“Dia?” I repeat.
Okay, this is weird.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
She doesn’t acknowledge my existence, her lack of a response starting to freak me the fuck out. My patience runs out fast enough, and I cut across the room to meet her. She doesn’t even glance up when I stop before her.
She looks like she’s in shock, her eyes ghostly, her makeup smeared down her flawless face. The moans grow louder and louder the closer I get to her.
What the fuck?
“What are you watching?” Fear grips my insides. I don’t wait for her to return to the land of the living and pick the phone off her lap to see for myself.
Then I immediately want to die.
I want to tear my own throat out, peel off my own skin, make myself bleed for the atrocity on her screen.
The video shows Remy, clawing at my back, her mouth open as I fuck her brains out. It never ends. It just goes on and on, filling my throat with rage and panic.
“That’s what you were doing.” Dia’s croaky voice is gutting. “Last night. That’s why you were busy.”
No.
No.
Fuck.
“It’s her, isn’t it? The person you’re always on the phone with.”
I don’t even get a chance to reply before she’s pushing to her feet and snatching her phone out of my hands.
“Dia, wait, please,” I word-vomit, but it’s too late. It feels like the air is thinning in my lungs as I watch her swing my bedroom door open.
Then she runs.
She gives up on me.
As she fucking should, but it doesn’t stop me from throwing on the first T-shirt I can find and chasing after her. I run like a goddamn track star, shadowing the only good thing in my life down the hall and nearly breaking a leg in the process.
?“Dia, wait!”
Pathetic.
So pathetic.
She gets to the stairs before I do and doesn’t waste a second bolting to the first floor. I’m so agitated I almost consider sliding down the banister like they do in the movies—anything to catch her before I lose her forever.
“Vee. Car. Now!” I hear Dia tell her best friend, who happened to be in the kitchen. The front door slams, and I lose it, my sight becoming blurry. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. The only thing that matters is stopping her. Getting her to listen to me. Everything else fades away, including the truth.
The truth being that she’s right.
I did betray her.
Even if it’s not in the way she thinks.
I barely notice Xavier standing in the kitchen when I rush to the door. He’s watching the scene unfold with a million question marks in his eyes, but I don’t give two shits right now.
“Dia!” I choke on an embarrassing plea as soon as I’m out of the house.