I tossed and turned, throwing my weight from one side of my body to the other, trying to clear my mind. All I could think about was what Zac said. Lex and I fight all the time, unfortunately, and this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to sleep apart from each other. I was starting to feel like maybe it wasn’t a dream, but then I would scold myself for thinking Lex would actually do something that terrible. Yes, he could be a jerk at times, but he would never actually do something like that.

I spent a good amount of time dancing between “would he?” and “he wouldn’t,” before I deemed it useless. Every time I shut my eyes all I could see were her white knuckles grasping the sheets.

After my failed attempt at falling back asleep I rolled onto my side and looked over the edge of the bed, and studied Zac. He was lying on his side with his back to me, his legs pulled in close to his body, tangled in a sheet.

He rolled onto his back, sensing my stare, and opened his eyes. There was something different about him. Without saying anything his bloodshot eyes spoke for him. His normally glowing face was dull. His sense of confidence was missing, and instead he was plagued with a hint of vulnerability. His untouchable persona had disappeared, and he looked more human than I had ever noticed before. He looked almost lifeless.

Staring into his shallow eyes I decided my dream had to be real, but there was something much worse hiding just under the surface. Dread washed over me when I realized that things were worse that I could have imagined.

My stomach dropped. I closed my eyes and let it sink in.

I felt like I was the only person in the world who had ever felt this bad, who had ever experienced this sort of pain. It felt like everyone else disappeared and I was the only one in the world left. I was alone in this, and at a time like this I needed to feel I wasn’t the only one, so I gathered the comforter in my arms and climbed off the bed to join him on the ground. It seemed only right to do. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or not, but by the haunting look on his face, and his welcoming to the ground I knew he felt the same.

He slid his pillow over so we could share and I spread the comforter out over us. We were both quite, and let everything fall into place. We let the quiet things do all the talking.

I shut my eyes and swallowed. I was shaking. My stomach was burning. Judging by the growing lump in my stomach, it was very possible that if I moved to quickly I might have thrown up.

These things only happen in movies and reality TV, not in real life, I told myself over and over. They aren’t supposed to happen to real people, with real emotions. How could this happen to me? I put so much trust into one person, and in one hesitant twist of a door knob it was broken. It was irreversible. Three years of my life I had given so carelessly to one person, and while I thought he was doing the same for me, he wasn’t. Never had I ever imagined anything this terrible would happen.

I just couldn’t comprehend how it could happen. Where along the lines did things go wrong? Did I miss all those signs? How could he tell me he love me, all the while knowing what was happened behind my back would kill me? What does she have that I don’t? How can you do that to someone you love? Did he love me, or was he just lying all those times?

This was my fault. I hated myself for letting this happen.

Part of me wanted to scream at Lex, to hit him, to beat him, and to know why he did it. I wanted him to hurt like me, and I didn’t want him to be happy ever again. I wanted every girl in the entire world to see him and what he did, so that they could see him as the monster he is, and that way he could never hurt anyone else the way he hurt me.

I wanted to make him jealous. I wanted him to want me more now than he had ever wanted me before. I wanted him on the edge of his seat, his heart pounding for me, beating its way out of his chest. I wanted him to sweat. I needed him to be desperate for me, only so that I could turn him down. I longed for him to feel that type of rejection. I wanted it to cut deep. I wanted it to burn. I wanted to haunt him forever, like a song on the radio that plays over and over. I didn’t want him to be able to get me out of his head.

I craved revenge.

I wanted to tie him down and scream into his face, and beat on his chest and demand to know why. I wanted to make him sweat, cringe, and bleed. I wanted him to regret it for the rest of his life. I wanted to demand that he’d make this up to me.

I wanted him dead.

Another part of me wanted to never see him again; to just go on with life and never think of him again, as if he was a made up figure that I would never have to bother with again. I wanted to wake up in the morning in a different life, in which I had never met him. I wished I never set eyes on him, and even more I wish I never loved him.

If only I could be at home, in my own bed and not even know that he was ever born at all. Fuck all that “it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” shit. All the love and good times we shared don’t mean shit compared to this. I would have been a better person if he was never in my life at all.

I have never regretted anything. As far as I was concerned I was happy where I was before this, and I wouldn’t want to change anything up until that point. But now I officially regret everything that had to do with my blind love of Lex. I wanted to take back every “I love you” and “I can’t wait to see you.” If I could I would choke down every word, deep into the pit of my churning stomach. I don’t care if it would make me sick, as long as he didn’t have the privilege of keeping them. They didn’t mean shit to him anyways. He doesn’t deserve to have any memories of me… of us.

I hated him. I hated him with so much passion that I wish I’d never used the word hate before. I wish that I had reserved the word for him. I hated that he held my life in his hands, and carelessly crushed it. I hate that he didn’t come running after me. Granted, it wouldn’t have changed my mind, but at least he could have tried to come after me and fix things. But he didn’t. I hate that he isn’t in pain, and I am. I hated him for thinking he could get away with this. I hated every sour, second-rate kiss, and the lies behind them.

And what made me hate him even more was the fact that I loved him. That’s something you can’t just turn off, and unfortunately I couldn’t help but love him despite my hatred for him.

I could never understand how some women would stay with men that are abusive, or men that are unfaithful, but it made more sense now. I hated him, and logically I knew there was no way I could stay with someone who has that level of disregard to my feelings, but at the same time I still loved him. I loved who let me believe he was.

Maybe I didn’t ever really know him, and if he was lying all those times then I guess I just knew the person he wanted me to know. But I want that man back. I don’t want to accept that the Lex that I knew was a made up person. I want the Lex he let me know. I couldn’t just accept that that person is gone forever. And as much as I hate him for this, I couldn’t just stop loving him over night. As much as I wished I could, I knew it was impossible.

And I knew that he knew I’d still love him.

I could feel the raw hatred circulating in my body. I could feel it pulsating in my arteries and filling all of my capillaries, then forcing its way into my veins. I could feel its cold, dark weight press on my heart as it beat faster and harder. I wanted to claw it out of my own body. I could feel my blood cells bursting with anger. If it was possible I would bleed out all of the bad blood, and start fresh with new blood. Blood that was never contaminated by Lex.

I guess that’s why another part just wanted to wither away and disappear. I knew that the other options were impossible, so I just wanted to vanish. I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath, and clean up the mess he had made. I didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want to have to answer any questions. My heart beat faster thinking of all of the questions and speculation to come in the morning.

I didn’t want to have to face anyone and explain what had happened, and I sure as hell didn’t want anyone trying to relate to me or tell me they know what I am going through. I didn’t want the awkward looks of sympathy coming from people who have absolutely no idea of what this kind of thing does to someone.

This isn’t going to just go away, it won’t just blow over. I am not ever going to be the same. Lex will be the one I won’t ever be able to get over, and I'm sure that someday 50 years down the road I will look back and still see him as the one who changed my life.

You don’t exactly recover from things like these.

I saw our life flash before my eyes. I remembered the first time I noticed him, and the first time he noticed me. I cringed at our first date, and awkward first kiss. I gagged at the first “I love you” and rolled my eyes at his half hearted proposal.

Then I watched our life circling the proverbial drain. I saw our wedding day, our first house, and our bills pilling up. I watched our children being born, and saw the toys in the backyard, and finger paintings on the refrigerator. I saw the minivan, and car seats; Christmas morning, and the first lost tooth. I saw the shin guards and ballet recitals; PTO meetings and her first homecoming. I witnessed his graduation, and Lex walking her down the isle. I watched our grandchildren enter this world. I watched us wake up at 5 am to go out to breakfast for the senior specials, and I saw us going to bed at 7 pm. I saw us old and in love. I saw richer and poorer, sickness and health. I saw the good times, and bad, and in a moment it was gone.

It hurt so bad to see that that would never happen. I wouldn’t know the Lex I pictured. I wouldn’t meet our children. Everything I ever wanted was just stolen from me. My childhood dream of getting married and having children was now so far out of reach. It was entirely his fault.

To say that you could have knocked me over with a feather was an understatement. Even though I had seen it with my own eyes I still didn’t believe it. I was in complete denial. Zac, on the other hand, had accepted it right away. While he took out his aggression instantly on Lex, all I could do was go into a shock and block most of it out.

Zac wrapped his arms around me and drew me nearer to his chest, pulling me down into reality. I was so lost in my own thoughts spiraling out of control that I didn’t notice his heaving chest, and the occasional gasp for air. I looked up at his face. It was glistening with tears, and his hair clung to his cheeks. His brown eyes were glazed over and turning red.

Looking at him in this state felt like a punch in the stomach. I felt so selfish wallowing in my own pity when I saw that he was fighting demons of his own. It took me over night to actually wrap my head around it, and it wasn’t until then that my emotion got a hold of my brain and I could put it all together.

Right before Zac and I stepped out of the elevator my cell phone started ringing, and while I was content with ignoring it he insisted that I answer it.

“Hello?” I asked, stepping out of the elevator.

“Hey Jovie, where are you?” Annie asked.

“The hotel,” I said, then mouthed ‘Annie’ to Zac.

“Why didn’t you take my key?”

“I did grab it,” I corrected her, looking over the key before handing it to Zac.

“No, I have my key in my hand.”

“Then who’s key did I take?” I asked furrowing my brow.

“I don’t know. Kate’s jeans were in here too. Maybe you grabbed hers.”

“Why would she have a one?”

“How the hell would I know? Are you just coming back then?”

“Yeah,” I hung up before she could say anything else, and looked at Zac who was waiting for an explanation. “That’s Kate’s key.”

“Why would Kate have a key to Lydia’s hotel room?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know. I’m so confused. Just open the door.”

“Are you sure?”

I wrapped my arms tighter around Zac realizing this had to be worse for him than it was for me. It was his wife. His wife and his best friend. Sure, Kate and I had become good friends over the last month and a half, but Lex and Zac had been friends their whole lives.

Lex and I hadn’t actually taken the plunge into marriage yet, and while I took consolation in the fact that we could make a clean break after this, things weren’t the same with Zac and Kate.

They are married. His wife had just slept with his best friend. In the morning, she will still be his wife. While I may be able to get away without having to ever face Lex again, Zac will have to face Kate. They will have to make a decision, instead of him just walking away which is what I planned on doing.

I started crying. Though out this whole ordeal I hadn’t cried once, which is strange for the girl who cries at the drop of a hat. I didn’t cry for myself, though. I cried for Zac. The floodgate broke and I was overwhelmed with emotion. My eyes were swelling by the second as hot tears filled them, and spilled over the edge. I pounded my fists and screamed into the pillow. I couldn’t take it. I hated Kate just as much as I hated Lex, that son of a bitch.

And I cried because I knew that people would be happy to hear this, and it made me want to throw up. This is a terrible thing that hurts more than anything you could imagine, and people will be happy to hear about it. Girls will be excited to see Kate as a heartless bitch, and they’ll be saying “I knew it would happen.” This isn’t anything to be happy about, but I knew it was inevitable. They’ll be excited that Zac going back onto the market, as if they have any chance with him anyways.

I cried because I felt responsible for this happening to him.

If he hadn’t been so nice to consider my feelings, and just left me alone and went with Lex and Kate, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if I hadn’t forgotten my bathing suit, we would have been home when Lex and Kate got back, and they wouldn’t have been able to sneak off together. Maybe if I would have asked Diana if there was anything she needed before we left they wouldn’t have had an excuse to run off together.

Annie had said that Lex ran back out to the store. She didn’t say anything about Kate going with her. Maybe if we had left 5 minutes later I would have been able to interfere enough that she wouldn’t have gone with him. Or even if I wouldn’t have forgotten key then we wouldn’t have ever even ended up outside of that hotel room, and we wouldn’t have witnessed our lives crumble.

I could have stayed there all night thinking of what-ifs and maybes, and Zac must have been thinking along the same lines, but came to a realization faster than me.

“How long do you think this has been going on?”

I groaned when he said this, making me realize that this very well could have been more than a one night stand.

As he shed light on the possibility of an actual affair I almost threw up. I guess I was hoping that this was a one time thing… just cheating. I was always under the impression that an affair was an ongoing, well plotted out secretive, passionate thing.

I hated the idea of there being passion involved.

It couldn’t just be a coincidence that Kate had a key to Lydia’s room. This had to be a well planned out rendezvous. Well, not well planned out or else Zac and I wouldn’t have rained on their parade.

Either way, as far as I was concerned things were done between us, but thinking of it as an affair made it burn so much more. I didn’t want to think that he could be passionate with anyone else. It hurt to think that someone else made his heart beat faster. I was supposed to be the only one who could do that.

“What about all those times she would disappear after the show?” he thought out loud, “Or that night in New York when we babysat Ezra and Ellie?”

“No,” I said, pushing my face deeper into his neck. I couldn’t bare thinking about all those times. I started sweating again as my mind wandered back over all of the time during the summer that Kate had disappeared, or we couldn’t find them.

I couldn’t really be that naïve, could I?

“Damn it. I need a drink.”