Page 53 of When I Come Back
I’ve turned my gaze to my phone on the end table, checking for notifications before responding to him. Brooks and Ripley have texted, checking in on me. I leave them unanswered for now. “I can see that. Shirtless too, how bold of you.” My voice is cold and sounds bored despite my heart still actively breaking in my chest.
“I just—”
“We should talk,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear whatever excuse he’s about to use to try and douse the fire he created. I can tell by the look on his face that he remembers enough about last night to know exactly what I’m talking about. “About more than just last night,” I add, making his brows crease.
“Okay… yeah, that’s fair, we probably should.” He turns off the stove, then he’s walking toward me, the breakfast he was making forgotten. He sits down on the other end of the couch, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs. Neither of us speaks, we just sit in silence, letting it coat the room in more tension than I knew was possible.
“You cheated on your fiancée, Cary…” I keep my gaze aimed at my hands in my lap, twisting the lemon ring he gave me when we were kids. The one I just put back on my finger a few days ago after years of avoiding it like the plague.
Internally, I’m attempting to find the good in our relationship again, the memories of the Cary I knew when I was a kid, the Cary who would never betray me—or anyone else—like this. This stupid lemon ring is the only thing keeping me from screaming at him. I know who he is. Or, at least, who he used to be. That’s the man I love, not the one in front of me who cheats on women and breaks hearts like there are no consequences.
“And you cheated on Ripley, how is that any different, Thea?” he shoots back, venom filling his voice with his accusation.
Thea. Not Lemon. Why does that hurt so much?
I shake my head, still twisting the ring around and around. “It’s not the same. You know it’s not the same.”
He’s getting heated now, standing up from the couch, and throwing his arms in the air as he says incredulously, “Not the same?Notthe fucking same?”
I don’t answer him, I don’t look at him, I just sit there. The ring spinning, spinning, spinning.
“Thea, look at me,” he demands, his eyes boring a hole into my skin like he can see all the way into my soul. I look up to him wordlessly, refusing to give him more. My silence only makes him madder. Anger sparks in his beautiful cerulean eyes. “How thefuckis it not the same?” he asks again.
“It’s just… not,” I say simply with a shrug of my shoulders, averting my eyes away from him again to a random spot on the wall.
His voice is louder now, booming through the living room as he throws another insult my way. “So you’re really going to pretend that you fucking me while dating Ripley isn’t just as bad as what I did? You’re going to sit there and fucking pretend you didn’t cheat too? Really?” I’ve never heard him speak so harshly toward me. Even during our worst fights, he’s never been this mean.
The tears come quickly as his words settle in the air around us. I can’t keep them from falling, and I wouldn’t even if I could. He can witness the hurt he brought on. He can watch the tears falling from my eyes, and I hope it brings him as much pain as he’s causing me. I let my own anger bubble back up; I let it take over so the sadness doesn’t drag me down.
“I wasn’t datinganyonewhilefuckingyou, so you can take your callous fucking words and shove them up your ass, Carrington,” I spit back at him, staring right into his eyes as I spill the truth.
His body jumps back like he’s been shot right in the chest as he stutters out, “Wh—what? No. I know what I saw and what I heard.”
I scoff and shake my head in disbelief. “You saw and heard what you wanted. I never once called him my boyfriend, and he never called me his girlfriend. He has never been anything but my friend.”
Cary is shaking his head in denial now, still not believing what I’m telling him. “No, there’s no fucking way he’d be stupid enough to only be casual or whatever with you. There’s no way. I don’t believe it.”
I jump up from the couch so I’m standing right in front of him now. Not entirely sure how someone so smart can be so dense. “Oh my God, Cary, he’s gay! Okay?” Immediately my hand flies to my mouth, and my eyes go wide. “Fuck. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
I can’t believe I just outed Ripley.
Cary’s face falls as he watches me start to panic. I can see he’s trying to make sense of what I’ve told him, and the silence lingers between us.
“Hey, hey, it’s fine. Okay? I won’t tell anyone. His secret is safe with me, I promise,” he assures me as he places his hands oneach of my shoulders, looking down and forcing my eyes to find his own. His tone much calmer than a few moments ago.
He pulls me into a hug as I nod my head to him. I’m still in shock that I let it slip, he’d just made me so mad, and he wasn’t understanding. His hand is rubbing circles on my back as I snap out of it and realize I can’t allow him to comfort me anymore. I pull myself out of his arms and sit back down on the couch with my head in my hands.
He’s standing in the middle of the living room now, staring at me like he isn’t sure where to go from here. Finally, he says, “What about your date nights? And him calling you babe? Why do all of that in the first place?”
Taking a deep breath, I try to calm myself down before answering him. “The babe thing is just a joke. It all started as us hanging out so we didn’t die of boredom here. After seeing us out a couple of times, people started talking, wondering if we were dating. Everyone at Louie’s would be like ‘this must be date night,’ so we just… went along with it. Of course, it spread like wildfire, and suddenly, the whole town knew about us. And it kind of worked out great because Shelley stopped trying to set me up with her cousin’s best friend, and Mrs. Davis left me alone about all her great-nephews she wanted to introduce me to.” My eyes finally move back to him like a magnet. The couch dips a little as he sits back down at the other end.
“And Ripley…” he starts, keeping his eyes on the floor.
“Ripley stopped getting badgered about why he never dated. He isn’t ready to come out, at least… not here…” I don’t tell him exactly what I mean by that and, thankfully, he doesn’t ask.
“So you… never cheated on him.”
“I never cheated on anyone… just… became the other woman in your relationship.” I sigh, still not sure how I managed to get myself mixed up in this kind of drama. “Do you understand theposition you put me in? How it feels to be this person? To know I helped you hurt another woman?”
