I had no idea there were so many bars inside this resort–or so many adults staying here and frequenting those bars. I felt like a total creeper, weaving between the tables and amongst the crowds looking for Callen. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I found him, but I left every bar without a drink or a boyfriend. I grew paranoid by the fourth bar, and kept looking behind me for a security guard or undercover cop or someone trailing me, wondering what I was doing casing all the joints.

The final bar I check opens out into the main pool where Callen had spent most of his time this week. His friends are still there, talking up some girls I don’t know.

“Jabin!” I call across the water.

“Yeah?”

“You seen Callen lately?”

“Uhhh…” He nods his head twice before another friend, Derek, splashes him with water. “I thought I saw him a few minutes ago, but no. Must’ve been someone else.”

I look at Derek. “Do you know where he is?”

“No clue, Max,” he answers, but he’s not looking at me when he tells me this.

“Really?”

“Go check your room. He said he was gonna be with you today.”

I shake my head and huff. “Yeah, but like I told you guys this morning, he left our room.”

“Bet he’s back by now.”

I smile, realizing he must be there. Callen must have been by here and told them not to say anything to me.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Anytime,” Jabin says.

I jog all the way back upstairs, bypassing the elevator because I don’t want to be dependent on its careful speed or the number of stops it has to make before picking me up and getting me where I need to go. I take a few breaths before I tentatively open the door, expecting the romantic gesture I earlier assured Zaina that Callen was incapable of.

The room is just as I left it, with one exception: Callen’s cell phone is missing. I check in all the possible hiding places and call his name, just to make sure he’s not going to pop out of something holding flowers over his cock for me. Yeah, that doesn’t appear to be happening today.

So, not only did he stop back by to get his phone, he saw my note (which now sits on his nightstand) and completely disregarded it. Checking my phone again, I verify that I haven’t missed any calls from him.

If he had another bottle of six-hundred-dollar scotch, I’d break that one right now, too. Standing in front of the balcony window, I stare at the mess of glass from earlier as I call him. The phone rings twice before going to voicemail. So, he sent the call to voicemail. That asshole.

“Callen, where are you?” I realize I’m gritting my teeth as I talk. “I’ve been back to the room twice, and I’ve been all over this resort looking for you. Why didn’t you call me? I’m sorry about the liquor. I’ll replace it. I swear. Don’t let that be the reason you’re mad or avoiding me. It’s just stuff. I can replace your fucking stuff. I just want to hang out with you–whatever you’re feeling up to. Call me, please. I’ll be… down at the beach, I guess? I don’t know where else to look.”

After hanging up, I go back downstairs and past the pool once more toward the gym. I think about saying something to Callen’s friends, but I know I won’t get a straight answer out of them, so I don’t bother. They’re too busy making out with girls, anyway.

Most people seem to be using the resort as it’s intended to be enjoyed–there are only three people using the equipment in the gym, and none of them happen to be my boyfriend. I notice a hallway and remember seeing something about yoga classes in the hotel’s guide in our room. Callen’s never done yoga, but I peek into the rooms anyway, just to make sure I’ve covered all of my bases.

I end up confronted with the men’s and women’s locker rooms, and decide to step inside, having given up hope in finding him today. Just two steps in, I hear a sexy laugh I’m all too familiar with echoing off the concrete walls. A deep breath inhaled and ready to call out his name, I second guess myself and move past three rows of lockers that likely never get used with no sign of Callen.

Well, no sign of him visually. I hear sounds that are singularly distinctive to him. The hairs on my arms prick up in anger, and I feel my face flush hot and red because the noises I hear are intermingled with someone else’s voice. And they’re not talking. This isn’t a conversation, but I can easily decipher what’s going on.

Moans and grunts guide me to a shower stall at the far end of the locker room. There’s no one else in here but Callen and whoever else is in there… and me. It can’t be him. Can it? He wouldn’t. But it’s him. I know his cries of ecstasy like I know my own soul.

And now I see his swim shorts. The ones I picked out two weeks ago in preparation for this trip. They’re on the floor, peeking out of the stall underneath his phone and next to a condom wrapper and a pair of turquoise shorts that look suspiciously like the uniform of the men who work at the cabana bar.

As I walk up onto the stall, I snap a photo of the items on the floor. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’ll do with the picture. My heart is racing so fast that I don’t know what to do. Do I interrupt them? Do I holler out to Callen to stop them? Open the black curtain, the only thing that separates me from my boyfriend fooling around with someone else, like, four feet away? How bad is he cheating? I have to know.

On my knees, I look under the curtain. “Fuck him,” I murmur quietly to myself after seeing four feet, standing close together but far enough apart to know what’s happening, all angled away from me and toward the corner. Callen’s fucking this other guy… something he hadn’t been sober enough to do with me all week. Tears drip on the floor next to their clothes.

I should take his fucking shorts. I should bust in and kick him in the balls.

Hearing them both beginning to climax, I realize I have to get out of there to maintain my sanity. To keep myself from hurting someone I love, or potentially this random stranger that I definitely hate. Crimes of passion are completely justifiable. I totally believe that right now. I could kill him.

I grab Callen’s swimming trunks.

My head down as I pass the pool, I practically run back to my room. The door is barely closed before the sobs erupt from somewhere deep within my throat. I throw his shorts on his bed and find my suitcase, throwing my stuff in it haphazardly. I can’t stay with him.

Where the fuck am I gonna go? Our flight is on Sunday. I have two more hellish days to endure this fucking island. Jon and Livvy will book me a room somewhere. I’m sure of it.

I just have to calm down.

I just have to calm down.

I can’t fucking calm down!

Anger propels me back to the patio window, where my fist connects with such force that I can feel the warm breeze from outside before my brain acknowledges the searing pain.

“Fuck fuck fuck!!”

I stare at my hand through the glass in shock, gasping in air, before reflexively yanking it back through toward my body. “Shit!” Only after doing that do I realize that wasn’t the best idea.

Blood is gushing from countless wounds that I can’t even see. Shards stick out from multiple places in my skin. “Fuck.” Grabbing the only free item of clothing near me, I wrap Callen’s shorts around my forearm and try to constrict the flow of blood as best as I can. I need a belt or a long sock. I need help.