“Let me go, Ryan,” I said quietly, staring straight ahead.
“No, we need to discuss this. I’ll come over later today. Please, Julia,” he begged.
I looked at him with tears flowing down my face. I couldn’t seem to stop them now and didn’t try to. I noticed the red outline of my hand was starting to reveal itself on his cheek.
“What’s there to talk about? It’s pretty clear to me what’s going on. Your girlfriend … my boss, goes on a little business trip. You use that time to get your kicks with the new piece of ass from the office.” The fact that his recent ex was my manager was another pretty substantial thing he had hidden from me. “Do you do this every time she travels? When you travel?”
He looked horrified by my crass accusation. He gripped both of my shoulders and scowled angrily at me. “I want you to know that I’ve never been unfaithful to … to Catherine … in any way, before I met you. And you are not some ‘piece of ass,’ as you put it.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, causing it to stand on end.
Damn it. Even pissed, he looked sexy.
“Look,” he said in desperation, “I was going to tell you today, before she got back. She wasn’t supposed to be back until Thursday, which you knew. But she got back this morning. I knew I needed to stop it before it got any further with us, because...”
“Further?” I interrupted him. “Didn’t you think it went far enough the moment you kissed me? You think cheating on someone only qualifies if you fuck them?” I was being callous now and I didn’t give a shit.
He looked stricken by my blunt comment, but I wasn’t in any mood to be delicate. He ignored my comment. I was too angry to be ladylike. I could tell my words had pushed a button.
“Look. I didn’t expect for this to happen,” he said, gesturing in the air between us. “You weren’t supposed to exist.” He sounded almost bitter and roughly combed his hand through his hair again, exasperated. “Catherine was supposed to be my happy ever after. She was supposed to be the one. After seven fucking years, I was resigned to the fact that she was it. Then I hit you with my car, and wham! I feel like I was the one that got hit over the head that day. And then that night at Betty’s … I knew I was in serious trouble then. I thought I did the right thing by letting you go that night. But then you showed up again and I realized I couldn’t let you go a second time.” He paused to take a deep breath, reflecting on his own perplexing behavior. “How can you fall for someone when you already supposedly love someone else? What type of person does that make me?”
I didn’t respond; he wasn’t asking me, anyway. He was asking himself.
He leaned forward, bending and placing both of his hands on his knees, like he had been defeated in a race. “You’ve completely turned my world upside down, Julia. I don’t know what the right thing is to do anymore.” To my satisfaction, he looked so sad; completely tormented about his “predicament.”
What do I say to that? He completely disarmed me again. My emotions turned from anger to sappy to sentimental to utter confusion. I wanted to be angry with him, but I couldn’t, because if I was honest with myself, I was relieved to have heard his words. In fact, I was shamefully elated to hear that I had turned his world upside down.
But instead of revealing the extent of my emotions, I said, “I’m confused, Ryan. Are you saying you want to be with me or with Catherine?”
“It’s … complicated,” he said, his face tortured.
I was really beginning to hate that word now. Is there anything that isn’t complicated?
“Julia, I’ve known her almost my whole life. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“You’ve apparently made up your mind,” I said curtly and I could feel my heart breaking.
“Julia–we’re engaged.”
Whoosh! All the air had just deflated from my lungs. My eyes narrowed as I looked at him more closely. I thought this couldn’t get any worse. I was having an affair with my boss’s boyfriend … no, scratch that, her fiancé. I was the other woman. I’d become the thing I hated most in other women. I probably won’t have a job by the end of the week, either. Awesome. The situation was getting so bad that I no longer knew how to react. It was so completely comical, I started laughing hysterically and threw my arms up in the air.
“Julia …” he said cautiously.
“You’re an asshole!” I interrupted him angrily. “I’m done! I’m not doing this with you!” I snapped. “No more excuses or lies.” I looked down the street and I could see Catherine looking at us from a distance. She was too far for me to read the expression on her face, but she started walking in our direction. Fuck. I paused a moment to compose myself.