She stands there; a tear dripping down her face as her boyfriend clumsily dresses himself and the slut he is with scrambles out the door behind her. She still stands there, in fact, for what seemed like hours as her boyfriend shuffles to stand in front of her and opens his mouth to speak.

“Hayden, I’m so, so sor-” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“How could you?” she whispers, feeling as though her pain would kill her, and she waited for her body to go numb, as it always did whenever she felt pain.

“I-” he pauses, not able to get the words out. “I don’t know,” he sighs, whispers, as if ashamed.

Damn well he should be.

“You know,” her words echo harshly in what used to be their room. Seems like it’s his and slut’s room now. “You know why, and if you better tell me right now.”

He shuffles his feet guiltily. “I-I,” his voice cracks, but she doesn't feel an ounce of pity for the situation he’s in. “I… I just… I just didn’t feel the same anymore.”

“You didn’t feel the same,” she whispers brokenly. “You didn’t feel the same way, so you went and did… this?”

“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” he pleads, eyes wide, begging with me. “I wasn’t thinking… I only was looking, and she came up to me-”

“But you took her here,” she says flatly. “You took her here, our house, whe-where-” her lip trembles as she tries to get the words out. “Where we live together, where w-we,” her voice cracks and she hates how broken she sounds. “We do the things you were just about to do with a girl that wasn’t your girlfriend.”

He visibly flinches, as if she’s slapped him across the face. She wishes she could muster the anger to do it. 

“I’m sorry, Hayden,” he begs. “I didn’t actually do anything-”

She laughs sardonically, effectively cutting him off. “Do anything?! So kissing another girl and bringing her here with the intention to… to fuck her isn’t doing anything?”

He takes a step back, running a hand through the hair that she once thought looked perfect after being tussled by her. Now all she can think of is her touching his sandy hair, touching him in places only a girlfriend should touch.

“Hayden, I’m sorry,” he says again and again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

She shakes her head, her tough façade breaking down, tears gathering in her eyes as the full weight of what he did weighs on her. He cheated on her. He doesn’t feel the same. He thinks he’s innocent. He hurt her. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t love her anymore.

She’s going to cry she’s going to cry she’s going to cry she’s going to cry. She doesn’t want to cry.

“Hayden?” he asks softly now, as if he’s concerned for her well-being.

She blinks several times and realizes that she’s been off in her own world, trying to convince herself not to cry, not to forgive her boyfriend.

“I’m fine,” she speaks softly, clearly lying but honestly, she didn’t feel like telling the truth. It’s not like her boyfriend did either.

“No you’re not,” he says, coming closer, trying to comfort her but she steps away, repulsed. “I’ve dated you long enough and known you even longer to know that you are definitely not okay.”

“And whose fault is that?” she snarls, wiping furiously at her eyes.

He stops, pauses, thinks of ways to comfort his girlfriend. There is only one option left.

“I love you,” he says quietly, the volume having nothing to do with the pure emotion in his voice.

“No you don’t.”

The words hang in the air after she’s spoken them, the bitterness, and the hurt obvious in them, and the denial, the refusal to believe that he could possibly even feel anything for her anymore.

“You don’t,” she repeats, stronger this time. “If you did, you wouldn’t have done what you did. You wouldn’t have broken my heart that was already barely staying together.”

He has nothing to say. Nothing to say to prove his case, nothing to say to ease her pain, except three, meaningless words.

“I do love you,” he protests, gathering the courage to come closer and touch her arm gently. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much. I just forgot for a while, but I love you, I love you, I love you,” his voice drifts into a whisper.

She swallows hard, wavering at his declarations of love, but then she remembers of what she walked into, her ex-boyfriend on top of another girl, going places only she and he had gone before. And that’s when the words bubble up out of her throat and into the emptiness of their house.   

“No you don’t. You don’t.”