An excerpt from Honestly Unfaithful #1

 

Chapter One

Maggie

“This is bullshit,” I say out loud to no one in particular, not that anyone is listening anyway. I’m new here, haven’t even had a chance to check out the local hot spots, so to everyone around me I am invisible.

 When you decide to move halfway across the country and transfer into a college where everyone knows each other, you’re bound to be stared at while sitting in the waiting room of the administration office at Duke University.

 It’s not like I wanted to move nearly three thousand miles away; Jake had left me no choice. Jake was my boyfriend, as in past tense.

 Was.

 I thought I had it all mapped out. I’d end up marrying my now ex-long-term boyfriend one day. We’d have two children, and we’d live in a modest house while maintaining successful careers. All before we were thirty.

 Jasper, Indiana wasn’t a large city, and unless you’ve heard of Scott Rolen—chances are, you haven’t heard of Jasper, either. There, everyone knows everyone. Jake and I grew up together, started dating in middle school, and graduated head over heels in love. We agreed to take a year off after high school.

 We traveled all over the United States for that year, Jake’s parents covering every expense as a part of our graduation gift. When our year was up, we found a small one-bedroom apartment, moved in together, and began college.

 That’s where our future began going slowly downhill.

 It was little things at first. Twenty-one questions if I came home late from a night of studying with a group; accusations if I had to stay later at work. Then, before I knew it, his issues escalated. He lost all the trust he had for me and wanted to control everything I did, all of the time. It was like a switch was flipped the day I signed my name with his on the lease for our apartment.

 I made excuses.

 That it was just his way of showing me how much he cared.

 Excuses upon excuses.

 Until the night I ran.

 Months of one-sided arguments blew the fuck up. I was always so busy studying or working or being the great girlfriend, that I wanted a break. Just one night out with my girlfriends—Jake knew about it. I had to tell him the exact bar I would be in, the time I would arrive there, and the time I would be leaving. He had to know how I would get home and at what precise time I would be walking through the front door. Everyone’s numbers were to be left with him in case he couldn’t reach me via my cellphone.

 It was ludicrous, all of it.

 But I did it anyway, because I loved him and I was determined to make us work.

 Flash forward: I’m at the bar and it’s fifteen minutes past the time I said I would be getting home. I unlocked my cell phone to send Jake a text, letting him know that I was sorry for being late and I was on my way. I’m greeted with eighty-seven missed phone calls and fifty-eight unread text messages.

 All from Jake.

 Instead of calling or sending him a text message, I decided to just leave the bar, grab a cab, and get my ass home.

 I predicted that being late would mean I was going home to an all-night one-sided argument where I would have to defend that I was a twenty-one-year-old college student with a boyfriend. Not an old shut-in lady.

 I wasn’t expecting his visceral anger.

 When I got home, Jake must’ve been stewing. Before I knew it, Jake had grabbed hold of me and slammed my head into the wall numerous times. Before I blacked out, the first thought I had was, This is not the man I fell in love with. When I finally stirred awake, I found my wrists tied to the frame of our bed. He was lingering over me with his hands raised as if he were to hit me. I flinched; I didn’t want him to hit me again. But he gestured and screamed in my face that he “wasn’t going to ever let me step foot out of the apartment again, for as long as he lived.”

 I knew I had to find a way to leave. His promise to keep me locked away forever was a real fear.

 I was tied to that bed for two long, arduous days, left to sit in my own filth as punishment for my “transgression” of disobeying his order to come home right away.

 I manage to convince him I wouldn’t leave the house ever again. 

 Luckily, he had classes and I was untied. I packed the necessities as fast as I could and ran. Ran as far away as I could before he could find me.

 Now, here I am, waiting to see someone in administration about graduating this year with my degree.

 “Margaret Whitaker?” a middle-aged woman with glasses calls out my name.

 I follow behind her, taking a seat in the chair across from her desk.

 “I see that you are a new transfer and are wanting to graduate a semester early. Is that correct?” she asks while glancing at my transcripts.

 “Yes, that’s correct.”

 “Well, to be honest, looking at your files, you’re on the right path for earning all of your credits to graduate early. The only thing that will be in your way is that you need to have a completed internship.”

 “An internship?”

 “Yes, although it is kind of late to apply for one, coincidentally I have had an opening to an internship in the physiology department under Professor Jackson.”

 “But my major doesn't have anything to do with physiology,” I argue. “Please, I need to graduate.”

 They should let me graduate by default because they can’t offer an internship that goes along with my degree.

 I can see the sympathy etched on her face. Maybe my desperate pleas will help? “It doesn’t have to, honey, you can intern anywhere. As long as you do the internship and receive a letter of completion it will go toward your credits for graduation. Professor Jackson is one of the nicer professors to intern under. He will be patient with you since he knows you are majoring under another department. Now, you can apply and see what will come of it, or you can go back to your dorm room and try to figure this out for yourself. What’s it going to be?”

 I shuffle my feet, trying to decide. Having made up my mind, I look back up and reach out for the application.