“What do you want?” she muttered.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, dumbass? I’m leaving.” She looked up at him for a moment, and he saw pain in her green eyes, a lot of pain. Then she looked back down at her suitcase. “I can’t handle you screwing with my emotions anymore. You were all over Christina yesterday. Then you come home and find me drunk and upset, so you take advantage of that. You comfort me, and then you kiss me. Then Little Miss Bitch finds us and all of a sudden it’s, ‘No, I would never – “
Nick interrupted her. “I made her leave.”
“Wh-what?”
“She left last night. She told me I had to choose between you and her, and I chose you, that simple.” He paused. “She did tell me something interesting, though.”
“What?”
“Well, she said she was cheating on me, sleeping with other guys, and that you knew about it.”
“Oh.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Beth?” She cringed. He only used that name when he was really serious.
“Because I wasn’t gonna be the one to break up your relationship. I wasn’t gonna come between you two.”
“You wouldn’t have been! You weren’t the one who cheated on me or anything! That was her!” He sighed. “I…I thought I could trust you. Maybe you SHOULD leave.”
She choked back tears. “Don’t say that, Nick.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love you so much, more than anything. I just didn’t wanna see you hurt like that.”
“Do you think it would have hurt me more coming from you or if I would have walked in on it or something?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to keep it from you, but I didn’t see any other way to do it.” She put her hand gently on his shoulder, but he harshly shrugged it off.
He started to walk out the door, but turned around. “I’m gonna go. I don’t know where. I’m just gonna go to the beach or something and think. I need some time to myself to figure this all out. Don’t leave; we’ll figure all that out later.”
She nodded and sat down on the bed. A few seconds later, she heard him go downstairs and out the back door. How had she managed to screw up so bad?