The floor tilted and I was knocked off my pacing path like I’d been punched in the gut. All the food I’d choked down during the disaster of a dinner shot to the back of my throat. “He was married.”
She lifted her chin and met my gaze, not wavering, but the flickers of guilt were there. “I found out he was married.”
“You cheated with a married man.” My stomach knotted and a watery feeling coated my mouth. Everything buzzed with an unseen energy, racking my muscles with tremors.
There was a flare of fire in her eyes. “I didn’t know.” She caught my arm as I tried to walk away. “As soon as I found out, I broke it off with him. I left.”
I needed to walk away. The icy spikes down my spine were now heated metal. “How could you not know, Sabrina?”
“It’s not my normal course of action to ask a guy I’ve moved in with whether or not he’s married.” She flung her arms out to her sides.
“You lied to me about him.”
“I never lied to you. I said we wanted different things.”
“Like he wanted to be with his family.”
She shot up from her seat. “No! I broke things off the second I found out. He didn’t want to be with his family. He cornered me in the bathroom to say he was leaving her for me, and do you know what I told him?”
My skin tingled, muscles locked and straining. Was she going to go back to him?
“I told him to go fuck himself. I told him I didn’t want to see him again, and he was a selfish asshole. I’d never go after a married man.”
“You’re not that stupid. He had a wife and probably kids and you just never noticed?”
She gasped and her eyes filled with furious tears.
It twisted my gut to think I’d lain beside her at night and never thought she could be the type of woman who’d do that.
She wiped at her cheeks. They were so red it felt like the dampness should sizzle against her skin. “He’s a pilot. He was always coming and going.”
“I’m sure he was.”
She glared. “I have never been anything but honest with you, and it’s been the same for every person I’ve ever dated.”
“You cheated with a married man.”
“I didn’t know!” Her voice echoed, booming off the walls, and she stepped in closer.
“At least I know who you are now.” Bitterness seeped from the words.
Her cheeks were flushed and her gaze furious. “No, I’m not going to let you pile onto me. I beat myself up about this enough, and now I can finally say, it’s not my fault. You’re not going to twist this because of your past.”
“Don’t drag me into your mistakes. I don’t even know who you are.”
She jabbed her finger in my direction, inches from the center of my chest. “I could say the same for you. This isn’t the same as what happened with your mom and dad; it’s not. And you pretend that only cheaters are liars. What about you?”
“Don’t try to turn this around on me.”
“No, fuck that. You want to pretend I’m the bad guy when I’m not, then you’re not without fault either. How about how you’ve been with Ryder?”
His name fanned the flames of the fire scorching its way under my skin, burning and blistering a path straight to my head. “This has nothing to do with him. I told you I’d handle it in my own way, and you decided to go behind my back to have him show up tonight. Lying about it.” I dragged out the words.
“I did. Because he’s someone trying to reach out to you. He’s trying to connect with you.”
“I don’t want to connect with him. Every time I look at him, all I can think about is my dad walking out. He walked out and left us alone. Why would anyone want that reminder? Why would anyone invite even more pain into their lives?” Was that what I was doing by being with her? I’d opened myself up for a huge new gaping wound that cleaved right through my chest and straight into my heart.
“Then now he knows, because the way he said goodbye tonight, I don’t think he’ll be bothering you again.”
“Good.” The single word was sharp and final.
Sabrina looked at me like she was seeing me with new eyes and shook her head. “It’s been a long night. I’ve had too much wine and need some rest. We’ve said some things maybe we shouldn’t have. And we’ve all made some mistakes.”
“None of my mistakes have broken up a happy family.” The words were out before I could stop them. It was like a blister I kept prodding. I wanted to keep poking and prodding to cause a reaction, a bigger one, even though I was screaming inside to leave it alone. But embracing this pain in the moment felt easier than waiting for the ticking time bomb to explode in the future at an unknown time for maximum anxiety and dread.
“Neither did mine!” The muscles in her neck strained. “What Seth did was wrong, completely and totally, but I trusted him. Maybe too blindly or maybe I had stars in my eyes about what the relationship was. I trusted him not to lie to my face and make me the other woman. Trusting a person I thought cared about me was my only mistake.”
“How can I trust you? How am I supposed to trust you?” It was inevitable. I’d lose her no matter what. The thought struck a spike of fear into the center of my chest, but maybe it was better this way. The devastation wouldn’t be so sharp after only a few months. Tonight had proved so many things to me and made running away feel less like a cop-out and more like a necessity. I needed to keep my sanity and heart intact, although right at this moment it felt like it was being scooped out of my chest.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react this way. You’re so busy pushing away people who want to be close to you, if they’re not in the tightly defined box your friends are already in. It seems like they snuck in under the wire before you slammed the lid closed.”
She brushed past me and stormed down the hallway.
I followed her, bristling that she was once again trying to shift the blame.
She wasn’t going to turn this around on me. This was about her and what she’d done.
“The way I live my life has nothing to do with you.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t.” She walked into the closet and came back out with a bag.
“What are you doing?”
Her head tilted, and her gaze zeroed in on me. “What do you think I’m doing? Do you think I’m going to stay here and let you berate me and try to make me feel like I’m a terrible person for who knows how long? I’m leaving.”
The last two words were launched into the air like an errant missile. “To go where?” The fiery boulders we’d been lobbing at one another cooled in a split second.
She couldn’t just leave.
She jerked open drawers and grabbed handfuls of clothes, shoving them into the bag. “I don’t know, but not here.”
“And you say I run from people.”
She shoved the bag to the floor and held her arms out wide at her sides. “I’d have thought you’d be happy—relieved even. It’s like that night I left your bed. I’m doing this myself. What do you want from me, Hunter? You’re staring at me like I’m gum on the bottom of your Italian loafers, but then you don’t want me to leave? We’re back to the push-and-pull situation? There were red flags with Seth that maybe I missed, but I’m not setting myself up for even more disappointment again. So I’m getting in front of all the flag waving with you right now.”