“That’s funny. I was looking for you, too,” I said bluntly.

Her smile melted away. “What’s wrong?”

This shit was getting really old really fast. I didn’t even bother playing around with her. I went straight for the kill.

“I saw you come out of the room with that guy. I never pictured you as a cheating whore, but I guess I’m allowed to be wrong sometimes.”

My face shifted when her tiny palm struck my cheek. My face stung and felt stiff. It felt good to be hit. It had been a while since someone slapped me around, and the sick asshole inside of me howled with pleasure. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her to do it again.

“Don’t ever call me that again,” she said sternly.

Calling her a whore was wrong, but I was angry and my feelings were hurt.

“I call it like I see it, babe.”

“You saw wrong.” She huffed.

“Oh, okay. So I didn’t see you coming out of a bedroom upstairs with some fucker? Damn, I must be hallucinating. I had no idea. Maybe someone spiked my drink. Maybe I should crawl into the closest bathroom and pray someone will come and save me. Maybe I could even get that dumbass to fall in love with me so I can fuck them over.”

I was being a total dick and I didn’t care. The thought of her being with another guy hurt, and like a wounded dog, I was biting. I wanted to scream and hit something. I wanted to rip something to shreds and make anything feel as bad as I was feeling in that moment.

“It’s not what you think,” she said as panic filled her eyes.

“Then please enlighten me. What other reason is there for a guy and a girl to lock themselves in a bedroom upstairs. Oh wait! I know! You were showing him your strike zone? Let me ask you something, Patience.” I said her name in disgust. “Did you let him score, baby?”

Again, she slapped me across the face, and I almost begged her to do it again. I wanted to feel physical pain so the pain inside my heart wouldn’t be so bad. I wanted anything, no matter what it was, to come in and make it all just go away.

Instead of standing there arguing, I turned and walked away. I didn’t need to put up with this shit, and if I stayed there any longer, I’d go upstairs and kill that asshole with my bare hands. I could be in California getting some ass from some strange chick I gave less than two shits about. I could be smoking some of the best green I could find until my face was numb. But I wasn’t doing any of that.

I was in Florida, playing best boyfriend to a girl who had been obviously fucking someone else. I moved my life around just so I could be all domesticated and end up arguing in the middle of the party like some old married couple. Fuck that. If she wanted to spread her legs for every cock in Florida, I no long cared.

Thirteen

Patience

I sat on my couch and watched the sun come up. It lit up the old exposed-brick wall, sending tiny shadows dancing about as birds and tree limbs moved around outside my window.

I still hadn’t heard from Zeke and I worried that he’d hopped a flight back to California. I couldn’t see him leaving like that, but then again, he’d never been so upset with me.

I called his phone so much that it started going straight to voicemail and there were seventeen unanswered text messages. Most of them were me trying to come up with some kind of explanation for what he’d seen. I couldn’t very well tell him I was meeting with a guy about drugs. I still had most of the Xanax that Hope got for me, but my fear of running out had me meeting with Phillip, Hope’s drug-dealing friend, and buying more just in case.

Phillip was a nice guy and he had a girlfriend, but that didn’t stop him from harmlessly flirting with me. It wasn’t anything serious, nothing I couldn’t handle. If it meant getting what I needed so I could pretend to be okay, then I’d do whatever I had to do.

I was torn. Part of me was upset that Zeke didn’t trust me, but the understanding parts of me, the parts that knew where Zeke came from, got it. In his world, a girl going into a room alone with a guy meant something sexual. But I was in that room alone with Phillip for an entirely different sin.

After staring at the sunlit wall for an obscene amount of time, I finally decided to get up and unpack from California. I separated all the dirty clothes and put everything in its place. Then I stuck all Zeke’s bags in the closet. I would have unpacked them, but a little voice in the back of my head kept telling me I’d be paying to ship them to California soon.

I found the guitar case I’d bought him under everything. Setting the heavy case on the bed, I popped it open and took out the guitar. It looked exactly the same except he’d added a random snowflake along the side in permanent marker. I ran a finger along the jagged lines of the symbol he gave me.