Bad Rep

ELEVEN

I wake up with a jolt, my heart racing and my skin peppered with a cold sweat. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, still half asleep, to realize where I am, my heart sinking. The room is bathed in a blinding glow, and I look at the clock to realize the sun is setting. I must have passed out the whole day from exhaustion.

In the silence, I hear a repeated buzz. It takes me a moment to realize it's my phone, and I dig it out of my pocket to see Rhodes's number calling. Again. I ignore it, and when my phone kicks him over into voicemail I'm able to see my home screen, filled with a handful of other texts and calls from him. I'm disappointed, but only for a moment, until I see Eli's contact light up the screen with an incoming call.

I hesitate for a moment, my heart starting to accelerate. Do I answer it? Do I not? This is the first call I've gotten from him since I went missing nearly twenty four hours ago. A part of me wants to make him sweat—but who knows if he even will—while the other part of me really wants to see what he has to say.

Curiosity seems to outweigh my pettiness.

"Hello?" I answer, my voice scratchy and hoarse.

"When were you going to tell me Rhodes is your trainer?" He spits, his tone accusing, demanding. I can tell he's furious.

My head jerks back and I feel even more disoriented than I did when I woke up. "Excuse me?" I ask, still trying to get me bearings.

"When were you going to tell me about Rhodes?" he demands once more, impatient.

"How-how did you find out?" I ask, surprisingly more curious than panicked.

He lets out a humorless laugh. "Maybe it was this morning at the competition when he marched up to me and demanded to know where you were. I asked him what goddamn right he had to know where you were, and he mentioned something about you running out of the gym last night during your session."

I sit silently, stunned that Rhodes would do such a thing and stunned that Eli knows.

"What happened to Victoria?" he presses harshly.

"I—she had her baby," I explain. "She assigned all of her clients to Rhodes, and there were no other trainers available."

"Bullshit," he accuses.

My head jerks back in surprise once more.

"You could have found someone else," he continues, angry. "But instead you went behind my back and deliberately hid it from me. How long have you been hiding this from me?"

Anger begins to pop below my skin at his tone, his hypocrisy. "I don't know, Eli. How long have you been hiding the fact that you've been cheating on me?" I ask, suddenly feeling brave and my tone deathly soft.

Despite the low tone of my voice, I know he heard me, the strained silence from his end of the line speaking volumes. After a moment, he has the audacity to scoff, to act as if I'm crazy. "What are you talking about?"

My back molars grind together. "I felt so guilty, so fucking guilty for going behind your back about training with Rhodes this whole time, but now I don't feel guilty at all. I saw you last night, Eli. I saw you kiss that brunette," I confess, the words coating my throat like acid. "Slap her ass."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he plays dumb, overly defensive.

"How long?" I ask, throwing the question back at him.

Again, his silence speaks volumes.

I angrily swipe away a tear that slides down my cheek. "I only trained with Rhodes because of you, because I knew how difficult and time consuming it would be to find a new trainer. I was trying so hard for you, and to find out you're cheating—" My voice breaks, my bottom lip wobbling. I absolutely hate that I'm crying right now, that I'm actually having this conversation with him.

"Yeah?" he challenges, as if this is a competition I started of who can hurt the other more. "Well the only reason I cheated was because of you," he confesses bluntly.

His words are like a sharp slap to the face. "Wh-what do you even mean?"

"You wouldn't have even needed a trainer in the first place if you hadn't sat around on your ass the past year."

"I was in pain, Eli," I wail, unable to keep my composure any longer. "I was broken, and not just my bones, me," I remind him hysterically. After the accident, Eli seemed to have checked out, granted I did too, but I was severely depressed—not that he seemed to notice or care. Maybe I could have tried harder to pull myself out of it, but he never seemed to try at all. "And you were never there! You, the one person I thought I could count on."

He huffs in annoyance, as if this conversation is a waste of time to him. "I'm not your fucking babysitter, Claire. I have a life and you're a big girl. You could have easily picked yourself back up and got your life back, but instead you chose to sit around and wallow, wanting to feel sorry for yourself."

His words pierce into my heart and twist. "I know you have your own life, but you're my fiancé! The very least you could have done was be there for me, but you were never around. You just left me like everyone else." I choke on a sob, and the act of breathing becomes more difficult with every passing second.

He makes another sound of annoyance. "And here we go again with the dramatics," he mutters under his breath. "You need to get over it."

Anger and anguish explode in my chest, lighting it on fire with an excruciating burn. "Just like you got over me with the brunette?" I accuse. "Is she the reason you never got me another ring?"

"One of them, yeah," he says blandly, honestly, without an ounce of remorse. "Like I said, you checked out and stopped trying."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I ask, another uncontrollable sob coming from the back of my throat.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Claire. You're the one that pushed me away," he says.

"No, you walked away," I correct him. "I admit, I may have checked out, but you completely gave up on us, like you never even cared. Did you ever care about me at all?" I wonder.

"I gave you a ring, didn't I?" he says, as if I'm stupid.

"Yes, but if you really cared you would have gotten me another one and stuck by my side through the worst time of my life," I reiterate. "Did you ever even wonder where I was last night? You never even called to check on me when I didn't come home. What if I was hurt or in trouble?"

"I knew you were fine," he states irritably, and I can picture him rolling his eyes.

"You don't know that!" I yell, in disbelief. "It was late and you knew I was walking home by myself and—do you even want to marry me anymore?" I ask, needing to know.

"Honestly, no, if you want to keep acting like all of this is my fault. You're to blame too," he accuses, making my heart shatter while simultaneously making my blood boil.

"How am I to blame?" I wail, hysterical. "You're the one who cheated!"

He curses under his breath, still clearly annoyed. "I can't talk to you like this and keep going around in fucking circles. I can't do this anymore," he states, as if he ever did anything in the first place. "I'm done."

The line goes dead, telling me he hung up, conversation over, as if I meant nothing to him at all.

I sit for a moment completely dumbfounded, praying for myself to wake up from this awful never ending nightmare, but I never do.

Bile rises to my throat as confusion, hurt, and anger swamp my chest, causing tears to flood my eyes. I feel like I can't breathe, the whole world caving in on me.

I nearly crush my phone in my hands, and in a whirlwind of emotion, I hurl the device at the wall, the screen shattering, mirroring my heart.