What little respect I had for my boyfriend of four years was long gone as I stared at him from across my room. He stood with his hands on his hips, demanding that I explain why I was surrounded by a bunch of hockey players this morning.
My jaw dropped slightly before I righted myself and pretended there wasn’t a sting burning my cheek from the slap. “You actually think you have any right to question me?”
Chad scoffed before running his hands through his hair. I stared at the shiny strands, remembering how the girl from last night had pulled on the ends while he plunged his tongue into her mouth. I dodged the blow to my heart and dug down deep for the anger that I knew I needed to fuel this entire encounter.
“Oh, please. Don’t give me that, Claire.” Chad kicked the half-empty vodka bottle across the room, and it went underneath Theo’s bed. “I’m surprised you even care.”
I sucked in my stomach, righting my spine like I was about to take the stage. “You’re surprised that I care? I watched you openly cheating on me last night. You’re my boyfriend, Chad.” We’ve been together for nearly four years. Of course I care.
Chad crossed his arms over his chest and waited for me to say something else. Silly me to think that he’d come crawling back this morning to tell me that he didn’t mean it and that he was sorry. What was I thinking? “How would you like it if you saw me making out with some guy? Would you care?”
The memory of Theo kissing me came the second I closed my mouth, but I quickly disregarded it, knowing that it was nothing but a slip in time. I didn’t want Theo to kiss me to rub it in Chad’s face. I was just desperate to feel anything except the hurt I was feeling. Chad had a way of making me feel like I wasn’t good enough, and for once, I wanted to feel the opposite.
“As if you’d even have time to make out with someone.” He laughed it off, as if it would never happen. “You’re too busy for anything but dance, school, and work.”
I scoffed. “Are you really going to try to blame this on me? You’re busy too, Chad. Remember? It’s your senior year, and you have this huge senior project you have to complete. In fact”—I popped my hip out with an attitude I hadn’t used since I was fourteen years old—“I wanted to move in with you this year, and you told me that you were too busy and needed to focus.”
Chad opened his mouth, but nothing came out. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for some type of explanation to make the anger and hurt stop circling me like I was open prey to an animal who wanted to do nothing but kill me. I jumped in my spot when his hands flung up in defeat. “Fine,” he barked. “I’m sorry…”
“You’re sor–”
“But it is my senior year, Claire.”
Is that supposed to mean something?
Chad began pacing back and forth in my small room, stepping over the box of pizza that Theo and I had shared last night, seemingly more agitated than a few minutes ago. Confusion must have covered my features because Chad stopped in his tracks and scoffed again. “I need to experience this college…stuff.”
“Stuff?” I took a step away when he got closer to me. My legs hit the back of Theo’s bed, and I just stood there, gaping at him, waiting for him to explain.
Chad shrugged. “We’ve been together for so long, and you know I plan to marry you.” His expression softened, the angry lines around his mouth smoothing out. “I even have the ring.”
That made me feel worse.
“But I need to get this stuff out of my system.”
Why did he keep saying ‘stuff’? As if it was a code to something?
“Oh, come on.” Chad was acting impatient, and I was frantically trying to connect the dots. “You know…experience the type of stuff that I can’t do with you.”
My face stung, and if I weren’t standing here, several feet away from him, I would have thought he had slapped me.
“Are you…” I cleared my throat, hating that it sounded as defeated as I felt. “Are you saying you want to…experience things with other girls to get it out of your system before you marry me?” Surely that wasn’t what he was saying.
Chad snapped his fingers. “Yes! It’s my senior year. I need to do the things you’re supposed to do your senior year, you know?”
The blood drained from my face, and my fingers went numb. My voice was shaky as I tried to make sense of what he’d just said. “And you expect me to just…wait around?” Betrayal came in quick, and my hurt was masked by anger.
Chad shrugged. “Do you really have a choice?”
I shut my eyes because the room was beginning to spin. My chest was tight, and the load on my shoulders grew that much heavier. “Of course I have a choice. If you think I’m going to sit around and be your girlfriend while you go out and fuck other girls, you don’t know me at all.”
“And what about your situation?” My hand fell from the bridge of my nose, and I glared at him from across the room. My fingers were itching by my side, and the urge to slap him should have startled me.
“My situation?” I whispered, seeming apprehensive with my quiet voice and questioning confusion. Knowing Chad, he thought it was because I was being my usual, people-pleasing self and enabling him to get the upper hand, but it was actually because I was trying to keep myself from throwing Theo’s lamp at his head.
“Your money situation, Claire. Your mother owes my parents a lot of money, and you can hardly afford school as it is. You end us, and you’ll be in a much bigger hole than you are now.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you seriously threatening me right now?” My words were sputtering out of my mouth, and I had to take a seat on Theo’s bed before I fell over in shock. “You want me to wait around for you, and then when you’re done with your whoring-around phase, you expect me to just jump back into your arms and act like nothing happened? And if I don’t, you’ll what? Screw my mother over? Screw me over?”
Chad sighed heavily, and I didn’t even want to breathe the same air as him. I was too blinded by his grand plan bordering very closely to a silent threat to acknowledge the bruise to my self-worth.
“I don’t even recognize you anymore, Chad,” I whispered, at a complete loss for words.
“You know I love you, Claire. You are my future. I’ve always told you that.”
Does he truly believe that?
“Blackmailing someone to stay with you after you treat them horribly isn’t love, Chad.”
“I’m not blackmailing you.” The groove between his eyebrows grew deeper. He’s right. It was more of a threat than anything.
“You are,” I reminded him. “You’re telling me—someone who you claim to love—that you are going to sleep around with other girls to get it out of your system and then come back to marry me when it’s all said and done because I have no other choice but to say yes? My mother owes your parents money, and I’m poor, so if I say no, then you’ll destroy her job and demand the money back? Sounds like a threat, actually.”
Silence surrounded us, and I could see the wheels turning in the back of his head just like I could hear the plans formulating in mine. Chad was out of his mind if he thought I wouldn’t do everything in my power to get out from under this. People wondered why I never asked for help or accepted it, and this was why.
“I see what you’re saying, Claire.” Chad took a step toward me, and if I weren’t already sitting on Theo’s bed, I would have moved back to get away from him. “Maybe we should just consider this a little break, then?”
My eyebrows raised. “A break?”
His hands went into his pockets as he peered down at me on Theo’s bed. “I don’t want to regret spending my entire college experience studying my ass off and not doing what guys do, babe. Tell me you understand and that you won’t force me into a bad position. Tell me you’ll be waiting for me after graduation.” My heart was racing through my chest, and if I couldn’t feel it ramming against my ribs, I would have thought it had stopped beating altogether. I felt nothing but unwanted and used as I gazed up at someone I used to feel comforted by. I used to feel safe with him. “Tell me, and I won’t say anything to my parents. Your mom’s job is safe. The money she owes is just that. Owed.”
I knew I didn’t have much of a choice—not at this moment, at least. But I wasn’t going to be the dutiful girlfriend he could keep on a leash while he was out doing his own thing with the safety blanket of knowing I’d be there in the end.
“Fine,” I said softly. When his face relaxed and his shoulders dropped, I slowly stood up and put my hand on his chest to push him away. “But if you’re on a break, then I am too.”
He frowned as I walked past him and grabbed my dance bag. “What does that mean?”
“I won’t sit in my room each night, waiting for you to call me after you’ve been with other girls.” I shook my head. “So, if you’re on a break, then I am too.”
“Are you saying you’re gonna go out with guys?” He scoffed as he put his hands on his hips.
I didn’t answer him because that wasn’t my plan. My plan was to focus solely on school, take as many shifts at The Bex as I could to save more money, and work my ass off to get the lead part in the spring showcase so I could win the full scholarship for my senior year.
Chad laughed under his breath as I held the door open for him with my dance bag slung over my shoulder. Before he walked past me, his hand wrapped around my waist, and he leaned in close. His breath tickled my ear, but what used to make me feel calm felt like a storm brewing. “You talk a big game, Claire Bear. But you and I both know that isn’t you. You don’t have time for me, let alone anyone else.” The breath in my lungs left with him after he kissed my cheek.
The second the door shut was the second I let my guard fall.
