Page 114 of My Ex's Best Friend

“Kiera!” Mom replies sharply. “Don’t you ever say that.”

“Then you should really stop bringing Jake up. He and I are never getting back together. Period,” I say. “Never.”

I don’t know if I’m telling this to her, or just trying to convince myself.

She rubs her face. “I just—I don’t know what he did, though.”

“He broke my trust, Mom.” I can’t hold back the dam anymore. I’ve been keeping this from them for too long.

“What?” she says, blinking in surprise.

“When I was at home, waiting for him, he was with some other girl,” I sob.

She rushes over to me. “Oh, my god, Kiera. Please, calm down.”

I cling to my mother like I used to when I was a child. She keeps patting my head and rubbing my back. “It’s okay, Kiera. I’m here.”

I look up at her through tears-streaked eyes. “Do you think I’m pathetic?”

“No, baby, no. I didn’t mean to upset you. You haven’t told me what’s going on. I just wanted to find out,” she says. “I went too far.”

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “No, you’re right. I’ve been holding on to the truth for too long. It was hurting my heart.”

“Talk to me, please,” she says.

I give her a rundown of everything that happened, starting from him leaving for Spain on short notice, and then Chris showing up to confront me with the ugly truth.

My mother is silent for a few moments.

“I mean, I guess, at this point, I’ve decided that this is my fate,” I say. “At this point, I’ve been cheated over like a billion times.”

“What?” Mom says, looking confused.

I sniffle. “Before Jake it was Gregory. And before him, it was Spencer, and before it was Chris. The only common thing is that they all ended up cheating on me and screwing me over.”

“Gregory? Your colleague from the museum?”

“Yes, we were seeing each other. It had been a few months, I didn’t want to jump the gun, so I didn’t want to tell you about him. I was just about ready to when I found that he had booked a vacation with his other girlfriend.”

“Kiera, that’s horrible.”

“That’s how Jake and I met again,” I say. “I should have known it was a bad omen. I should have walked away from it.”

“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says, cupping my cheeks. Mom is crying. “You don’t deserve that at all.”

“Don’t I?” I say. “Maybe my love stories are doomed. Maybe I’m never meant to find love.”

She shakes her head. “I know how that kind of a thing can mess up a person. They were wrong, not you. All you’re capable of is love. But Jake—”

“He’s no different.” I can’t believe that she’s still trying to make a case for him after everything that I’ve told her. “He broke my trust.”

"Did he, though?" Mom shoots back.

I frown. “Mom, didn’t you just hear what I told you?”

“I heard you all right. Gregory, Chris, and the others have hurt you too much. I don’t blame you for being skeptical.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

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