Room-maid(65)

The bartender returned quickly with our cocktails and we cheered each other, clinking our glasses.

“Maybe Shay is right,” Delia told me. “If nothing’s going to happen with Tyler, we should find you a new guy. What is your type?”

“So far it seems to be guys who suck up to my father.” Which meant Tyler was out. I sipped my drink. It was strong. Meanwhile Delia practically chugged hers. I could never figure out how someone as tiny as she was could drink like a sailor on leave.

She set her empty glass down. “That guy’s cute. The blond at the end of the bar. His dark-haired friend’s not so bad, either.”

I looked in the direction Delia pointed and she was right—the guys were cute. I just wasn’t interested. “Eh.”

As if this was a challenge, she said, “Okay, what about that guy sitting near the post? He reminds me of that actor who plays Iron Man, only younger.”

“If you’re feeling desperate,” Shay added, “that guy over there kind of looks like Brad. You should hook up with him and then dump him. It’ll help your ego.”

It took me a moment to realize that the man didn’t just look like Brad.

He was Brad.

And he was kissing another woman. Not just kissing her. It was like she had been deprived of all oxygen and he was single-handedly keeping her alive by providing her with a steady stream of it.

Shay seemed to have come to the same realization just after I did and I heard her swear as I stalked off toward him. I had to make sure.

I tapped him on the shoulder and it took him a bit to break off his kiss. It almost sounded like suction being broken.

When he turned around, his eyes went wide. “Madison! What are you—”

Before he could accuse me of stalking him or being in any way irrational, I said, “So your text this morning, about waiting for me, you forgot to mention that you only planned on being faithful for less than twelve hours. You said you were committed. Which I guess could still be true if your definition of committed means sticking your tongue down other people’s throats.”

His date tried to intervene but Brad told her to be quiet. Then he turned back to face me. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

I was incredulous. Was he seriously going to try and gaslight me here and now, when I had literally caught him cheating on me? Well, not technically cheating since we weren’t together anymore. But he had been making promises to me. Promises that he’d had no intention of keeping.

How had I ever believed him? How had I ever given him the benefit of the doubt? Why had I taken him back so many times? But I knew why and it just made me sick that my own parents had been complicit in this mess. That I had been complicit.

That I had been so stupid somebody really should have taken my picture and hung it up in the hallowed Halls of Stupid as the stupidest person who had ever lived.

“I know I’m repeating myself here, but that’s because you seem to not be getting it. We are totally done,” I told him. “This is over. We are never getting back together. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I can’t believe I wasted so many years of my life on such a pathetic excuse of a man who is nothing but a liar and a cheat.”

His eyes flashed angrily. “What did you expect, Madison? A man has needs. I’m sorry you saw me kissing Amber. I just wanted to remember what it felt like to kiss someone who knew what they were doing. I wouldn’t need to cheat on you if you’d ever bothered to learn how to be better in bed . . .”

Oh, that was a low blow. It was like he’d just punched me in the gut. When we were fifteen, we’d been making out in the stands at a football game. The head cheerleader, a girl named Fallon, had irrationally hated me for years and it only got worse when Brad and I got together. I overheard her making fun of how I kissed him and how stupid I looked. She and all her friends were laughing at me. I was already so insecure at that age and when I went to Brad and told him, when I had expected him to comfort me and say that he loved kissing me, he had cocked his head at me and said, “Well, she’s not wrong. You’ve got a lot to learn. You’re not great at it.”

Which made me feel like I was always running a race I couldn’t win. With every physical thing that happened between us, I was always unsure and questioning myself. It wasn’t until this moment, when he weaponized those fears against me, that I realized all of it had been a way for him to manipulate me. By making me feel like I was never good enough for him, he had ensured that I spent all my time trying to change his mind.

A favorite tactic of my parents, and one I should have recognized sooner.

Any remorse I might have felt, any fear I had of my family’s expectations, it was all gone. He had just wiped it out with one fell swoop. I didn’t even have the strength to care enough to hate him. He was toxic and terrible and I just wanted him out of my life permanently.

He’d spent years showing me what a snake he was and it was about time I started believing him.

“And to think some part of me actually felt bad about possibly hurting you.” I just shook my head. “The only good thing now is that I never have to see you again. Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t even think about me. We’re finished.”

I needed to get out of this club. Away from him. Because right now I was furious with both of us. Furious with him for being such an awful human being and furious with myself that I’d put up with it for so very long.