Page 72 of Bleed for Me

I snorted in response. “Oh I am. Just not when it comes to stupid boys.”

She huffed a laugh before scrambling to her feet. “That’s fair. I truly am sorry,” she repeated, like she couldn’t say it enough.

“It is what it is. Now go before he finds out that I know.” I wanted to hear what he’d say for himself. If he saw us together, chances were that he’d walk right back out of visitation and hide.

She nodded and made her way across the room, slipping out the door on the other side. My chest felt heavy. If he’d cheated on me while I was stuck in this place, maybe I could have understood that, since I did it, too. But he’d been cheating on me for a year or longer. Ava said he was always running off. I never realized it before, but he ran off on me a lot, too. He did it in such a way, it didn’t feel like it, though. He’d wait until we argued and then he’d leave or tell me he wanted to visit his family alone since he didn’t get to see them often.

I felt like an idiot. My entire world had revolved around him. He took care of my sister as if she were an extension of him. Those were some of our best memories, especially since she was gone now, too. Daisy adored Alex. My mom did as well on the off chance that she wasn’t plastered in her room.

I felt eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up, or to turn my head. Seven and Archer probably heard everything, and I didn’t want to give them another reason to make me feel like shit.

My breath caught in my throat when a shadow loomed over my table. Still, I didn’t bother to raise my eyes. If he looked at me right now, he’d know something was wrong. I just needed a few more minutes to come to terms with what I just found out.

Alex slipped into the seat across from me. If he’d spotted Ava on his way in, he wouldn’t be sitting here right now—that much I was sure of. He hated confrontation of any kind, or so I thought. I always assumed that was why he ran away when we argued, but now, I realized that I didn’t know much about him at all. The version of him that I knew never would have cheated on me.

Taking in a deep breath, I slowly lifted my head. Pain splintered through my chest once our eyes locked and memories came rushing to the surface. All of the holidays, the movies, the date nights, the laughing, the conversations about our future together. None of it mattered anymore because it had never been real.

“Where’s my mom?” I asked.

Alex shifted nervously, like he was afraid to upset me by telling me why she was absent again. That thought was almost laughable. “This has been hard for her,” he explained like I didn’t know that. I was still her damn kid. “She’s fallen off the deep end. Drinking heavily, popping pills, sleeping all day.”

My mom had always been an alcoholic and a borderline junkie. But that wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have with him right now. Visitation hours were limited, so if I wanted to talk to him abouther, it needed to happen now before time ran out. My hands slipped into my lap, and I eyed the boy across from me with repulsion. The dirty things he said to her echoed through my skull. He pounded into her ruthlessly. He wasn’t a virgin. I wasn’t sure if he’d ever been a virgin during our time spent together.

“Are you okay?” he asked at last, taking in my stiff posture and my lack of expression.

I shrugged. “Who’s Ava?”

If I hadn’t already seen evidence of him screwing her, then the way his face paled would have given him away. “She’s a girl from one of my classes,” he explained. “Why?”

“I heard from a little birdie that she’s more than an acquaintance to you.”

He rolled his eyes, playing it off like he wasn’t at any fault and that this was just a rumor. I knew better, though. “Who told you that?”

“We’ll get to that. I’ll ask you again. Who is Ava?”

Alex leaned back in his seat, slipping on a mask of boredom as he stared at me from across the table. “I just told you. She’s a girl from one of my classes. I don’t know her beyond that.”

Annoyance flickered inside me, and suddenly, I wondered what else he’d lied about during our relationship. If he was this comfortable and good at lying right to my face, I knew it couldn’t have been the first time he’d done it.

I snorted in response, rage simmering just beneath the surface of my skin. “Do you make a habit out of fucking your classmates?”

He reeled back, his eyes widening in shock, like he couldn’t believe what I’d just accused him of. I was glad I asked for proof, otherwise, it would have been easy to fall into his trap. He was a master manipulator. He wasn’t who I thought he was at all.

“Are you really accusing me of cheating on you, right now?” he demanded in a low growl that was so unlike him, it had the hairs on the nape of my neck standing on end.

“Cut the bullshit,” I snapped, planting my hands on the surface of the table, using the momentum to pull me forward so that I could speak more quietly without alerting the entire room. “She had a camera in her room. She had evidence. I just have another question.”

His Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. But he knew he’d been caught, so instead, he just nodded.

“Why wouldn’t you do it with me? Why find it somewhere else, knowing how willing I was?” It took great effort to keep theshake out of my voice. Rage and agony trickled through me like a never ending current of despair.

He sighed, a look of defeat crossing his expression. “You deserved better than that,” he finally said. “You were pretty, smart, and classy. It didn’t matter where you came from. You made a new life for yourself at Northbrook. I didn’t want to treat you like some dollar store hooker. As soon as we married, I would have dropped Ava. I just couldn’t bring myself to have sex with you when she was still in my life. You deserved to be the only one. You were innocent when it came to that kind of thing, and I didn’t want to use you like that.”

My nails bit into the surface of the table. “Do you hear yourself right now?” I snapped, leaning back in my seat. “I’ve never beeninnocent. Inexperienced, maybe. But in a way you still used me. I was the one you ran to when you wanted to feel worthy. You used Ava on the side to satiate your needs. You saw the hovel I grew up in, cared for my sister like she was your own, and I thought—” I broke off, my chest rising and falling as the heat built behind my eyes. I couldn’t even stand to look at him a second longer. Ava was his mistress. I was the one he always came home to. That was how he looked at it. While he was cheating on me, he was still talking to me about our future like it was in the cards for us. He never intended on telling me about her.

“Everything okay here?” Archer asked, slipping into the seat beside me. For once, I didn’t even care about his interference. This conversation was practically over.

I didn’t bother to look his way, and even when Seven flanked my other side, I didn’t turn to him either. The guys might have been at odds right now, I wasn’t stupid. It was why Archer had been eating with me at mealtimes, but they’d still always have each other’s backs even if they were mad at the other.

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