1-The Breakup
The Breakup
Sitting in my parked car, I’ve been waiting for an hour for Adrien, my fiancé, to come out of Emma’s building. Emma, his childhood friend... supposedly. Except for the past few weeks, ever since she became single, actually, I’ve suspected they were more to each other than they claimed. I felt it in her calls at any hour of the day, and sometimes even at night. In the way Adrien dropped everything to supposedly go cheer her up. In the way they looked at each other, or rather, the way they stopped looking at each other whenever more than three friends were gathered in the same room.
And above all, in the sudden, revealing distance he had put between us. Today, I’m convinced he’s cheating on me, and if I’m parked outside her building, it’s because I want formal proof. I want to catch them in the act.
He left last night under the pretext of watching a game with his friends. Only, I found out from his buddies that he didn’t stay until the end, and that he left with her. After that, radio silence. He didn’t come home all night, and his phone is off. I have a gut feeling they slept together, and it’s now or never if I want to know for sure.
Suddenly, two silhouettes emerge from the building, tearing me away from my dark thoughts. It’s Emma and Adrien. They’re laughing, carefree, believing themselves safe from prying eyes at this early hour. The first thing I notice is their intertwined fingers.
My stomach twists as if I’ve been punched, and my vision blurs for a moment as tears rise to my eyes. But I don’t move, not yet. If I got out of my hiding place now, he could simply say that holding hands means nothing between two friends who have known each other since preschool. And I would probably pass, once again, for the possessive, jealous woman who doesn’t trust him.
So I watch them cross the street, Emma clinging to Adrien’s arm as she walks him back to the motorcycle parked only a few yards from my car. They haven’t noticed me, even though I’m not exactly hidden. Then they reach the vehicle, and Adrien turns toward her and pulls her into his arms. The embrace that follows is unmistakable: two passionate lovers who have spent the night loving each other. Adrien’s hands sliding down her curves while she kisses him fiercely leave no possible doubt.
I leap out of the car without even deciding what I’m going to do. Before I know it, I’m facing them and shoving Adrien hard in the back while he’s still holding her close and whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
“Hey, what the hell?” he cries before turning around and discovering me.
Their two stunned, guilty faces turn toward me.
“Bethyna... what are you...”
“What am I doing here? I had suspicions. I just wanted to know if they were justified.”
“I can explain everything,” Emma sighs, making an effort.
“There’s nothing to explain,” I cut in. “Your actions speak for you. You’ll find your things downstairs in the building. Don’t take too long to pick them up.”
“Bethy, wait... Bethy, I...” Adrien cries as, in a burst of rage, I yank the engagement ring off my finger.
“Shut up! Take your ring back and give me the motorcycle keys right now.”
“Bethyna, don’t get worked up. You’re going to do something you’ll regret. I... I don’t want to hurt either of you,” Emma stammers when she sees Adrien turn pale.
I shove away her hands before they can settle on my shoulders and push her back hard.
“Don’t touch me! Not unless you want to end up disfigured, okay? And you, give me my house keys and the motorcycle keys. I’ve wasted enough time for one day.”
“The motorcycle was a gift,” he protests.
“A gift for my future husband, yes, just like your engagement ring. But in case you haven’t understood, there won’t be a wedding. And since I’m the one paying for it and insuring it, you can ask Emma to buy you another one,” I say, my voice dripping with irony.
Seeing the rage burning in my eyes, he pulls out the papers and the key without arguing, probably stunned by the surprise of it all or by the guilt of being caught red-handed.
As soon as I have what belongs to me, I fling his ring at his face, and it rolls into the gutter. Emma picks it up before it can fall into the storm drain. I don’t wait a second longer. There is no way I’m letting him catch even a glimpse of my grief. I turn on my heel and go back to my car. I’ll come back for the motorcycle later. Right now, I need to go home and get all his stuff out.
Back home, the urge to collapse and cry battles with the rage of having been betrayed.
Emma had also become my friend over the past two years. She was supposed to be Adrien’s witness at our wedding. And him... God, I adored him. I believed all his lies. I gave in to every one of his whims. I would have pulled the moon from the sky just to see his beautiful brown eyes shine with happiness.
But love dazzles you, when it doesn’t make you completely blind. And I almost made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying him. It occurs to me now that maybe he was attracted to my father’s position. A renowned lawyer who, for a law student, was a godsend. Especially since my father had promised to mentor him through the rest of his studies, then hire him afterward. In short, did he want the daughter, or the comfortable position her father could offer him?
Tears rise to my eyes, but I feel too furious, too shaken by my own naïveté in hindsight, to let them spill.
I am nothing but rage. Rage enough to destroy everything that reminds me of what we were together. I fill two garbage bags with our photos, our memories, our wedding plans. Then I put his things out of my sight. His clothes thrown into two large suitcases, his law books, his personal belongings, everything ends up in the lobby of the building.
What the neighbors do with it is none of my concern. If I had listened to myself, I would have thrown it all out the window. But the thought of it landing on some passerby’s head talked me out of it. Once everything is downstairs, I send him a text.
“Come get your stuff unless you want the neighbors to help themselves.”
Within half an hour, he is at my door, pounding on it. I stay seated on the couch, listening to him yell behind the door.
“Bethyna, you can’t just throw me out like a dog. I have nowhere to stay... damn it!”
He pounds harder and harder on the door, so hard that the upstairs neighbor opens his own and tells him he’ll call the cops if he doesn’t shut up soon.
“Bethy, don’t act like a child. Open the door so we can talk like adults, damn it!”
From my armchair, I let out a bitter laugh, my heart like a heavy, cold paving stone inside my chest.
“You heard the man, Adrien. Shut your mouth and get lost. I have nothing to say to you, and I have no desire to sit here listening while you feed me more of your lies.”
Suddenly, silence falls behind the door. He seems to be thinking about which strategy to adopt. He doesn’t know this side of me, the tigress with all her claws out. With him, I had always been a ball of tenderness, in love, quiet, giving in to everything without fail. Because that was love to me. Making the other person happy, putting him before everything, even before myself. But the awakening is brutal. An awakening I owe to the only person who has never betrayed me, and never spared me either: my best friend, Isa.
She was the one who stopped me from continuing to make excuses for Adrien. She was the one who pulled me out of my denial when the ambiguous relationship between my fiancé and Emma became impossible to ignore.
The sound of Adrien’s footsteps going down the stairs brings me a brief wave of relief. He’s gone. I send Isabelle a text.
“Hey, bestie, just to tell you... You were right. Adrien spent the night at Emma’s. The two of us are over. He came to get his things. There won’t be a wedding.”
Her reply comes almost instantly.
“How are you feeling? Listen, I’m taking Lou and coming over. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, thank you, Isa.”
I let myself fall back onto the couch with a sigh of relief. Until she decided to come, I hadn’t realized how heavily the silence and emptiness of the apartment were weighing on me. Or how badly I needed arms to hold me tight and a friendly ear to listen.
