“I’m upstairs!” came a weak, shaky voice.
He bolted up the stairs two at a time, expecting to find her bleeding and hurt or something. Instead, he found her curled up in a sobbing mess on the floor of her room. There were three empty alcohol bottles on the floor next to her. “Beth, what are you doing?” he asked. From the tone of his voice, she knew he was disappointed in her.
“I…I thought maybe it would make the pain go away,” she whispered.
“What do you mean? What pain?”
“The pain of seeing you guys together. The pain of seeing you happy with a girl other than me. The pain of watching you two hold hands and kiss and hug and wishing I could be in her place. The pain of the satisfaction she gets from seeing me tortured like this. Take your pick.”
Nick sat down on the floor next to her, pulled her head onto his lap, and stroked her hair softly. “I didn’t know you felt that way, Lizzy.”
“I do. It kills me to see you with her.”
“Come here.” She sat up, and he pulled her close and inhaled the scent of her hair.
“I had everything I could ever ask for with you, and I threw it all away. God, why did I have to be so stubborn? I should have called you and told you about the baby. I shouldn’t have let you slip through my fingers.”
“You didn’t, Beth. I let you slip through mine.” He tilted her chin up to meet her eyes.
“I lost you,” she whispered.
“No, you didn’t. You’ve always had me,” he replied. Closing his eyes, he lowered his lips onto hers. He gently pried her lips apart with his tongue, but she pulled away.
“I don’t wanna be the other woman, Nick,” she said. “I’m not gonna be the one who breaks up a good relationship.”
“Beth…” he started. “I don’t love her like I love you.”
Just then, Christina burst through the door. “Is this true, Nick?”
He looked back and forth from the girl in his arms to the girl he was marrying. He weighed his options. There was a good chance Beth wouldn’t remember this, and he did wanna marry Christina. “Of course it’s not true. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He forced the words out of his mouth.
Beth shot him a pained look and crawled off his lap, allowing him to go embrace Christina. “You wouldn’t leave me for her, would you?” Christina asked.
“Of course not.”
Christina shot Beth an I-told-you-so glance over Nick’s shoulder and dragged him out of the room to their bedroom. “I want her out, Nick.”
“Chrissie, I can’t do that.”
“You can’t do that? I just caught you kissing her!”
“Look, I don’t know what came over me. Screw her.” Had those words just come out of his mouth? Was he honestly choosing Christina over Beth?
“Wouldn’t you like to,” Christina snorted.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I see the way you look at her, Nick! You care about her more than me!”
He looked away. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You can’t even look at me and say it. I want her out tomorrow. If she’s not, then I am.”
For a moment, he contemplated over the matter. “I can’t do it, Chris.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? You’d rather have her than me?”
“It’s my best friend over my fiancée, and I just realized my best friend can easily take your place.”
Christina backed away from him and shook her head. “Fine, then, fuck you! I’m out of here.” As she grabbed a suitcase and started throwing clothes in, she continued. “And I slept with all kinds of other guys while I was with you! I was with you for your money. I can’t stand the thought of actually loving you!”
“Screw you,” he muttered. Strangely enough, he didn’t care. “If that’s the truth, then I don’t know why I was with you in the first place.”
“And by the way, that whore knew I cheated on you, but she chose not to tell you. How does that make you feel?”
He shook his head and turned to go into the bathroom, unable to hide how much that hurt him.