Betrayal in My Bed

Zara

The harsh smack of the paper envelope hitting the hardwood floor snapped like a gunshot in the stuffy bedroom. The rhythmic slapping of wet skin stopped dead. Kyle snapped his head over his bare shoulder. Wide, panicked eyes locked onto my face standing in the shadows of the doorway.

He scrambled off the mattress. His softening cock swung in plain sight as he lunged past the foot of the bed. The woman underneath him gasped and shoved herself backward against the wooden headboard. She scrambled for the tangled bed sheets. She yanked the white fabric up over her bare breasts and naked crotch, her face flushing crimson down to her collarbones. This was the same woman Kyle wrapped his arm around three months ago at the cheap diner down the street. The same woman he introduced to me with a bright smile as his sweet, innocent sister.

Kyle snatched a pair of gray boxers from the rug. His hands visibly shook as he jammed his legs through the holes and yanked them up over his hips.

"Zara. Wait, I can explain." His voice came out tight and strangled in his throat.

My brain flatlined. The scene burned into my retinas, but a thick layer of static flooded my head. I stared at the man who slept next to me for two solid years. The man who kissed my forehead every morning and promised to build a future with me. He looked like an absolute stranger holding his hands up in defense. Disgust clawed its way up my dry throat. The heavy stench of their sweat and sex coated the room, making my empty stomach churn.

"Get out." The words left my mouth in a chilling, steady whisper.

"This means nothing. I swear. It was just one time." He took a hesitant step toward the doorway.

He reached a hand out to bridge the gap between us, aiming to stroke my arm.

A blinding red flash of rage snapped the last tether holding my restraint. My arm swung in a wide, vicious arc. My open palm connected squarely against his cheekbone before my mind even registered the movement. The sharp crack echoed over the thin bedroom walls. The impact sent a stinging burn up my wrist and jerked his head hard to the right. A bright red handprint blossomed across his jawline.

Kyle stumbled a step backward. His hand flew up to cup his stinging face.

I let out a broken, humorless laugh. The sound scraped out of my chest like shattered glass.

"You expect me to believe it was just one time?" I bit out the words.

The fake sister clutching my sheets finally found her voice. Her terrified eyes darted toward the hallway behind me.

"I should go."

"Yes, you really should." I refused to look at her.

She dropped the sheets and dove for the floor. She snatched her scattered denim skirt, her lace bra, and her blouse. She did not bother putting them on or finding her underwear. She clutched the messy bundle of fabric tight to her chest and sprinted past my shoulder. The rapid slap of her bare feet faded down the narrow hall without her uttering a single word of apology. The apartment door slammed shut a second later.

Kyle dropped his hand and stepped closer to me. The panic in his eyes turned into desperate, pathetic begging.

"Baby, please. Let me explain. Just listen to me."

I slapped him again. I swung harder this time. My palm cracked against the other side of his face with enough force to make my shoulder ache. My skin burned from the impact. I wanted to knock his teeth loose.

"Listen to what?" I screamed the question at him, discarding any shred of quiet control. "Should I listen to you tell me how much you love me? Should I listen to you profess your endless love while screwing your fake sister in the exact bed we share?"

He flinched, holding both hands up in the air to surrender to the onslaught.

"She is not my sister. Okay? I lied about that. But this affair was purely physical. It meant absolutely nothing." He dragged a hand down his face, shifting his tone to sound like the victim. "You have been so distant lately, Zara. You are hyper-focused on Lily’s illness and your grueling work schedule. You left me feeling so lonely."

A wave of pure, unadulterated disgust washed over my tired body. It made me want to scrub my own skin with bleach. He had the audacity to blame this betrayal on Lily’s leukemia and the backbreaking shifts I pulled at the strip club just to keep a roof over our heads. A dark, ugly sneer twisted my mouth.

"You felt lonely? That is your big excuse for this? You decided to cure your loneliness by sleeping with someone else down the hall from my kitchen? You brought her into the apartment I pay for." I jabbed a rigid finger into his bare chest, forcing him back another step. "I work myself to death. I literally sell my dignity every single night to feed both of us and save my dying sister. And you slept with another woman because you felt lonely?"

"I am sorry. I know I made a mistake, please just give me a chance to make this right—"

I did not let him finish that pathetic sentence. I spun on my tired heels and marched straight for the open closet. My heart pounded a furious, deafening war drum against my aching ribs. I grabbed the heavy wooden doors and threw them wide open. They banged off the drywall with a thunderous crack. His worn jackets hung next to my dresses. His scuffed sneakers sat in a row beside my high heels. Two years of building a shared life suffocated me.

I reached up to the top wire shelf and grabbed his canvas duffel bag. I yanked it down and tossed it carelessly onto the carpet.

I grabbed thick fistfuls of his clothes off the wooden hangers. Shirts, hoodies, denim jeans, and sports coats. I shoved them unceremoniously into the open bag. Fabric tore. T-shirts spilled over the edges onto the floor. I did not care. I grabbed his heavy boots and hurled them at the canvas.

Kyle scrambled up behind me.

"Zara, stop. Please stop. We can work through this. We can go to counseling or something."

I ignored his pleas. I turned back to the closet and ripped down a second bag. I grabbed his stupid collection of baseball caps and his expensive winter coat. I shoved every single piece into the luggage, packing whatever my hands could grab.

"I love you." The wet crack in his voice made my skin crawl. Hot tears actually sprang into the corners of his eyes, tracking down his cheeks in a grotesque display of self-pity. "I know I messed up, but I love you. We can fix this. I have always been here for you. I gave you emotional support when your parents died. I stood by you when things got so dark."

I whirled around on him. My sore fingers dug deep into the canvas handles of the heavy bag.

I viciously shoved the loaded luggage directly into his chest. The dense weight knocked the remaining breath out of his lungs. He stumbled off balance and crashed into the sharp corner of the wooden bedroom dresser.

"You gave me emotional support?" I snarled. My voice shook with deep, unhinged venom. "I do not recall your emotional support ever paying the rent. I do not recall your emotional support covering a single one of Lily's mounting medical bills. Here is what I actually remember, Kyle. I remember you sitting on my couch. I remember you eating the food I bought. I remember you screwing other women in my bed while trying to figure out your entire nonexistent art career."

I took a stalking step closer, towering over him with sheer, burning rage.

"You are a pathetic, cheating leech." I spat the insult directly into his red face.

The second the branding landed, the pathetic crying act vanished in a blink. The damp tears dried up instantly from his eyes. His shoulders straightened, pulling up his posture. True resentment hardened his expression into a cold, deeply terrifying glare. The soft, caring partner mask fell off, leaving a bitter, calculating stranger glaring back at me. He kicked a stray pair of jeans out of his path and stared down his nose at me.

"You are an ungrateful bitch, Zara." His upper lip curled back to bare his teeth. "I could have walked away from your pathetic mess a long time ago. Your dying sister always whining for money. Your dead parents. The constant stress of living with you. I could have easily left all that behind, but I chose to stay and help you."

"You only stayed because you are a loser with nowhere else to go!" I screamed at the top of my burning lungs.

I lunged forward. I slammed both of my hands flat against his chest and shoved him hard toward the bedroom door. He braced his bare feet on the rug to hold his ground, but the sheer momentum of my heartbreak sent him stumbling backward. I grabbed his heavy bags off the bedroom floor and pitched them out into the hallway.

"The only mistake I ever made was wasting two years of my life on you," I yelled.

I shoved him again. I forced him down the dark, narrow hallway, driving him step by heavy step toward the entrance of the apartment. He glared at me with cold fury radiating off his skin. I reached the small entryway and grabbed the brass handle of the front door. I yanked it inward. The cool night air rushed inside, hitting my tear-stained cheeks.

"Get out!" I commanded, pointing a shaking finger out onto the stairwell landing.

Kyle picked up his bags slowly, dragging the canvas out onto the concrete. He did not immediately walk away. He lingered right on the threshold, blocking the door frame. His eyes narrowed into dark, malicious slits.

"You are going to deeply regret this." He sneered the promise with bone-chilling confidence. "You need me here to keep you sane. You will not last a single month without my presence. You will come crawling back to me."

"You should have left a long time ago." I stared him dead in the eye without blinking.

I gripped the edge of the heavy door and slammed it squarely in his face. The loud thud rattled the picture frames on the walls. I flipped the deadbolt. The heavy metal snicked into place with a definitive click.

A barrage of muffled insults and vile threats bled straight through over the solid wood. Something heavy kicked the bottom of the door. He shouted degrading slurs about my stripper job. He screamed that my life was over. I locked my knees and stood numb on the welcome mat. His dark monologue roared on for another few minutes until he realized I was not going to answer. His heavy footsteps eventually stomped out a fading rhythm down the concrete stairs. The security gate at the street level whined and clanged shut.

A crushing, suffocating silence fell over the small apartment.

The overwhelming, sudden stillness instantly broke through the last line of my defenses. The explosive adrenaline fled my exhausted bloodstream in a frantic rush. My weak knees buckled underneath my weight. I slid slowly down the face of the wooden door until my backside hit the entryway floor.

My tight chest heaved. I dragged in a shaky breath that tasted like ashes. A sharp, burning ache built up behind my eyes. I curled my knees up and burst into violent, ugly, soul-wrenching sobs. It was not a quiet, graceful cry. It was raw and guttural. Hot snot poured down my face and mixed with the bitter tears dripping off my jaw. My ribs ached with the brutal force of my deep wailing.

I cried for the massive chunk of my life I blindly wasted loving a lying parasite. I cried for the ultimate betrayal painted across my mattress. And then I cried because the apartment was terrifyingly foreign now, and my late parents were not here to comfort me in my darkest, loneliest moment. I clutched my arms tight around my waist to hold my shattering pieces together. The intense sobbing tore through my throat until my tear ducts ran completely dry.

The stinging moisture eventually subsided, leaving my chest entirely hollow.

My swollen, aching eyes dragged open. A thick blanket of despair weighed down my limbs. I peeled my heavy head off the door and stared down the silent hallway.

A small square of brown paper sat stranded halfway down the hall near the bedroom door. The envelope of cash. I had dropped it when the sick reality of the scene registered in my brain. Five hundred dollars of dirty strip club cash meant to cover the pharmacy costs.

I uncurled my stiff legs. I dragged my heavy body up from the rug and limped down the dark hallway. I stopped over the money, staring blankly at the crumpled corner.

My trembling fingers reached out to retrieve the cash from the floorboards.

Just as my fingernails touched the dry paper, a sharp, quick buzz vibrated deep inside my tight denim jacket pocket. The sudden noise jarred me out of my trance. I slowly pulled my hand back and stood upright. I plunged a shaky hand into my pocket and yanked out my cell phone.

The bright screen illuminated my puffy, tear-stained face in the dim hallway. A new, sterile text message notification blinked on the lock screen.

It was from Don.

'Tomorrow night. Same time. Same room. Don't be late.'