Nester

 

We lay in bed together, her head resting on my bare chest as we slowly came down from our high. It didn’t take long for her breathing to slow, becoming even, and for her heartrate to return gently to normal. She wasn’t asleep though, her hand drawing lazy circles into my skin as we lay there in silence.

 

I was doing my absolute best not to think of anything just then. The euphoria of being with Zelda was almost enough to make me disregard everything that had happened in the last few years. Almost. In the end, I knew that if I let myself think about things—what was going on, how crazy life had gotten, my own fucked up plans—then I’d get angry again. And not just a little bit.

 

And I just didn’t want to be angry anymore. I was tired of that.

 

So instead I took advantage of this moment and just stroked my hand through her thick, unruly hair, enjoying this feeling of human contact.

 

But it was too good to last.

 

“Nester?” Zelda’s voice was soft and sweet, caught somewhere between that lingering headiness that comes from sweet, sweet release and the general tiredness of having worked hard for that release. It wasn’t quite sleepy, but it was a little out of it anyway.

 

“Hm?” I hummed in answer, afraid to speak, afraid that my own voice would give away my feelings just like hers was doing right now.

 

“Thank you.”

 

I frowned. My mind jumped first to the amazing sex—that was definitely something to be thanked for—but that was just as much thanks to her own amazing body. I was able to drag my mind out of the gutter a moment later, however, as I realized there were other things she might thank me for.

 

Like letting her come in after what had happened with Santos.

 

It’s her own damn fault for choosing him, whispered a malicious and inhospitable part of my brain. Santos had hit her, multiple times judging by the bruises forming on her face. How had Zelda ended up with someone like that? We argued. We fought and sometimes things got bad, heated to the point where an explosion was imminent. But never once in all of the time we were together, amidst all of those fights and anger, had I ever hit Zelda. Because she wouldn’t have tolerated it. She wouldn’t ever be the kind of woman who would let a man hurt her like that.

 

So what the hell had happened?

 

“Don’t thank me,” I finally told her. And I honestly believed that, because guilt was twisting my stomach. After what we’d just done together, it was hard to not feel shitty about my plans for revenge. Plans that involved manipulating and using Zelda to get back at Santos.

 

She tilted her head up off of my chest, turning it so that she could balance her chin there instead of her cheek, and looked up at me. I could feel her gaze and was terrified all of a sudden to meet it. What if she looked at me like she used to, full of love and concern?

 

I stared at the wall instead of tilting my head to look down at her, but it didn’t matter. I continued to feel her gaze on me and waited for her to speak as I knew she inevitably would.

 

“But I should thank you,” she told me, her voice still raw with emotion and the lingering effects of sated lust. “You’ve always been there for me.”

 

I felt my muscles stiffen, tensing as she spoke to me. Why? Because she was right. I had always been there for her—she just hadn’t been able to reciprocate. Don’t think about that now, I tried to tell myself, but the thought was already there and it was impossible now to ignore.

 

“Even when things got…complicated.” She hesitated there, like she was trying to find the right words—or maybe like she was trying to figure out the gentlest way to flat out lie to me. My anger started to rise, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Even when they got bad.”

 

I clenched my eyes tightly shut. What am I doing? Lying there in bed with Zelda, both of us stark naked, our bodies wrapped up in each other, the lingering stickiness of our sweat and our fluids making our skin stick together, was suddenly the worst idea I’d ever had. How did I end up letting her play me like this twice?

 

I felt scathing words rise up like bile in my throat, but I didn’t get them out right away. I tried to swallow them back, willing them to go away, because Zelda was hurt and even if part of me thought that she’d made her own bed and now should lie in it, there was a bigger part of me that thought that no woman deserved something like that.

 

So I swallowed down the words. Unfortunately, Zelda didn’t.

 

“I just…I just needed to tell you, Nester, that I’m here because I didn’t know where else to go.” She took a deep breath, then added, “And I knew I could go here because I can trust you, Nester. I love you.”

 

And with those last three words, I snapped.

 

“You love me?” I asked, my voice still strangely calm even as anger built like an inferno within my chest.

 

I could almost sense the suddenly confused expression on her face, imagined the opening and closing of her mouth as she tried to get words out but couldn’t. “Nester, I—”

 

But I wasn’t going to give her the chance to speak again. Not this time. I may have let her into my home when I’d seen the way her face had been beaten like that. And I may have let her into my bed when I became overcome with passion and need and the fact that in five years I hadn’t been able to slide into a pussy. But I wouldn’t let her into my heart, not this time.

 

“You love me,” I repeated, shifting so that Zelda was forced to slide off my chest as I moved to the edge of the bed. I felt the ghost of her touch as she reached for me, but wasn’t having any of it. I stood abruptly, unconcerned with my nudity or her personal feelings. I turned to her as I felt the anger rise within me. “How convenient for you to suddenly love me again.”

 

Shock registered on her beautiful, bruised face. As though I had been the one to slap her. “What are you saying, Nester? I’ve always loved you?”

 

I didn’t think it was funny; I didn’t feel like laughing. But I did. I belted it out, the sound hot like cracking thunder and malicious like a kick to the gut. There was no joy or amusement there, only cold irony. “Always? I think you and I have different definitions of always. Seems like yours doesn’t last more than a couple of years.”

 

I watched as her face crumpled beneath my words and forced myself not to care, not to be affected. She clutched at the sheets, pulling them tightly against her body, so that she managed to cover her nakedness, as though ashamed.

 

She should be, I thought unkindly. What sort of hussy came crawling back to her ex-boyfriend after her new boyfriend started hitting her? The kind who did things for her own selfish reasons, that was who.

 

I felt hatred mingle with anger and a smattering of festering pain inside of me.

 

“You don’t believe that,” Zelda whispered, not able to meet my gaze anymore.

 

I sneered at her, hoping that she could hear and feel my anger towards her. She deserved it. “The fuck I don’t,” I told her coldly, uncaring of her own feelings. She flinched at the harshness of my tone. “You dropped me for that asshole Santos and now you come crawling back to me, why? Because it’s more fucking convenient? Because he’s a dick?”

 

A sob escaped Zelda’s full lips, and I felt that familiar twinge of guilt, but I shoved it aside. I wouldn’t let her reel me in so easily. Not again.

 

“It’s not like that, Nester. It’s complicated.”

 

I made a frustrated noise, raking my hands through my hair angrily. “Complicated? What the fuck is complicated about it? I went to prison; you dumped me. Then you shacked up with that piece of shit Santos and now you’re running to me when he acts just like I’ve always said he would? What the fuck, Zelda?”

 

She shook her head, dark unruly hair splaying around her shoulders, tickling the long column of her neck and trying to work their way around the breasts she was trying so hard to cover up. “Please, Nester, I lo—”

 

“Shut up,” I snapped. I wasn’t interested in hearing her say I love you ever again. Crocodile tears, lies, playing on my weakness for her. No. Not anymore. “You never fucking loved me, not like I loved you.”

 

As soon as the words came out, I regretted them. I didn’t want her to know how much I truly had loved her, but they were out now and the pain in my chest reminded me that, no matter how angry and hurt I was, there was a big part of me that still loved her.

 

A part I was struggling desperately to get rid of. If only.

 

Feeling grief and emotion work their way up my throat, I nearly choked on my next words, but I was determined to get them out. “If you’d loved me, really loved me, you wouldn’t have left me to rot in that damn cell. You would have stuck by me even when things got bad. You would have been there for me, Zel, but you weren’t. Instead, you ditched me because it wasn’t convenient to be my girl anymore. And add insult to injury, you go slide your way into Santos’s bed, and then you wonder how your face ends up like that?”

 

I was disgusted with her for what she’d done and myself for saying so much.

 

I hated her. I loved her. I didn’t know what the fuck to do about that.

 

She was shaking now, sobs racking her body as she clutched the sheet tightly to her chest. She wouldn’t meet my eyes and I took that as much an admission of guilt as anything. She knew what she’d done to me was wrong, despicable. She knew and did it anyway, because she couldn’t be bothered to think about anyone but herself.

 

I didn’t know how long we stayed there like that, but I found myself no longer able to look at her. Turning away, headed towards the dresser that belonged to Jackson, not me. I felt a prick of guilt for using his bed to fuck my traitorous ex, but quickly decided that so long as I cleaned the sheets he wouldn’t give a shit.

 

My clothes were downstairs, but I jerked open the top drawer of the dresser anyway. Underwear, socks, a piece tucked away beneath the undergarments only halfway hidden. I wanted to get dressed, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave Zelda up here by herself. Maybe just kick her out? Tell her to get her crap and go, that I never wanted to see her again?

 

I was still trying to figure out what to do, how to deal with the sense of betrayal and hurt and the lingering wish that I had my own damn place again so I could at least feel at home in my grief, when I heard the bed squeak. I spared a quick glance over my shoulder to see that Zelda had gotten up from the mattress, dragging the sheet with her, and was leaning down to search the floor. A moment later she retrieved her clothes and began to get dressed, awkwardly holding the sheet at the same time in an effort to cover herself.

 

I snorted at the ridiculousness of that. I’d just seen her naked, done deliciously dirty things to her body, and now she was trying to cover up?

 

Eventually she had to just give up the sheet, unable to get her shirt on and still cling to it, so I got a final, fleeting glimpse of her supple flesh. I would miss her pliant body, I admitted to myself, while simultaneously trying to convince myself that that was the only thing I would miss.

 

She had been crying the whole time while she was getting dressed and her tears wounded me, no matter how angry I was, and it took everything I had to keep from going to comfort her. It was a strange feeling to know how she’d betrayed me, to know how she lied and used me, but to still feel so strongly for her and to have that intense urge to make her feel better.

 

When she pulled her shirt over her head, she sniffled a little and composed herself, then turned to me. I glanced away then, keeping my back to her, unwilling to show her how I was still thinking about things like love and betrayal.

 

I thought she was going to say something, and maybe that’s why I did it, why I twisted the knife in her gut as much as I could. “You know the only reason I even came back to you, right?” When only silence answered me, I pushed. “I did it because I knew the best way to hit Santos where it hurt was to fuck you. Guess I did that right, didn’t I?”

 

She let out a whimpering noise that was muffled almost instantly by what sounded like a hand clamping down on her mouth. The room was tense, stifling with my words hanging in the air, but I didn’t—I wouldn’t—take them back.

 

Finally, after what felt like a strange, prolonged eternity, she spoke again. “Oh,” was all she could say at first. I didn’t turn. “Oh, I…I see. I didn’t realize.” There was another pause, but I still wouldn’t look at her. “I…it doesn’t matter anymore, but I wanted you to know…” I heard her swallow heavily before continuing. “I wanted you to know that I was never with Santos. I’ve never…slept with him. I couldn’t.”

 

A jolt of shock rocketed through me. What? How could she have not slept with Santos? The surprise of her admission was enough to force me to finally turn and look at her. She was a mess—hair disheveled, clothes wrinkled and skewed, her face bruised and her eyes wounded—but she stood there anyway, her shoulders slumped, and spoke to me.

 

“I just wanted you to know that before I left.”

 

I shook my head. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re with Santos. How have you not slept with him?”

 

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I couldn’t.”

 

“Then why the hell were you with him?” I didn’t catch the past tense of that statement until it was already out and hoped that Zelda didn’t catch it at all, because I couldn’t take it back and I didn’t dare to hope that our tryst tonight meant that she was done with that son of a bitch.

 

She licked her lips, diverting her eyes from me. I almost thought she wouldn’t answer, but then her soft voice filtered to my ears. “Because it was the only way to keep you out of prison. I… When you got arrested, Santos came to me. He told me that I could do something to help you and I agreed. I told him anything. I didn’t know he meant this.” She shook her head, making a frustrated noise in her throat. “Not that it matters. When he told me he did mean this, I still went along with it. It was the only way to help you. I felt like…like I didn’t have a choice.”

 

She clenched her eyes shut tightly, shaking her head so that her hair bounced about her face, caressing her sweet, soft skin. I felt my body begin to melt. Was it possible she was telling me the truth?

 

“But I get it now,” she pushed, taking a deep breath and forcing a shaky smile that was watery at best, miserable at worst. “I get what you’ve been doing and I don’t blame you. I deserve it.”

 

She was heading towards the door so slowly that I didn’t catch it until she had her hand on the knob. Something inside told me to stop her, but I was stunned, frozen in place. I had all this lingering anger, all of this blame ready to be laid at her feet, and I didn’t know what to do with it now. I didn’t know if I could shirk it off, let it go, even if…

 

Even if it wasn’t her fault.

 

“I’ll leave you alone now, Nester. You do what you have to do.”

 

And with that she was gone. I was left there standing, staring after her, naked and confused and suddenly very cold as I realize what a jackass I’d been. How wrong was I? All this time I assumed that Zelda was selfish. That she left me for Santos, not caring that I was in love with her or would have done anything under the sun for her. I thought that she had betrayed me in the worst possible way by shacking up with my most vicious rival.

 

But oh how I had fucked that all up.

 

Now I realized the truth. I could see it clear as day. Zelda hadn’t betrayed me. Santos had blackmailed her, pushed her into a corner until she felt that there was no way out, and why? Because she wanted to help me.

 

Pain twisted like a knife in my gut as I realized that I was the only who made the mistake. Zelda had never done me wrong; she was the most loyal person I knew.

 

The knowledge slammed into me like a ton of bricks and it was enough to shake me free of my statue like status. I raced to the door and down the stairs, not caring anymore that I was completely naked. I had to catch Zelda. But when I got down the stairs I saw headlights shining in through the window. I threw open the front door to find that Zelda was in her car and already backing out of the driveway.

 

I waved my arms at her, jogging out onto the porch, trying to get her attention, but she refused to stop. She jerked the car out of there with squealing tires and desperation. She wanted to get as far from me as humanly possible, and as I stood there in the night, my naked flesh prickling with the unusually cool summer breeze, I realized that I couldn’t blame her.

 

I fucked up.