*****

My pulse was racing and my mouth was dry as I heard him knocking on the door. I opened it to find him, handsome as ever, but wearing such a vulnerable expression on his face, his head hanging and his eyes almost brimming over with regret.

“Oh, Christ, Paige,” I could hear the tremble in his voice, “I’m just so sorry.”

I took a deep breath and tried to stay composed. “Just come in, will you? I don’t need the whole world knowing about this.”

He walked past me into the main studio.As he took in his surroundings, I couldn’t help noticing that he was standing on the very spot where I’d tried to ride Caleb into the ground, the previous night.

“Who’s place is this?” he asked me.

“Not that it matters, but it belongs to my photographic arts professor. It’s his studio.”

“And it’s okay for your photographic arts professor to put you up his students in his studio?”

He was starting to sound self-righteous and judgmental, neither of which was making me want to talk to him, let alone forgive him.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be commenting on where I’m staying right now, do you?” I said. I sounded more tired than upset, I thought.

“Shit, you’re right,” he quickly changed his tone. “I’m sorry. I’m here to see if we have any chance of moving past this. Paige, I love you, do you think you can ever forgive me?”

“And Stacy?” I asked.

“She’s as upset as I am,” Adam said, “After you walked out yesterday we had a huge argument when she got home. Neither of us could even figure out how we got there, how we ended up… She’s already taken her stuff and moved back into student housing, on campus.”

I was relieved to hear that, except it suddenly brought back the images I saw of them, together in that little sex movie they’d made. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” I cried. “How can I go back to that place knowing what you did there, all over that apartment.”

“It wasn’t…” he began, “we just…”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I yelled at him. “I need a drink.” I stormed off to the small kitchenette that ran off the main studio. I leaned against the counter, heaving for breath and trying desperately not to cry. I don’t know how many minutes I stood there before I poured myself a glass of water and went back in to face him. “What are you doing?” I shrieked, finding him standing over the prints Caleb blew up during our passionate night together. I’d thought they were hung up in the darkroom.

“The fuck are these?” he snapped, shuffling through them in his hands.

“They’re nothing to do with you,”

“You let him take dirty pictures of you?” he shouted, holding up the one of Caleb penetrating me. The explicit stuff was out of frame, but I was pretty sure Adam was familiar enough with the expression on my face in the picture to know what was happening off camera. “And is this you acting or is he actually fucking you?” he demanded

I opened my mouth to argue that it was none of his business when, in a blur of movement, he viciously ripped the prints to shreds. “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed. “Those aren’t yours!”

I moved to stop him but his face was so twisted in rage I thought he was going to hit me. My heart was racing but I felt powerless to stop him as he turned over the stool in the studio and stormed into the darkroom.

“I can’t believe you’d let that old has-been touch you!” he roared as I followed him through the door.

“Adam, please!” I begged him, not wanting to anger him any further, but he ignored me. I’d never seen him like this before. He found the negatives and grabbed them, scrunching them up in his fists. Not satisfied with that, he shoved past me and went to the kitchen.

I couldn’t stop him. I could only watch as he dropped the films on the small gas stove and lit the burners, melting the celluloid almost instantly. He turned to me, a triumphant look on his face, and I knew, in that instant, there was no more us. I’d thought he was amazing, almost perfect, up until a few months ago. Since then he’d slowly destroyed my self-esteem, had sex over and over with my best friend instead of me, and shown me how destructive and selfish he really was.

It was clear then that everything I thought about Adam was what he wanted me to see. The true politician had been able to wear an image especially for me, for nearly four years.

I shook my head at him, held my hand up in one final gesture of farewell, and walked out of the studio, ignoring his wasted words that followed me.