When I got to the door of our place, I decided to knock instead of fumbling around in my oversized bag for my keys.
No one answered.
I groaned, then swung my bag around so it was resting on my hip and started digging away. My keys were not only at the bottom but they were tangled up in my gym headphones—I made a mental note to buy wireless ones that night—and it took me a good two minutes to get them out and get the right key in the lock.
Opening the door, I stepped into our quiet, downtown San Diego apartment. The late afternoon sun was shining through the large living room window and bouncing off an impossibly pink bra and panties set that was strewn over the arm of the couch.
Those… are not mine.
This thought floated through my brain untethered.
I hadn’t yet connected any dots or made any leaps to any conclusions. I just looked at the cheap underwear and frowned. A second or two later, I heard the sound of moans coming from the bedroom down the hall. But still, all this information was being logged in my memory without context.That’s not my underwear… Someone is moaning in the other room.I even managed to go so far as to understand that someone was having sex in my apartment, but still, in the back of my mind, I was wondering where Bret could be.
Because he couldn’t possibly be in that other room. He couldn’t possibly bewiththe person—no, not person,woman, it was definitely a woman—who was now screaming with pleasure ten feet away. He must be somewhere else.
But where?
I walked down the hallway, without hesitation, ready to catch whoever these two filthy pervs were in the act. Someone had broken into our house and was now going at it in our bed, and I was determined to make them pay for it. I had my phone clenched in my hand ready to call the police, as I pushed the door open and saw the naked back of a skinny brunette woman. Her head spun around, and she looked at me wide-eyed and mid-moan.
She let out a pathetic little squeal and quickly drew the sheet up over to cover herself, at the same time slipping off the lap of the man she was straddling and sitting back in the bed, looking completely confused. I tore my gaze away from her for just a second, but a second was all it took for my life as I knew it to shatter into a million pieces.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Bret?”
Bret jumped to his feet covering his privates with a pillow. “Lily—” he said.
“B, who is this?” the woman in bed asked. He looked at her for a moment, but said nothing, then turned his gaze back to me.
“I’m his fiancée,” I said, taking a step back. “Although, I think now it’s safe to say that I’m his ex-fiancée.”
The woman gasped, but I didn’t stick around long enough to hear what she had to say. I turned and walked out the door. Bret called out for me, and I heard him fumble as he presumably tried to put on some pants. He caught up with me right as my fingers curled around the door handle leading out of our apartment.
“Lily, I can explain,” he said.
I laughed. Hard. Harder than I had laughed in quite some time, and then I stared him down with dagger eyes, the ones I usually reserved for my personal trainer after she would tell me to do another ten reps. “No,” I said. “You really can’t. Because no explanation for this would stop me from walking out this door right now.”
“I love you,” he said. “And this—” He pointed down the hallway, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the woman he’d just been inside struggling to get her clothes on in a timely fashion. Her face was bright red, and for a moment, I thought about feeling sorry for her, but that moment drifted away almost as quickly as it came, and I was once again filled with righteous anger. “This is nothing,” he went on. “It’s just sex. It has nothing to do with you or with us.”
“There is no more us, Bret.” I opened the door and took a step out.
“Lily, you can’t mean that.”
Bret’s hand landed on my shoulder, but considering that hand had only seconds ago been cupping the breast of another woman, I immediately smacked it away, not holding back and probably hurting him a little in the process.
Good.
I marched down the hallway towards the elevators. Thankfully, Bret finally took the hint and hung back. As I stepped into the lift, I turned to press the button and then met his eye-line one more time just before the doors closed.
“I hate you,” I said just loud enough for him to hear. “And I never want to see you again.”
The doors shut, and as the elevator began to move downwards, my knees buckled underneath me, and I slid to the floor and sobbed.
* * *
That was how Michelle found me.
That Friday night, which was three days ago now, she left the restaurant right after I did and followed me back to my apartment. She said she went because she didn’t want me or Bret to have to be the designated driver since this week was all about celebrating us, so she was going to offer to drive all three of us back. I, however, had a sneaking suspicion that she knew something was wrong. Michelle had a sixth sense when it came to men. She could always pick out the players from the lover boys in the bar, and she knew when to call it quits with the guys she dated before they could end things with her.
A part of me thought she knew what was going on with Bret, but she swears she was just as clueless as me.