Miles went to bed after I’d left him in the shower, and he woke early for work the next morning.
Are your eyes open, Jemima?
Armed with a plan and riddled with tension, I ignored the usual chores I’d do around the house on a Saturday and decided I could take a day for myself.
And I made good use of it by tugging open drawers, ripping away blankets, and searching between the mattress and bed frame. Though if Miles had a second phone as I thought he did, then I guessed he’d likely taken it with him.
It was lunchtime when I forced myself to set everything back in the right order and take a time-out.
After eating a whole bag of peanut M&M’s, I washed them down with half a bottle of water, resigned to the fact that I’d either need to be more persistent in getting him to tell me the truth, or I’d need to quit this witch hunt and chill the hell out.
I went to the study where my books still sat dust covered and lonely in boxes.
Miles had bought shelving for them, which sat in flat packaging by the wall, but he’d never gotten around to setting them up. I’d thought about doing it myself, but Hope had warned against doing such things when I’d whined about it, saying it made some guys feel like less of a man when we took tasks like that from them.
Well, fuck his manhood.
I ripped open the packaging, more so for something to do than anything else, and froze when something clattered onto the white pieces of wood inside the cardboard box.
Peering into the dark interior, I saw a black lump near the bottom, and sent my hand in to fish it out. It latched around a familiar shaped object.
A phone.
My heart raged, in both triumph and despair, as I stared at the phone I’d first seen weeks ago.
I sniffed back tears, turning it to its side to see it’d been set to silent, so you couldn’t hear it buzzing or ringing.
So I couldn’t.
The screen lit up, displaying a new message from six this morning.
S: I’ll be there in ten.
My hands shook, my chest inflating as I took a deep breath and investigated further, opening a stream of messages.
There weren’t many, but the few there were all from someone named S.
Shell.
His supposed sister.
S. It feels like this will never end.
S: I miss you.
S: Don’t you dare forget about me.
The last one had me throwing the phone at the wall.
After leaving a dent, the casing flew off the phone, and all of it fell to the beige carpet between two boxes of my books.
Time passed in eerie stillness as I stared at the phone and tried to comprehend everything it meant. As I absorbed the reality I’d gone hunting for.
Once it registered with the force of a sledge hammer to the chest, the tears arrived, and I curled into myself against the wall.
“Jem?”
Dragging my eyes open, I wiped beneath my mouth, almost smiling, almost forgetting, as Miles knelt in front of me, concern crinkling his features.
“Hey, what happened?”
I scooted away and stood, my legs jelly from having been on the floor too long. Miles tried to steady me, and I snarled at him, “Don’t touch me.”
“Babe.” He took a measured step back, hands raised as if he was dealing with a feral animal. “What the hell is going on? Talk to me.”
His eyes skimmed the room as he waited.
It was either tell him, or leave him, or both. Or … I didn’t even know what to do. There was too much happening inside me to decide a damn thing.
“I found your phone,” I said. “The other one.” Dragging my wrist beneath my mouth again, I sniffed. “I was going to set up these bookshelves, finally, and what do you know?” My hand waved at the dent in the wall, his eyes following and seeing the phone and its case in pieces on the floor. “A phone appeared.”
“Jem,” he started. “This isn’t what you’re thinking.”
“Don’t you dare.” I stepped forward, hissing, “Don’t you dare tell me I’m crazy or that I’m wrong, when for weeks, weeks, I’ve been slowly losing my mind, wondering if I’m insane.” A crazed laugh left me, which only made me laugh harder at the ironic timing. “I don’t want to be fed any more lies, Miles. I want the fucking truth.”
He opened his mouth, more lies about to spill, and I scoffed, heading for the door to the room.
His next words stopped me. “It was after we’d first met. We’d only been on the one date …”
My hand shot out, clenching tight around the doorframe.
The one date.
He said it so clinically as if that time spent together, no matter how small, meant nothing to him. Not in the way it meant to me.
Turning, I raised my hand, not hearing anything else he was saying, and asked with more calm than I thought I’d ever have in this kind of situation. Not that I’d ever expected to be in this situation, though I guess I’d gone looking for answers. I couldn’t lose my shit or complain too much about finally getting them. “How many times?”
With his brows pinching, he took a step toward me.
“Stop right fucking there.” He did, nostrils flaring and hands fisting. “How many times, Miles?”
“Once. Fuck, I swear. But it’s more complicated than—”
“What did you do?” I couldn’t believe my own question. Why did I want to know specifics? I couldn’t answer that, but I just had to know. “Kiss, just touch, or …” I swallowed, eyes closing briefly as I said the last word. “Fuck?”
The drooping of his shoulders and the hesitant step he took said it all.
“You fucked someone when we first got together?” I batted his hands away when he tried to reach for me and moved back out of the room and into the hallway.
“Jem, please. At the risk of sounding like a fucking moron, I can explain.”
My arms folded over my chest. “Go on then. Explain. I’m sure it was some huge mistake. People accidentally have intercourse all the time.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, he shook his head, eyes pleading. “I can’t yet. Give me time and it’ll all make more sense.”
A strange noise sounded, and I realized it was laughter. My own choked, wet laughter. “Not only have you fucked another woman, but you’re seriously telling me I have to wait for an explanation as to why?”
He bit his lips, more tense than I’d ever seen him before. A strangled sound wrenched from him as he squeezed the back of his neck. “Yes.”
“Why is she still contacting you?”
He didn’t answer me.
I tried again. “Why, Miles? And is it that same woman from the fundraiser?”
He dug his hand into his hair, tugging and groaning. “Please, Jem.”
Tears continued to well in my eyes.
Okay, now I could lose my shit. “Fuck you and fuck off.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, trailing after me down the hall. “I’m not that guy, I promise. It sounds bad now, but …”
In our bedroom, I whirled on him. “Go away before I kick you in the junk.”
His lips dared to quirk.
My knee met his balls, and he went down like a sack of potatoes, groaning on the floor and staring up at me as though he didn’t even know who I was.
And maybe he didn’t.
After stuffing some clothes into a bag, I marched into the en suite to collect my toiletries and my hair dryer.
He made the decision, however unwise, to let me go.