“Wouldn’t miss it.”
We leave the apartment together, footsteps silent in the sleeping hallway. By morning, someone else will have cleaned up the mess we made, and by noon, Daniel will text me like nothing has changed.
He’ll think I’m still his.
He’ll have no idea what it means when I finally stop pretending.
Daniel’s anger slides across his living room like fog pouring from the vents. It swirls around the small space, clogging my throat until I cough out a laugh.
I hate him…
The hatred festers inside my chest, leaving me aching to reach for my gun and shoot him. But I don’t. There are too many neighbors awake in this apartment complex, and I don’t want to call in a favor to avoid the police.
I stand in the kitchen, between him and the front door, my arms crossed over my chest as I survey this sham of a life. He has no pictures of us on display. There are no personal belongings visible from either of us. This place looks like a showroom set upto tempt people with what the apartment building has to offer its tenants.
“Everything is always my fault,” he seethes, head hanging and voice low as he slams his hand on the coffee table.
“Because it is,” I say slowly, hoping he’ll take this as the finality I desperately crave.
“You make me the bad guy time and time again.”
“You cheated on me, Daniel. That’s not complicated math. You made yourself the bad guy.”
He glances up, giving me soft eyes as he tilts his head, playing into the wounded puppy look. “It was a mistake.”
“Sure,” I drawl, nodding with false patience.
“It’s true, Anna.” Daniel frowns. “You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
I’m not sure why I need to explain that I don’t believe him.
On Tuesday, I sat on the couch while he finished. Listened to the woman telling himnot yet… But he’s selfish like that, only after his own release.
I sigh heavily as I pick up my car keys. “A mistake is forgetting to water the plants. Or not turning off the closet light when you’re in a hurry. You made a choice, Daniel. Yourepeatedlymade a choice. And you expect me to… what? Pretend I didn’t see it?”
The keyring makes my fingernail ache as I pry his apartment key from it. Metal clinks against the granite countertop, creating a sound that carries through my bones.
I spin on my heel and get one step closer to the door.
“Really?” Daniel calls out, fury lacing his tone. “You’rereallygoing to throw away eight months over something that meant nothing?”
“Yeah. I am.” A sarcastic smile twitches across my lips before I can suppress it. “It meant something while it was happening. That’s not nothing.”
His boots thud against the hardwood as he rushes in behind me. The metal brackets on the ends of his untied laces make atinksound as they whip around his leather-clad ankles.
I wish this was one of those stories where the leather-clad barbarian was a steamy romance hero who storms in and tosses me over his shoulder with promises of infinite orgasms and sweet, sweet protection from all the evil creatures lurking around his kingdom… His only request is that I spend my nights in his bed-chambers.
But my life isn’t that kind of story.
And Daniel isn’t the fabled jealous-possessive hero who comes to save the day for a lucky damsel on the verge of distress.
I’m my own hero.
Daniel… He just fumes. To the point where I watch and wait for literal smoke to plume from his ears and nostrils.
It’s rather anticlimactic, though.
