All the blood drains to my feet as the door swings open and Tawny stands before me. Her hair is tousled from sleep. Make-up is smudged under her bedroom eyes. Her long, tan legs connect to bare feet that stick out from under a T-shirt that I know is Colton’s, right down to the small hole in the left hand shoulder. The morning chill showcasing her braless breasts.

I’m sure that the look of shock on my face mirrors the one on hers, if only momentarily, for she quickly recovers, a slow, knowing, siren’s smile spreading across her face. Her eyes dance with triumph, and she licks her tongue over her top lip as I hear footsteps from inside.

“Who is it, Tawn?”

She just widens her grin as she uses her hand to push the door open further. Colton strides toward the door with nothing on but a pair of jeans; jeans his fingers are fumbling to button the fly on. His face sports more than its usual day’s worth of growth, and his hair is unwashed and messy from slumber. His eyes are bloodshot causing him to flinch at the morning sunlight as it comes in through the doorway. He looks rough and reckless and as if the alcohol from the night before has taken its toll. He looks how I feel, shitty, but no matter how much I hate him in this moment, the sight of him still causes my breath to hitch in my throat.

It all happens so quickly, but I feel as if time stops and moves in slow motion. Stands still. Colton’s eyes snapping to mine when he realizes who is at his door. When he understands that I know. His green eyes hold mine. Imploring, questioning, apologizing, all at once for the hurt and crushing devastation that is reflected in mine. He steps forward into the doorway and a strangled cry escapes my lips to stop him.

I struggle to breathe. I try to drag in a breath, but my body is not listening. It does not comprehend my brain’s innate commands to draw in air because it is so overwhelmed. So crushed. The world spins beneath me and around me, but I can’t move. I stare at Colton, the words in my head forming but never making it past my lips. Tears burn in my throat and sting my eyes, but I fight them back. I will not give Tawny the satisfaction of seeing me cry as she smirks at me from over his shoulder.

Time starts again. I draw in a breath and thoughts start to form. Anger starts to fire in my veins. Emptiness starts to register in my soul. Pain radiates in my heart. I shake my head in disgust at him. At her. In resigned shock. “Fuck this,” I say quietly but implacably as I turn to walk away.

“Rylee,” Colton calls out in despair, his voice gravelly from sleep as I hear the door slam behind me. “Rylee!” he shouts at me as I all but run down the path, needing to escape from him. From her. From this. “Rylee it’s not what you―”

“Not what I think?” I yell over my shoulder at him in disbelief. “Because when your ex answers your door this early in the morning with your shirt on, what else am I supposed to think? ” His footsteps are heavy behind me. “Don’t touch me!” I yell as he grabs my arm and spins me around to face him. I yank it from his grip, my chest heaving, my teeth clenched. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Albeit temporarily, anger has replaced the hurt now. It is coursing through me like a wild inferno, emanating off of me in waves. I clench my fists and squeeze my eyes shut. I will not cry. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing how deeply he has torn me apart. I will not show him that giving my heart away for the second time might be the biggest regret of my life.

When I look up, his eyes meet mine, and we stare at each other. My love for him still there. So deep. So raw.

So forsaken.

His eyes swim with emotion as he clenches and unclenches his jaw trying to find the right words. “Rylee,” he pleads, “let me explain. Please.” His voice breaks on the last word, and I close my eyes to block out the part of me that still wants to fix him, comfort him. And then the anger hits me again. At me for still caring for him. At him for breaking my heart. At her for…just being.

He runs a hand through his hair and then scrubs it over the stubble on his face. The sound of its rough scratch—the one that I usually find so sexy—does nothing but drive the proverbial knife deeper into my heart. He takes a step forward, and I mirror him taking a step back. “I swear, Rylee. It’s not what you think…”

I snort incredulously, knowing the consummate playboy will say anything—do anything―to talk his way out of this. The image of Tawny snuggled in nothing but his shirt flashes in my mind. I try to quiet the other ones that form. Of her hands on him. Of him tangled with her. I close my eyes and swallow purposefully, trying to wipe the images away. “It’s not what I think? If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck...” I imply with a shrug “...well then you know what they say.”

“Nothing hap―”

“Quack!” I shout at him. I know I’m being childish, but I don’t care. I’m pissed and hurting. He shakes his head at me, and I can see the desperation in his eyes. Tawny’s smug smirk fills my head, her previous taunts echo in my mind, and they fuel my fire.

Colton’s eyes search mine as he steps toward me again, and I retreat. I see the sting of rejection glance across his face. I need my distance to think clearly. I shake my head at him, disappointment swimming in my eyes and pain drowning my heart. “Of all people, Colton…why chose her? Why turn to her? Especially after what we shared the other night…after what you showed me.” The memory of the intimacy between us as we looked in the mirror at each other is almost too unbearable to envision, but it floods into my mind. Him behind me. His hands on my body. His eyes drinking me in. His lips telling me to look at myself, to realize why he chooses me. That I’m enough for him. A sob I can’t hold back escapes and is wrenching and comes from so deep within me that I wrap my arms around my torso to try and stifle its effects.

Colton reaches out to touch me but pauses when I glare at him, his face etched with pain, and his eyes frantic with uncertainty. He doesn’t know how to assuage the pain he’s caused. “Rylee, please,” he begs. “I can make this right again...”

His fingertips are so close to my arm that it takes everything I have to not lean into his touch. Visually shunned from touching me, he shoves his hands in his pockets to ward off the early morning chill. Or perhaps mine.

I know I’m hurt and I’m confused and I hate him right now, but I still love him. I can’t deny that. I can fight it, but I can’t deny it. I love him even though he won’t let me. I love him even through the hurt he’s inflicted. The floodgates I’ve been trying to hold back burst and tears spill over and down my cheeks. I stare at him through blurred vision until I’m able to find my voice again despite the despair. “You said you’d try...” It's all I can manage to say, and even then my voice breaks with each word.

His eyes plead with mine and in them I can see the shame. For what, I can only imagine. He sighs, his shoulders sagging and his body defeated. “I am trying. I...” His words falter off as he removes his hands from his pocket and something falls out of one. The scrap of paper flickers to the ground in slow motion, the sun catching its reflective silver packaging. It takes my mind a moment to process what has landed at my feet—and not because I don’t understand, but rather because I am hoping against hope that I’m wrong. I stare at the emblazoned Trojan emblem on the torn package, synapses slow to fire.

“No, no, no—” Colton repeats in shock.

“You’re trying?” I shout at him, my voice rising as anger blazes. “When I meant try, Ace, I didn’t mean try to stick your dick in the next available candidate the first time you got scared!” I’m yelling now, not caring who hears. I can sense Colton’s rising panic—his uncertainty of how to have to actually deal with the fallout of his actions for once—and the notion that he’s never had to before…that no one else has ever called him on it, made him accountable, feeds my anger even further.

“That’s not what I―I swear that’s not from last night.”

“Quack!” I shout at him, wanting to grab him and hold him and never let him go and at the same time wanting to hit him and push him and show him how much he’s hurt me. I’m on a fucking roller coaster, and I just want to jump off. Stop the ride. Why am I still here? Why am I even fighting for something he so obviously doesn’t want? Doesn’t deserve from me?

He runs his hands through his hair in exasperation, face pale, eyes panicked. “Rylee. Please. Let’s just take a pit stop.”

“A fucking pit stop?” I shout at him, my voice escalating, pissed that he’s patronizing me right now. A pit stop? More like an engine rebuild. “Did you not believe in us enough?” I ask, trying to understand through the hurt. “You told me the other night that Tawny had a tenth of the sex appeal I had? Guess you chose to go slumming, huh?” I know I’m being overdramatic but my chest hurts with each breath that I take, and frankly I’m beyond caring at this point. I’m hurt—devastated—and I want him to hurt like I do. “Did you not believe enough in me that you had to run to someone else? Fuck someone else?” His silence is the only answer that I need to know the truth.

When I finally have the courage to look up and meet his eyes, I think he sees the resignation in mine, which in turn causes panic to flicker through his. He holds my gaze, emerald to amethyst, a volume of emotions passing between us―regret the biggest of all. He reaches out to wipe a tear from my cheek, and I flinch at his touch. I know that if he touches me now, I will dissolve into an incoherent mess. My chin trembles as I turn to go.