Chapter 5

Bianca

They stopped moving, Max's head whipped around, his eyes widening when he saw me standing there. The woman beneath him scrambled to cover herself with the sheets, her face flushing red.

"Bianca." Max's voice came out strangled. "Wait, I can explain."

I couldn't move, I couldn’t breathe well. My brain was trying to process what my eyes were seeing, but it felt like looking at a stranger. This couldn't be Max, not the man who was always promising to love me forever.

"Get off her," I said quietly.

Max climbed off the bed quickly, grabbing his boxers from the floor and pulling them on. His hands were shaking. "Bianca, please, just listen to me."

"Get out." My voice was still quiet, too quiet.

"This means nothing. I swear. It was just one time." He took a step toward me, one hand reaching out like he wanted to touch me, to comfort me.

Something inside me snapped as my hand connected with his face before I even realized I had moved. The slap echoed through the room, his head jerked to the side, a red mark already blooming on his cheek.

"Bianca!" He stumbled back, his hand going to his face. "What the hell?"

"One time?" I laughed, but it sounded wrong, "You expect me to believe it was just one time?"

The woman on the bed, his so called sister, finally found her voice. "I should go."

"Yes," I said, not looking at her. "You really should."

She grabbed her clothes and rushed past me, not bothering to dress properly. She just clutched everything to her chest and ran. The apartment door slammed behind her a moment later.

Max took another step toward me. "Baby, please. Let me explain. It's not what you think."

I slapped him again, harder this time. My palm stung from the impact, but I didn't care. "Don't call me that. Don't you dare call me that."

"Bianca, stop!" He backed away, his hands up in surrender. "Just listen to me for one second."

"Listen to what?" My voice was rising now, "Listen to more lies? Listen to you tell me how much you love me while you screw your fake sister in my bed?"

"She's not my sister! Okay? I lied about that. But it was just physical. It didn't mean anything."

"Just physical." I repeated the words slowly, tasting how disgusting they were. "In my bed. In the apartment I pay for. While I was out working myself to death for money to feed us and to save my sister."

He had the decency to look ashamed. "I know. I know it was wrong. But you've been so distant lately. So focused on Emma and work. I felt lonely."

"You felt lonely." I stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language. "You felt lonely, so you decided to sleep with someone else?"

"I'm sorry." He moved toward me again desperately, "I'm sorry, Bianca. I made a mistake. Please, just give me a chance to make this right."

"Don't touch me," I said when he tried to reach for me again. "Don't ever touch me again."

I turned and walked to the closet, throwing the doors open so hard they banged against the walls. His clothes were mixed with mine, his shoes on the floor next to my heels. Two years of living together, two years of building a life, and this is what it came to.

I grabbed his duffel bag from the top shelf and started shoving his clothes inside. Shirts, jeans, everything I could reach. I wasn't being careful. Some things fell on the floor, but I didn't care.

"Bianca, stop. Please stop." Max's voice was right behind me now. "We can work through this. We can go to counseling or something."

I whirled around, the bag clutched in my hands. "Counseling? You think I want to work through this?"

"I love you." His eyes were red now, actually crying. "I know I messed up, but I love you. We can fix this."

"No." I shoved the bag into his chest, hard enough to make him stumble backward. "We can't."

I went back to the closet and started grabbing more of his things. His jacket, his stupid collection of baseball caps he never wore, the expensive watch I had bought him for his last birthday. Everything went into another bag.

"This is all you have here," I said, my voice shaking. "Two bags of clothes and lies. That's it."

"That's not fair." He was following me around the room now, like a lost puppy. "I've been here for you. I stayed with you when your parents died. I helped you with Emma."

I stopped moving and turned to look at him, really look at him. "You helped me? You helped me?"

"Yes! I did. I was there for you."

"Where? Where were you, Max? Because I don't remember you helping pay the rent, I don't remember you helping with the medical bills. I don't remember you doing anything except sitting on my couch, eating my food, and apparently screwing other women in my bed."

"I gave you emotional support."

"Emotional support." I laughed again, that same broken sound. "Is that what you call it? Because it felt a lot like I was supporting you, feeding you, giving you a place to live while you 'figured things out' with your art career that's going nowhere."

His face hardened. "Don't do this. Don't be cruel."

"I'm being cruel?" My voice rose to a shout. "I'm being cruel? You cheated on me! In my bed! And now you want to talk about cruelty?"

I grabbed both bags and threw them out of the bedroom door. They landed in the hallway with a heavy thud. "Get out. Get out of my house."

"You're going to regret this." His voice changed, becoming cold. "You're going to regret treating me like this, after everything I have done for you"

"Everything you've done for me?" I was screaming now, past the point of caring if the neighbors heard. "You've done nothing! Nothing but take and take and take. You're a leech, Max. A pathetic, cheating leech."

He took a step toward me, his finger pointing at my face. "You're being ungrateful. I could have walked away when things got hard. But I stayed."

"You stayed because you had nowhere else to go!" I shoved him hard, and he stumbled back. "You stayed because I was stupid enough to let you. Because I felt sorry for you. Because I thought you actually loved me."

"I do love you!"

"Liar!" I shoved him again, harder this time. He stumbled out of the bedroom into the hallway. "You don't love anyone but yourself."

He straightened up, his face twisted with anger now. The fake tears were gone. This was the real Max, the one I had been too blind to see. "Fine. You want me gone? I'm gone. But don't come crying to me when you realize what a mistake you made."

"The only mistake I made was wasting two years on you."

I walked to the front door and yanked it open. The cool night air rushed in, making me shiver. "Get out."

He picked up his bags slowly, deliberately, like he was giving me time to change my mind. When I didn't, he walked toward the door. He stopped right in front of me, so close I could smell her perfume still on his skin.

"You're going to regret this," he said quietly. "You'll see. You need me more than you think."

"I don't need you at all."

He opened his mouth to say something else, but I cut him off. "Leave. Now. Before I call the police and tell them you're trespassing."

"This is insane. You're being insane."

"Get out!" I screamed it so loud my throat hurt.

He finally stepped through the doorway, but he turned back one more time. "I put up with your mood swings and your obsession with Emma. I stayed through all of it, you ingrate."

"Then you should have left a long time ago," I said, and slammed the door in his face.

I heard him on the other side, shouting through the wood. "You'll come crawling back! You won’t last a month without me!"

I locked the door and leaned against it, my whole body shaking. His voice continued for another minute, saying things I didn't bother to listen to. Threats. Insults. Promises that I would regret this.

Then finally, silence.

I heard his footsteps retreating down the hallway. The sound of the building's front door opening and closing. And then nothing.

I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the wood. The apartment was so quiet now. Too quiet. I could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator, my own ragged breathing.

And then I started crying, not gentle tears. Not the kind you could wipe away and pretend didn't happen. These were ugly, violent sobs that shook my whole body. I cried for the two years I had wasted, for the person I thought he was. For my parents who weren't here to tell me it would be okay.

When the tears finally stopped, I just sat there on the floor, staring at nothing. The envelope of money was still where I had dropped it, lying a few feet away near the bedroom door.

Five hundred dollars, just as I was about to reach for it, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with shaking hands.

A text from Fred.

"Tomorrow night. Same time. Same room. Don't be late."