Page 21 of The Ring
It’s not like he was going to let me dodge this. I knew I’d sort of promised to tell him what happened with TJ, and I planned to, at least the part that doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin. But I figured I could make him work for it a little longer.
“No,” he said resolutely. “You’re not getting out of this. It was one breakup story for another.”
I pouted. “I know, but poor me—I’ve had two relationships end in the last few months, so technically, I have two breakup stories.”
When I first arrived in Paris, I tried to dive into casual sex. I wanted to sleep with alotof men. It was my twisted way of getting revenge on TJ. He was all of my firsts—technically not my first boyfriend, but my firstrealone—and it made me feel like I belonged to him, and I hated that feeling. I tried to follow through, but I couldn’t. Until the day I saw him again for the first time since our breakup. Then I said,“fuck it,”and slept with a guy I met in a pub. But when morning came, I felt awful, so I started dating him. It lasted about a week and a half, and I ended it when I found him sitting in my bed, wearing his outside clothes. What was he, an animal? Either way, I knew it wasn’t working. I wanted to end it the second it started, and that seemed like a good enough excuse.
He scoffed. “You can’t call what happened with that guy a relationship; it lasted like a week. I’ve had colds that lasted longer.”
“It lasted around two weeks,” I corrected him.
“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t a real relationship, and I already know what happened.”
I took a deep gulp of the wine left in my glass, emptying it in one go, feeling the warmth of the wine burn down my throat. “He cheated on me,” I spat out, looking away from him.
Nate looked at me, shocked. “Who? Robert?”
I shook my head. “TJ cheated on me, and that’s why we broke up.”
“Fuck him,” he said, as though the offence was directed at him.
“She kind of already did,” I joked, forcing a smile.
He chuckled, but the anger still lingered in his eyes. “Who was she?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want to tell him who it was. One thing is your boyfriend cheating on you with someone else, but cheating on you with your mother is humiliating, to say the least. Couldn’t he have just waited thirty years until I looked more like her?
Instead of answering him, I got up from the couch and turned the music up.
“Come on, I want to dance,” I said, signalling him to get up.
He looked at me with amusement but shook his head.
I kept dancing for a few more minutes, but I got bored with dancing alone, so I grabbed one of Nate’s arms, trying to pull him up. I tugged hard, but instead of lifting him, I ended up bouncing off him and crashing into his lap. We both burst out laughing, but our laughter was quickly interrupted by the sharp sound of glass shattering.
In unison, we both turned our heads towards the noise and saw the wine bottle and our glasses shattered on the floor, their red contents spilling out across the white rug. The table had tipped over with my tugging, everything crashing to the ground.
“Should we try to clean it?” Nate suggested.
I glanced at him, still sprawled across his lap, and shook my head. “No, it’s probably already ruined. I’ll get a new one next week.”
He looked up at me, and for a brief moment, I remembered thinking how handsome he looked. His blond hair was perfectly swept back, his jaw sculpted, and his lips full. His face had always been sharp, but that only added to his allure, giving him a distant, magnetic quality—something I always knew but was only then truly noticing. Until this point, I had only ever had eyes for TJ. Before I could even process what was happening, he leaned in and kissed me.
I kissed him back, the urgency in our movements clear, as if we both needed this. He stood, lifting me effortlessly, and without breaking the kiss, carried me into the bedroom where he was staying. Gently, he laid me on the bed, leaning over me as he kissed me deeply. I began unbuttoning his crisp white shirt while he carefully removed my black dress, leaving me in nothing but black Agent Provocateur lingerie.
He was about to unbutton his trousers, but then he paused, his gaze locking with mine.
“Are you sure?” he asked, and I could see a rare flicker of fear in his eyes, as if he were afraid I might say no. Or maybe he just needed reassurance, a confirmation that we weren’t doing something wrong. That we weren’t horrible people for doing this.
“Yes,” I breathed, kissing him again.
And that was all the answer he needed.
I should have said no. I should have thought about TJ, but for the first time in months, I was doing something without him in mind. And it felt really good.
I woke up the next day filthy and stained—not because I was dirty, I’m always clean, but in my soul. I turned in bed to find Nate lying awake beside me, looking at me, the guilt eating at him, the unspokenwhat have we done?in his eyes. So I decided to say aloud the one thing I swore to myself I would never say, because I knew it would help alleviate Nate’s guilt and remind me why I shouldn’t haveany.
I shifted my gaze to the ceiling. I didn’t want to see his reaction when I told him.
