightness grips my chest, anticipating the answer I don’t want to hear. “We were drunk. Effa couldn’t make it back to her room. There wasnothingsexual about it. She was fully clothed under the covers, Lunar.”
I think back, and the covers were pulled all the way up to her neck.
