I’m having a nightmare. This can’t be real.
I ball up my fists as tears spill onto my cheeks. “No, we don’t. I have it so he doesn’t have it. I took it months ago, after it was filmed, months ago. I’ve never watched it. What is wrong with you?”
He gestures at the T.V., bending to get closer. “I just watched you getting fucked by someone else. You. And you’re going to ask what’s wrong with me? I just saw another man having his hands on you, his dick in you, and the woman I care about more than anything getting off on it. I just watched you fucking come!”
“You were never supposed to see that! I forgot I even had it. Jesus Christ,” I cry, wiping at my face, my entire body trembling. “I don’t even remember that guy’s name.”
I regret it the second the words fall past my lips.
I know how this sounds. Careless. Even worse than that.
His eyes widen. Mouth slack as he straightens a bit. “Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better, Brooke. You make these tapes with just anyone, yeah? Are there more in your room? Or do you keep them out here for everyone to watch?”
Flinching, I look away. “Stop,” I plead, whimpering quietly against my hand.
Please, stop.
“Christ. Did you . . .” Mason’s harsh voice trails off. He moves to turn away but I grip his shoulder, forcing him to look at me.
I know. I don’t know how, but I know what he wants to ask me. And if he has the balls to think it, he can fucking . . .
“Say it,” I urge, my lip quivering, my rage consuming me. “What were you going to say? Say it!”
My hands push and pull at his chest. I can’t decide what I want, him closer or far enough away I can’t hit him. I’m so mad, so shattered. I want him to comfort me and then stand there and take my abuse.
“Fucking say it, Mason!”
Fat tears stream steadily down my face.
He looks down at me, his own eyes brimming now. “Did you tell me all of that just so I would fuck you?”
“What do you think?” I ask him, but I can’t hear my own voice. It’s so quiet compared to the blood rushing in my veins. To my heartbeat pounding in my skull.
I want to scream and scream. I want to wake up.
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Mason looks away. He doesn’t say a word, but the answer I hear is so fucking loud it rings in my ears and reminds me just how real this is. I’m not stuck in a dream, or a nightmare.
I’m awake. I’m awake and I’m alone. Drowning.
I cry silently, my shoulders shaking. “I did,” I whisper, grabbing his stare, which goes from shock to crippling grief in an instant.
Why? I’m only confirming what he thinks.
I tilt my wobbling chin up to get closer. “I did. It was all a lie. All of it. Everything I said to you. Everything I gave. When I chose you . . .” I sob, sniffing and weeping in my sorrow.
I don’t even care. God, let him see me like this. Let him see what he’s done.
He nods, turning away and wiping at his own face now. “Fine.” He moves with purpose toward the door, his feet heavy on the carpet.
I follow behind. “You think it. It must be true. Nothing mattered to me. Our dates and that night in the tent. Yesterday and the day before and the day before that. So go! Leave! Get out knowing you meant nothing and I hate you! I will hate you for this!”
He pauses at the door, his head lowered and his hand gripping the knob. His shoulders lifted in tension. His back shaking.
This is it. That one second we have to take everything back. To tell the truth and admit our wrongs. To forgive and move forward.
To make this nothing more than a nightmare.
Reach for me. Reach for me. Take me. Don’t let me go.
I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Nothing, but a whimpering cry.
Without a sound, without giving me another look or word or pleading glance, Mason swings the door open and exits the condo.
Probably for the last time.
I dart across the room and fling myself into bed, letting my tears fall. I cry for hours, clutching at my pillow, biting and screaming into it until my voice cracks and my throat burns.
The pain, God, the pain in my chest. This ache. I feel like I’m dying.
How could he say those things? How could he even think them?
Mason.
I sob, picturing his face, staring at that T.V. like a man possessed, ready to explode. Scream or cry, I couldn’t tell. Then, the disgust simmering in his eyes when he told me what he watched. The hurt. Tears welling up and threatening when he asked me if I ever really loved him, and the agony on his face when I lied.
I gasp and clutch at my chest.
God, someone rip this out of me. Take it away so I don’t feel anything anymore.
“Brooke, sweetie, are you okay?”
I hear Billy’s voice hours later, after the darkness rolls into my bedroom and blankets me. I open my swollen eyes, trying to see through the tears. Light from the outside room spills across the ceiling. I squint, focusing on Joey’s face as he sits beside me. Billy looks on, standing next to the bed.
“What’s going on?” Joey asks, studying me. His hand squeezing my shoulder. “And what the hell is that out there on the T.V.? Is that you?”
I cover my face and wail, sobbing into my hands.
How do I still have any tears left?
“Oh, no. What happened?” Joey rubs my arm. “Is it Mason? Did you two get into a fight?”
I sit up and draw my knees against my chest. I wipe the wetness from my cheeks even though it’s pointless. New tears fall.
“Yes, we got into a fight. A huge fucking fight. He found that disc in my room and he watched it. All of it. I didn’t know until it was too late. I forgot I even had it.”
Joey’s eyes go wide. “From like, six months ago? The Cuban guy?”
“Yes!” I shriek. Thank you! Both men startle. “Yes, from six months ago! Mason accused me of making that after him and I started hanging out. He said I only cared about fucking and since I wasn’t getting it from him, I probably went somewhere else.” My lip trembles. “He said so much,” I whisper, remembering everything and feeling that pain in the center of my chest swelling inside me. “He was so mad, and mean. God, he was mean. He made me feel like a,” I pause, biting my tongue and shaking my head.
No. No, I won’t say it. Don’t even think it.
Whore.
My eyes sting.
“You know he didn’t mean any of that,” Billy says, moving closer and tugging at the knot in his tie. “He was reacting, Brooke. How I’m sure a lot of us would react if we saw what he saw. He loves you.”
“It still doesn’t make it acceptable,” Joey snaps. He waves a hand in my direction. “Look at her. Look at how upset she is.”
“I’m sure he was just as upset, if not more.”
“He was upset,” I whisper, feeling two sets of eyes on me as I stare at the comforter. “Seeing that, it hurt him.”
“Good.”
I look up at Joey, then at Billy. Both of them reacting two different ways to this.
Staring at them is like physically being able to dig my heart out of my chest and look at it in my hands. There would be a line drawn down the middle. Two bleeding sides of me, reacting with equal passion and reason.
I hate Mason for what he said, but I get what pushed him to say it.
I love him. I love him, but I want him to feel what I’m feeling right now.
Sighing, feeling like every muscle in my body has been stretched and pummeled with a thousand fists, with my eyes burning and tears leaking and dripping down my face, I scoot down the bed and curl against my pillow again, clutching it to my chest.
A hand strokes my leg. “It’ll be okay, Brooke. It will. I promise,” Billy reassures me.