He showed up at Paul’s on a Wednesday. He showed up, wrecking everything, waking me up. I didn’t think I would ever see Connor again. And there he was, walking in all casually, making me so nervous I wanted to throw my napkin down on the table and run to the bathroom to throw up. The guys told me his girlfriend cheated on him. I hated that that made me happy. I hated what kind of person that made me.

For as long as I've been alive, people have told me that I'm not good at hiding my emotions on my face. I didn't like that about myself for years. I embrace it now, but back then I just wanted to hide away.

I was sitting at the table in the bar, staring down at my clenched fingers. It was the only way to make them stop shaking. They were gripped tight to my purse handle. My stomach was in knots and I felt like I was going into heat.

Connor sat there quietly talking to me like nothing was wrong, as if it was no big deal that we hadn't spoken in a long time.

It was just us at the table, our friends gone in search of their next round.

"So you're dating Rich, huh?"

"Sort of." I couldn't help the lie; he didn’t need to know that was over, so fleeting. I wanted his jealousy, after months of silence. I stared at my drink in front of me, vodka and red and ice. I had barely touched it, the glass was sweating, though not nearly as much as I was.

"My friend, Rich." He lifted his glass to his lips, stared at the bar in the distance.

"Yes. Your friend. If it doesn't bother him, then it doesn't bother me." My words bit. I swallowed, heavy. I needed my drink, my fingers traced the cold glass, but I couldn’t bring it to my lips.

"You've never let anything stop you from going for what you want, have you?" He looked at me then, his eyes black. I wanted to slap them shut, or see them roll back as I straddled him.

"No, I haven’t. And that worked out well for you once. Didn't it?" I reached for my glass again, this time pulling it to my lips, letting my purse fall to the floor. My fingertips were wet, slippery. I tried to place the song that was playing in the background.

"I'm not so sure I'd call what we had ‘working out well’."

I didn't know which way he was going. Playful or cutting? I could work with either one. "I'm sure you thought it was working out just fine when we went to that baseball game? When you fucked me at my place and then had a girlfriend the next Monday?" My jaw was set, my lips a thin line.

"I'm sorry about that." He sounded sincere, heavy and hurting. Not for me, for himself. I wanted to wound him.

"You're only sorry because she fucked you over. I'm glad she cheated on you." I wanted my words to be a slap, but he just nodded.

"She wouldn't be the first one."

"I never did." I hurt him. I knew that, but I was not what my parents were. A cheater. Not yet anyway.

"Because I never gave you the chance. You seem like the type." He shrugged his shoulder, such a casual insult, thrown from his wounding lips.

“I’ve never been unfaithful. Never in my life.” It wasn’t because I had never wanted to be. I’d wanted revenge from time to time. But that wasn’t my style. My parents had done it and I never wanted to be like them in that way.

“Well, I've been cheated on by every girlfriend I've had.”

I wanted to feel sorry for him but I was still stung by pumpkin-faced Tracey. By the winter I had spent alone. The baseball game. The way he dropped me. Maybe I deserved it, maybe not. “Maybe it's you then.” I downed the last of my cranberry and vodka, avoided his eyes.

“Probably is.” He lifted his own drink, downed it. “I like fucked up women. Project women. Maybe, just maybe, I have a savior complex.”

“So good of you, Doctor, to self-diagnose yourself right here for me.” I looked at the bar, my friends’ backs were to us.

“Why shouldn’t I? You were happy to do it for me.”

I thought of the few texts I had sent Connor while he was with her. He had never responded. It should have turned me off but it made me want him more. His faithfulness, I wanted it. I hated myself for pissing it away, for taking him for granted.

“You want another drink?” He was pushing his seat back, looking me in the eye. He looked pretty smug for a guy who just had an ex tell him he was probably the reason his girlfriends cheated on him. It just showed me that he didn’t give a shit about my opinions on his love life anymore. I was no longer a part of it.

“Yeah,” I said, flippantly. I didn’t want to lose my power.

As he walked away, Blane walked back over from the bar where he had been flirting with some chick I didn’t recognize.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” he laughed, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his coat.

“It’s not what you think.” I punched him on the arm and looked over my shoulder, looking for Connor.

“It’s not what it looks like? You're not still desperately in love with him? You’re not looking at him like you want to crawl in his damn lap? He’s not getting you another drink?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” I didn't really believe that. I liked that he called me on my shit.

“Yeah, that’s why you adore me.” Blane walked outside to smoke his cigarette so I pulled my phone from my purse. I had no messages waiting for me but I fiddled with it, hoping Connor would think I was texting Rich. Word traveled fast in our small group, so I kept my mouth shut about some things. No one knew I had left Rich on the side of the road last weekend. That we were done. I didn't think Rich even knew it yet. He was in denial. His texts, still traveling to my phone every day, proved that to be true.

I didn’t want it to, but it bugged me that Connor didn’t have his shit together. Maybe it was because he had opportunities that I had never been given. I woke the next morning, to chaos.

His family wasn’t filthy rich, but they had connections. Most people took advantage of those things. Connor rebelled against them. He had a classic car, so it never went out of style. His clothing was classic, so it never went out of style. He looked like a guy who had it together, but when I woke up in his new place the day after we met again at the bar, I knew he didn’t.

I preferred him living in his sister's guest bedroom. At least then, things were tidy, quiet, respectable. I knew it felt like a prison to him then, and that was surely the reason for the trash heap I was opening my eyes to, but damn man.

The mattress was on the floor. His closet door was open, shoes, boxes, and jeans spilled out.

I liked the thought of him being single, living at his sister’s house. I thought it would deter girls from wanting to be with him. Shallow girls, anyway. I wanted to be with him no matter where he was. But now, he was on his own. It would be easier to bring girls home. These were the things I thought about while we were apart. Reasons I hoped would be roadblocks, cock-blocks. The truth is if a guy wants to get laid, nothing is really going to stand in his way. But I needed comfort, anywhere I could find it.

Flashes of the night before flew around in my mind, swirling.

He was so drunk, we both were. He didn’t want me, not really, but when a guy has enough shots he will take you home, think you’re a good idea for long enough. Blane had thought I was stupid to get myself tangled up in Connor again, but he was the one who dropped us off at Connor’s new place.

I could hear Connor’s new roommates in the distance. I pulled the covers from my body and tiptoed around the room, searching for a bathroom. I knew there was one nearby. Connor had set me up on the countertop next to a sink, fucked me senseless, just a few hours ago. I stumbled to the door next to the closet, shuffled in, and sighed when I saw the toilet.

My eyes darted to the sink where my phone sat, vibrating and lighting up the room. I pulled up a text from Blane letting me know my car had been dropped off at Connor’s. Maybe he knew I would want to be getting out soon.

When I crawled back into bed, Connor stirred but didn’t wake. I heard his phone ding from the nightstand and my stomach somersaulted.

I wondered who was texting him. It would have been so easy to check, but I had never been that girl. I never snooped. I never stalked. I never wanted to know the bad things, the things that ripped my heart to shreds. I would gladly live in a land of denial.

I didn't think I would see Connor again so soon. But later in the day, after I finished a TV dinner and settled down to watch The Shawshank Redemption for the third time that week, Blane called me. He had that tone in his voice, the one he got when he was excited about some new juicy gossip. He informed me that Connor's ex had found out we went home together. And she didn't take the news well. I couldn't believe my ears when he told me of the damage done. I had to see it for myself.

Connor's new vehicle, a Range Rover, was light colored, silver, gold, it depended on the light. The spot where Tracey, Connor's ex, carved my initials in with the fucking rock, were grey. You could see the frame of the car clearly. I had pissed plenty of people off in my life, but nothing to this extent. Nothing this crazy. He really drove girls crazy. I tried not to think of all he has made me think and feel. The mania he inspired in me. I had never been driven to this level.

I thought of the night he met me. Or the night he saw me. The broken glass. The blood, red, dripping on the carpet. I loved him in a way that was different than the way I loved Avery. That love was fading quickly, and would soon die completely. I didn't know it then, but summer would bring an interesting development. The year would bring more endings.

I walked up to Connor's new place and knocked on the door.

Connor answered in a towel. Surprised to see me. “Hey, what’s up?”

I looked him up and down. It was less than twenty-four hours ago that he looked like this in his bathroom. Wet and clean after we showered the sex off our skin.

“I heard about your car. What the fuck?”

“Yeah,” he replied, looking behind him to see if anyone else had heard in the house.

He stepped outside and his pale skin begged me to touch it. I could tell this wasn't something he wanted to talk about. And it was apparent that he hoped I wouldn't find out, but our small circle of friends loved to talk.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't want you to think I was blaming you for it or something. Or to feel guilty in any way. She’s crazy. It was your name, but it was me she was pissed at.”

“Oh, that bitch is insane. Trust me, I wouldn't have blamed myself. I just wish you would have told me.” I wanted him to tell me things, any god damn thing. But he was a steel trap. I had lucked out last night. He was offering me his skin again, but that heart of his was still long gone. Lost to me. I wondered then if I would ever get it back. I had no idea I would pummel it into the ground. I would later want to give anything to have the days when he loved me less back. When I was the one yearning. It was easier to manage. I could handle all of my sad wanting. It was his sadness that was too hard to bear.