“I forgot my backpack. Do you mind if we go get it?” Matías asked the doorman.
Squeezing Matías’s hand, which I’d been holding since we were outside, I told him I needed to go to the bathroom.
“Again?”
“You know I’ve got a small bladder. I’ll see you inside in a minute.”
Matías went for his things and I ran to the bathroom, almost jumping up and down as I lifted the lid and pulled up my dress. I jerked down my panties and sighed with relief as that feeling of urgency faded away.
I was washing my hands when I heard water pouring down in the showers and a laugh I knew all too well. My heart skipped a beat. I listened closer and heard a groan and another laugh, higher pitched. It can’t be, I thought. I walked to the changing room, barely able to take a breath.
The steam was already filling the air and condensing on the tiles.I peeked into the showers. I could see a body, a back under the falling water, the silhouette of arms, hands on buttocks.
I froze, shuddered.
It was Antoine. But he wasn’t alone. Just past him was a smaller, thinner woman’s body. He was hooking up with someone else! He lifted her up in the air and she wrapped her legs around his back. Then I saw who it was. Sofía, my substitute. The same one who texted me every day telling me to get well soon. The hypocrite!
I felt myself dying inside.
I wanted to turn around and run out, but I couldn’t stop staring. The way his hips moved between hers, as if their bodies already knew each other well and he was searching for the angle that gave her the most pleasure. The sound of their bodies rubbing together. Grunts, groans. Panting echoing off the walls.
On the verge of vomiting, I stepped back.
Pain. Disappointment.
Just then, she opened her eyes and stared straight at me. For a moment, she couldn’t react. Then she shouted, “Maya!”
Antoine turned his head, and he looked like a deer in headlights. I ran off, prey to an agony that was eating into my entrails. I was trembling, I was furious, I could barely even see. Behind me, I could hear Antoine shouting at me.
Matías was waiting for me at the end of the hall. I ran toward him. The tears burned my eyes. With a startled expression, he looked at me and then past me, trying to figure out what was going on and why my boyfriend was chasing me and shouting my name.
“Maya, wait!” Antoine begged. “Let me explain. It’s not what it seems!”
I turned and scowled at him. “Itseemslike you were banging Sofía.”
“I don’t even know how it happened. We were just rehearsing, and… My God, I’m sorry!”
He was disgusting, standing there completely naked, his member still defiantly erect.
“You’re a pig,” I hissed, turning toward the exit.
“Maya, please, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it, I swear.”
“I don’t give a shit how it happened. I never want to see you again.”
“It was the choreography that did it, you know how the pas de deux fromCarmenis. All those hours rehearsing together… I think the character took me over.”
I stopped, my hand on the doorframe, and looked back over my shoulder. Did he honestly think that excuse was going to cut it?
My face was hot from rage and shame.
“Fuck you, Antoine. Thanks for making this shitty day even worse.”
I walked outside and covered my ears to stop hearing him shout my name.
At every step, the pain was more intense, and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was burning me, stabbing me inside.
I wouldn’t look back, I told myself, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to ever see that bastard again.
