I quickly move to the floor, kneeling in front of her, but she coils herself away from me.
I’m desperate.
“I f**kin’ hate you,” she throws at me, and it kills. “You made me fall in love with you, and it was all a goddamn lie.”
“God, Candace. Please let me explain,” I beg as I reach out to touch her.
“Get out! Get the f**k out!”
My head snaps back when I hear the door slam open.
“Get the f**k out and away from her before I call the cops,” Kimber says as she stands in the doorway, but I don’t give a shit about her as I look back to my girl who is falling apart on me.
“Babe, please. I love you so f**kin’ much. Let me explain. Don’t do this.”
“I didn’t do shit, Ryan! Just go. It’s over!” She covers her face and won’t even look at me. It’s like a damn knife in my heart, and I feel like I’m drowning. I don’t want to believe her words. She’s just upset. She can’t really want this to be over.
“I’m serious. After the shit from last night, you better get the f**k away from her and leave. Now!” I hear Kimber say from behind me.
I don’t know how to fix this or what I can do. Every time I speak, I seem to only make it worse. So against everything I want to do, I stand up and walk away. It’s like I’m losing her piece by piece with every step I take, but I love her too much to hurt her, and I’m so f**kin’ mad at myself for lying to her.
Walking past Kimber, I can’t even look back to Candace who’s crumpled on the floor crying. It hurts too much to know I’m the cause of her pain. How could I do this to her? How could I have been so selfish?
“Fuuuck!” I scream, gritting it out of my lungs as I slam the door shut and walk out to my car. Getting in, I strike my palms against the steering wheel, pounding it over and over again, screaming. It hurts coming out, but I need to feel the pain because I feel like I just lost everything.
I’ve seen her cry and be upset in the past, but this . . . this is beyond just being upset. Instead of going back inside to be with her, comfort her, explain to her how stupid I am, I drive back home. I don’t want to, but I do. I don’t feel like I have a choice since I just ripped out my girlfriend’s heart because I was too much of a coward to tell her the truth.
Walking through the door, I see her phone that remains at the bottom of the stairs and begin to wonder what the hell happened while I was asleep. How did she find out? I have a thousand questions swarming inside of me, but I’m just too far gone to concentrate to try to make sense out of all of this.
I don’t know how to respond or what I should do. I figure I’ll give her space to calm down before I try talking to her again. She has to understand. She has to listen and believe me when I tell her how much I love her. I can’t lose her, but what if she doesn’t believe me?
The agony ripping through me hurts so much, and I can’t control the unrelenting tears that begin to pour out of me, taking every bit of happiness with them, until I’m nothing but numb, sitting on the couch and staring out at the rain.
Time doesn’t exist right now. Nothing does. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here in a stagnant melancholy when I hear a knock on my door. I hope with everything I have that she’s standing on the other side. When I walk over and open it, I barely get a glimpse of Jase before his fist barrels into the side of my face, clipping my jaw, causing me to lose my balance as I stumble back.
“I told you not to f**k around with her.”
Looking up, he steps inside and slams the door shut. I wish he would come back and bury his fist into me again. I deserve every hit. When I straighten myself up and wipe the blood from my split lip, he’s pissed and has every right.
“What the f**k, man?” he slings at me.
I don’t even try to defend myself. I’m a piece of shit and know it.
“You better f**kin’ say something and give me a reason to not beat the shit out of your ass.”
“Is she okay?” I ask because that’s all I care about.
“No, man. She’s not okay. She’s a f**kin’ mess right now, and I don’t know what to do for her. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I say as I walk over and flop down on the couch. “I didn’t know it was her.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not bullshitting you.”
“Did you just feel sorry for her?”
“Fuck no. It wasn’t like that.”
“Then tell me what it was like, because right now, my best friend is falling apart,” he says, completely pissed, as he sits down in the chair.
His words hit me hard, and I lose it. I don’t even try to hide my pain from him because at this point, I feel like I have nothing left. I give him the honest truth when I tell him, “I was the one who called 911 that night. But that girl was unrecognizable, so when I met Candace, the only thing that struck me about her and that girl in the alley was their small size. I swear I didn’t know it was her.”
“But you did eventually.”
“She has this tattoo. The same tattoo I saw that night. I had already fallen hard for her when I saw it, and it f**kin’ killed me. I didn’t know how to tell her at that point. I couldn’t hurt her.”
“So you lied to her?”
“It didn’t seem like a lie, man. Not for a while. Not until she opened up to me about the rape.”