PROLOGUE
ELIZABETH
I walked across the busy intersection, leaving my sprawling college campus behind me, as I headed the four blocks toward my two-bedroom apartment. My school wasn’t in the best area of Los Angeles, so instead of walking with my head down and eyes plastered on my cell phone screen, I pocketed my phone and looked around at my surroundings. Little did I know that the personal violation headed for me would come from within the safety of my apartment walls and not the big, bad world around me.
Keeping my pace quick, I longed to get out of the heat and into the comfort of my almost constantly running air-conditioning. Indian summers in Southern California varied between two temperatures—hot and sweltering. Today was the perfect example of the latter. When the depressingly gray stucco building appeared in the distance, I had to stop myself from running to the front door.
I had no idea what I was about to walk into would change my life dramatically.
Wait for it.
3…
2…
1…
Turning the handle, I flung the front door open and habitually went to throw my bag on the kitchen table, but something stopped me mid-toss. My roommate, Kim’s, hot-pink panties dangled from her left foot as her toes curled and uncurled. Her black skirt had been pushed up as high as it would go on her waist, and it bunched up all thick in places, the fabric looking lumpy and uncomfortable. One of her hands dug into the kitchen table we shared, and I couldn’t help but notice the way her pink nail polish had chipped. It looked tacky. It was funny—the stupid details that would stick in your mind when your world was about to fall apart.
Kim moaned, her voice dragging out his name, “Ben…oh God, Ben.”
Ben.
My Ben?
My boyfriend, Ben?
Ben’s head was partially blocked by Kim’s thigh, but I’d know that head anywhere. Thick dark curls sat atop a lean but defined swimmer’s body—a body I knew by heart after almost three years of dating exclusively.
Well, at least I had been exclusive.
My stomach lurched and twisted, and my head felt like it might roll right off my shoulders if I tilted it too much to one side. I needed to brace myself on something, but the kitchen table was the closest thing to me, and I vowed never to touch that piece of furniture ever again. Taking two steps back, I leaned against the front door, the weight of my body slamming it shut.
Ben pulled his head out from between Kim’s legs and stared at me with something in his eyes. It wasn’t guilt. Horror maybe?
“Elizabeth, this isn’t what it looks like!” He stumbled over his words.
All I could stare at was his glistening face.
Kim screamed, attempted to push her clunky skirt down, and swatted at Ben’s head as if he had attacked her without her knowledge, as if he were in the wrong. She didn’t even look at me before running into her bedroom and flinging her door closed.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he repeated, taking a cautious step toward me.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” I sucked in a breath and moved away from the confinement of the door, not liking the way I felt stuck against it.
“Just hear me out.” He raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
“What is there to hear out? Let me guess…” I paused, begging the sickness rising in my stomach to please keep at bay. “She tripped, and her vagina fell on your face?”
“You’re such a bitch,” he spit.
I took two steps back, not wanting a single iota of his body or fluids to touch me, as my jaw dropped with his accusation. “I’m a bitch? I’M A BITCH?” I shouted at him as anger rolled off me in violent waves. “You’re the one cheating on me with my fucking roommate, but I’m the bitch?”
“You’re never around. You’re always working or interning or studying. You can’t blame me for needing more, Elizabeth.”
I guffawed at his idiocy and refused to accept the blame. “Oh, so this is my fault, right? I pushed you to fuck my roommate and whomever else you’re fucking because I have a life outside of you?”
“You’re too ambitious.” His arms flailed wildly as he attempted to prove his point. “Everything you do is focused on your future, and your goals are so high, so fucking high.”
I stopped him from speaking further, “So what? What the hell is wrong with being ambitious and having goals?”
“You’re a woman!”
“Uh…” I balled my hands into fists. “Tread carefully, dipshit.”
“Listen, Elizabeth, no guy wants a woman who’s more successful than he is. Guys are supposed to be the breadwinners, the champions of the house, not the girl. I need someone who is going to support me and my dreams, not have lofty dreams of her own.”
I started shaking my head, wondering if this was real. This had to be a fucking dream, so I pinched my arm. “Did I just walk out of the heat and into the nineteen forties? Who the hell are you right now?”
Staring into his shit-colored eyes, I wondered how this had never come up before. How had I been so blinded to the fact that my boyfriend was a complete chauvinistic pig?
“It’s an old ideal, but it’s still the way most guys think, Elizabeth. I promise you, I’m not the only one. You’re going to have a hard time keeping any man with the way you are. You’re too driven.”
“Stop saying that like it’s a bad thing!” I screamed, my head aching with each new thought that had entered.
“There’s such a thing as being too ambitious, and that’s what you are. No man can handle that kind of woman, and no man truly wants one in his life.”
After shaking my head as if I could spill his words right back out of my ears, I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “Really? No man or just you?”
“You’re not listening to me. I’m trying to help you. Men want to be catered to, doted on, taken care of, and needed. You don’t need anyone.”
Why was that a bad thing? “I sure as shit don’t need you,” I agreed.
“And that’s the problem. Good luck with your life. You’ll need that at least.” He shrugged with a disgusted smirk spreading across his still glossy lips.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment before I do something I might regret, like shove you down the stairs.” I moved toward the front door and opened it before waving him along. When his movements stalled, I shouted, “Leave! Now! Get out!”
He did, but not before turning around and delivering one last blow. “You’re heartless, you know that? It’s like you don’t even care.”
I laughed at the irony of his words as I clearly felt my heart breaking into irreparable pieces.