I didn’t know. But it was not a pleasant sensation. I was over it.
I was about seven shots of whiskey in when my cell phone finally buzzed in my hand. I look down at the screen with bleary eyes. It was Carly. I set the bottle down and swiped my finger across the screen to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Jake?” She had been crying, I could tell, and for a mere second, I felt badly for her.
But not enough to change my mind.
“Hey, baby,” I said sweetly. I was sure she could hear the drunken slur in my voice, but if she could, she didn’t let on. “What’s wrong? You sound upset.”
“Matt was just here,” she sniffled into the phone.
“Why in the hell was Matthew there?” I was trying to sound angry, but I didn’t know how well I was doing. Still, I didn’t think Carly noticed.
“He came to tell me something ... something about you.”
“About me?”
“And about Re—Renee!” She was wailing now, her high-pitched voice ringing in my ears with such devastation I winced and pulled the phone away from my face.
“Renee, your roommate Renee?” I asked innocently. “What did he say?”
“He said you two had sex!”
Carly was sobbing now, rattling on and on with words she couldn't quite form. I listened to her patiently until I could get a word in edgewise, then sighed deeply.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” I told her. “Honestly, I am so sorry. I—I didn’t want you to find out.”
“Well, I did, Jake, you fucking asshole,” Carly screamed, and I pulled the phone away again so my eardrums didn’t shatter.
“Is Renee there?” I asked. “Have you confronted her about this, or am I the only one in trouble?”
“You could bet your sweet ass I’ll deal with Renee,” Carly snapped, and I knew she was still crying. “I fucking hate you both, Jake Denny, and I never want to see your face again.”
The line went dead, silence settling over the living room. With a grim smirk, I tossed my phone aside, catching a glimpse of a figure at the bottom of the stairs. It was Aaron, and I could tell with one look that he had heard the entire conversation.
“I sure hope you two know what you’re doing,” he said softly. “Because if either of you cared about her as much as you pretend to, you wouldn’t do this.”
“Piss off, man.” I stumbled to my feet and walked past him, thrusting the bottle into his hands as I passed him up the stairs. “She fucking deserves this. You should be angry too.”
“I’m not angry,” the words were so quiet I almost didn’t catch them, but something in his tone made me pause before I was out of earshot.
“What?”
“I am not angry,” Aaron said again. “I was hurt. And I guess I know that it was an eye for an eye ...” He trailed off, getting that stupid, profound look that had always annoyed me so much. I shook my head, sneering, but as I tromped up the stairs to my bedroom, the rest of the words played in my mind, insulting me.
...makes the whole world blind.
