Page 13 of Behind the Cascades
The adrenaline carrying me to my truck—I've been conditioned to thrive on this feeling. Working on instinct rather than emotion. I need to get as far away from the situation as possible.
Chapter Nine
Charlie
Iran after him down the steps of my apartment building, grabbing his arm to get him to stop walking.
"Hayes! Are you kidding me? You honestly think I would cheat on you?"
He looks at me with such vitriol and disgust that you’d think he just walked in and saw me having sex with Carter.
My heart is beating so hard that it feels like an out-of-body experience. He can't see past his arrogance to realize that maybe he's wrong and that I didn't have anything to do with Carter being in my apartment. For fuck’s sake, I’ve barely said more than a dozen sentences to this creep but Hayes won’t let me explain that.
The realization that he doesn't trust me hits me like a freight train. I knew that he struggled with anxiety from his previous deployments and seeing his teammates be cheated on left and right. Even still, he jokes with me about all the briefings on how to handle separations while deployed. He always made it sound like he trusted me though, trusted us. The way he’slooking at me makes it feel like that was all one carefully constructed lie to hide his true thoughts.
"I'm not cheating on you! I swear to you that I had no idea he was up there." Anger mixes with hurt until I’m yelling at him. I haven’t done anything for months but focus on Hayes, on us, and on our future. I go to school, go to work, and talk to him.Yet, I’m the bad guy?!
"So what, Charlie? He just broke into your apartment?! Covered it in flowers as some grand gesture for no reason? Men don't do that shit for nothing!"
Gasping for air, it feels like he just knocked the wind out of me.Is he seriously gaslighting me right now?Being friendly toward a man is reason enough for him to break into my apartment? He’s doubting me because of his insecurities, and I haven’t done anything to deserve that.
"Fuckyou, Hayes! Don't you dare blame me for this!"
He threw his arms out to the side, his face twisting with anger. He honestly thinks I invited Carter into my house and I've been having an affair with my neighbor.
"You wouldn't be the first chick to cheat on her deployed boyfriend. You probably won't be the last."
My heart sinks at his words, denouncing me as just another "chick."
He's never once made me feel anything but extraordinary. Today, though, he's making me feel like I'm nothing, like we haven't shared years of friendship that turned into love.
"You know," he laughs harshly. "Usually the women wait until we’re at least out of the country! You’ve always been an overachiever, though, huh?”
"Hayes! I wouldnever!" Somewhere between the shock and anger I’m feeling toward him not believing me, there’s a scared girl trying to make him believe her.
He doesn’t care anymore, though. It’s written all over his face before he turns and walks away.
He throws open his driver door, and the metal groans in protest as he gets into his truck. Without a second glance, he's speeding away. I stare at the back of the truck with blurry vision as sobs rake through my body. The truck we've spent countless hours making memories in. The truck that I would sit in when he left for boot camp just to feel close to him.
As I watch him drive off, a sense of emptiness fills me. The foundation of our relationship shattered in an instant and I’m left questioning everything we've ever had together.
I'll never understand how he could just leave me here like this. Completely and utterly broken. I thought he was my everything, my best friend, and my future. But how can he be all of those things when he wouldn’t listen to my side of things before jumping to conclusions.
I walk back up the steps, remembering there's one more problem to deal with.
Carter.
I've never been anything more than polite to him. Not once have I led him on or even invited him into my apartment. I don't even know how he got in. I would have sworn the door was locked, but now I can't remember if I heard the lock click when I unlocked the door tonight.
My apartment doesn't look like mine anymore. The white roses are everywhere. It looks like my living room is covered in snow. Snow and a trail of blood from where Carter must have run out of here. I should have known the second I saw those roses that it was him. My gut was telling me that him giving me that rose the other day was creepy, but I ignored it.A mistake I won’t be making again.
I don't have any sympathy for him, or his blood loss; he crossed a major line.
Grabbing my phone, I call the only person I can trust.
"Dess. I need you."
It only took Odessa thirty minutes to get here from Heartsville. So it’s safe to assume she broke every speeding law there was. One more reason to be thankful for my “don’t give a fuck attitude” best friend.
