50 Shades of Drake 1 and 2

50SOD II: Chapter Nineteen

    Aubrey's heart split in half. He flipped the phone over and closed his hand around it so tightly that it hurt. "You're still talking to him?"

    "We don't talk all the time-" Robyn started.

    "You said you wouldn't talk to him at all," he interjected.

    "He was in a dark place," she said defensively. "He needed me."

    "He needed you?" Aubrey demanded, turning his head and looking at her.

    She pursed her lips shut.

    He shook his head. "And you took off your ring. Why did you really take it off, Robyn?"

    "I told you why I took it off," she told him.

    "But you were lying to me."

    She started to shake her head. "No, I-"

    "You're lying again," he said, closing the distance between them. "Do you know how I know? Whenever you lie, you start to blink very quickly. And then you look down and to the right. It's a habit. A tell. Something I've known, but something I've ignored. Because I'm a fucking idiot. A fucking idiot who loved you."

    "Give me my phone back," she said, holding out her hand.

    He laughed darkly. "Give you your phone back?"

    "I'm not playing, Aubrey, give me my phone."

    He turned, drew his arm back, and threw the phone against the nearest wall. The thin device shattered to hundreds of pieces. "You want your phone? There's your fucking phone."

    "What the hell is wrong with you?" she shouted at him. She walked around the dining room table and stared down in dismay at her broken cell phone. Her bottom lip quivered as she knelt down to the floor.

    "What is wrong with me, is my fiance is lying to me," he said, following her.

    She turned and looked up at him. "You want to know why I took off my ring?" she asked him.

    His glare was stony.

    She nodded. "Okay, fine. I took off the ring because I went to see him. Okay?"

    He was reaching his boiling point. He could feel it. Before he did, he turned his back to her and walked a few steps away from her.

    This time it was her turn to follow. "I went to see him. And I fucked him. Okay? In the name of being honest, I never stopped talking to him. I never stopped fucking him. Because I can't. I love him. He is like a drug to me."

    "Stop talking," he said, bracing both of his hands on the dining room table and trying to steady his nerves.

    "It doesn't mean that I don't have love for you," she said. "You are someone that I can depend on. You have been there for me when I needed you to be. But he is exciting to me. After the fight I had with him, I wanted to go back to him. But everyone told me I couldn't because of how it would look. They said I would look crazy for going back to someone who hit me. I listened to them."

    "Please stop talking," Aubrey pleaded, closing his eyes and bowing his head.

    "I listened to them, when really I should have thought for myself," she went on, tears streaming down her face. "I wanted to be with him, but everyone said that I needed to be with a good guy. They said I needed someone more like you, and I tried. I want to love you the way I love him, but...I don't. I'm sorry, but I don't."

    He stared down at the surface of the table. "Why not?"

    "Because..." She paused.

    He looked up at her, his eyes teary.

    "You're...you're always there," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air. "Checking in on me, and texting me, and when I come home, you're here, and you're...perfect. You're perfect, okay? You do everything a boyfriend, everything a fiance is supposed to do."

    "And that's why you don't love me the way you love him?" he asked softly, sounding as confused as he looked.

    "You being as perfect as you are reminds me of how perfect I'm not," she said, gesturing to the dinner he'd prepared, thoughtfully set out on the table. "When you do shit like this for me and I can't even remember that it was our anniversary...all I can think about are my flaws. My imperfections. Do you know how it feels to be reminded of that? All the time?"

    He shook his head, trying to understand but not able to.

    "Of course you're not going to understand that," she said tilting her head to the side. "But do you know who does? Chris does. Because he's just like me. He gets me."

    "Then go," Aubrey said, dropping his head so low that his chin touched his chest. "Go be with him."

    "I'm sorry things had to end this way," she said.

    "Get the fuck out, Robyn!" he yelled.

    Her retreat was quick.

    He heard the door to the condo open and close. He rewound their entire conversation and played it back in his head. Anger built up within him. He stared down at the dinner he'd prepared, the dinner that had taken him hours to make. The dinner that didn't make sense, because the foods were so different in nature. He'd managed to make just about every one of her favorite dishes.

    If she never stopped talking to Chris, that meant that she'd deceived Aubrey for the majority of their relationship. Rage built up within him. It boiled over to a point where he could no longer control it. He had to destroy something.

    He waved his right arm across his torso and swept it back sharply. Expensive chinaware toppled over each other. Dishes and food cascaded to the floor. He did the same with his left arm, sending the rest of the food and glass crashing to the floor. He grabbed the underside of the table's edge and flipped the long table over.

    Wine spilled and killed the flames from the candles.

    He sank down to his knees, food and liquid seeping through his dress pants. That was when he really broke down.

    Over the course of the next few weeks, there were a series of exchanged text messages between the two of them. She demanded to know whether or not he knew what it felt like, being with him when it seemed like every woman in the world wanted him. That was an exaggeration, of course. There were women in the world who found him unattractive. But Robyn threw out a bunch of crazy rhetorical questions like that. Did he know what it was like for her to have to date him when every woman wanted him? Did he know what it was like to have women approach her telling her rumors about him? As if what other people did, and how other people regarded him was his fault. Oh, and his favorite: Did he know what it was like having to try to live up to perfect ideal of her that he had in his mind?

    He didn't try to reconcile. While it had been idiotic for him to ignore the red flags, and ignore her lies, he wasn't quite idiotic enough to try to reconcile with someone who'd deceived him as long as she had. Their relationship was most definitely over.

    And his belief in love?

    His belief inlove died along with those wine-drenched candle flames. All because my little Robyn had an addictionthat she couldn't kick. Because her addiction wasn't a drug, but another man. Aman who happened to make it his entire life's mission to fuck with me.