“Oh, by all means, stay,” Andrea counters. “I’ll go so you two can have a wonderful life together.” Her darkened eyes throw daggers at me, and when she turns around to leave, she loses her unsteady footing. I catch her arm to stabilize her and release it when she tries to shrug me off.
“I really should leave you two to handle this,” Eva insists with a forced grin. “I hope we’ll meet again in better circumstances.”
“The door’s right here,” Andrea approves with an ironic smile, pointing at the half-open door next to us. “And I genuinely hope we never meet again.”
“Andrea, that’s enough,” I say through clenched teeth. She can be pissed at me all she wants, but Eva hasn’t done anything to her.
“What? I’m agreeing with her. Isn’t it the polite thing to do?”
“You’re taking this too far,” I counter. Eva slips her long coat on, eyeing us with unease. When she passes the door, I follow her to say, “I apologize for Andrea’s behavior. I promise she isn’t normally like that.”
“It’s fine. I probably wouldn’t feel great if my boyfriend spent an evening with his ex. If I had a boyfriend, that is,” she adds with an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry I dropped by like this. I didn’t think it would be an issue.”
“It shouldn’t have been, but—”
“Do you two want a room, maybe?” Andrea shouts from inside the apartment.
I grit my teeth, embarrassed by her attitude. “Get home safe,” I tell Eva before returning inside and closing the door.
Once I face Andrea again, she glares at me with an angry frown, her arms crossed together.
“Seriously?” I ask her, still disappointed by her behavior.
“Seriouslywhat, Alexander?!”
“There isnothingthat can justify the way you treated her.”
“Nothing? Really? You can’t think of a single thing? Like the fact that you married her? Or that you fucked her for four years? With her perfect fucking body under yours, and those perfect fucking legs wrapped around —”
She stops abruptly, slapping her hand over her mouth. “I’m going to be sick,” she lets out between her fingers.
Then she bolts off to the closest bathroom, where Eva was moments ago. I hesitate to join her there, but only because I’m not sure my presence will help her feel better. When I hear the way she hurls her guts out, though, I refuse to leave her alone in such a distressing moment.
So I walk there and find her holding on to the toilet lid for dear life as she vomits more. I crouch beside her and pull her curly hair back.
“Leave me alone,” she protests, trying to push me away with a feeble arm. Another series of heaving takes over, distracting her.
I stay right there as she regurgitates the excesses of her night out with friends, my hand drawing soothing circles over her back. Once she’s done, when the heaving brings nothing but that awful sound, I stand up, flush the sick down, and fetch a hand towel in the cupboard under the sink. I wet a corner of it with warm water and return to Andrea, who’s leaning against the wall by the toilet bowl. With efficient moves, I pass it over her mouth. She takes it from me with a dark glare, so I leave the bathroom to fetch a glass of water.
“Drink it,” I order when I return, finding her in the same position. She begrudgingly takes it, and for an instant, I worry she might throw it at me. But she probably realizes it’ll help her feel better, so she empties it in a single go.
I squat in front of her, waiting for her to calm down. Now that the alcohol has been flushed away, she’ll start feeling better. As the seconds pass, the signs of anger slowly fade from her face. Instead, she looks sad, disappointed, and tired. The surrounding stillness becomes oppressive, even though I normally love silence.
For only a heartbeat, she stops looking at the wall next to her and briefly glances at me instead. “I’m sorry,” she says with a small voice. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
“You were immature and needlessly rude.”
“Fuck you, Alexander,” she spits, looking at me for good this time. “Don’t act like you’re innocent. You know how I feel about her, and you still spent the evening with her.”
“She came to catch up because it’s been years since we last spent time together, uninvited. What was I supposed to do? Tell her to leave because my jealous girlfriend wouldn’t like it?”
At first, she wants to agree, but then she realizes how bad that sounds. “It’s past midnight. She had no business still being here.”
“I had no idea it was so late, or I would have asked her to leave.”
“Right, time passes so fast when you’re having that much fun,” Andrea replies, acerbic.
“We mostly talked about you, actually,” I truthfully explain. That surprises her, and she frowns at the wall again. “Eva wanted to know more about you, and I spent most of the evening telling her what an incredible person you are. I think she believed me until you barged in and treated her like gum under your shoe.”
