I didn't even try to hide the anger in my voice. He looked at me with a very confused look on his face.
"What?"
"I said: What. Are. You. Doing?" I spoke each word like I was talking to a toddler.
"I'm lost...what do you mean?"
I crossed my arms over my chest and rolled my eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh. "With me. With us. What is this? What are you trying to get out of it?" He just stared at me. He didn't say anything.
And I gave up. I didn't have the energy to fight with him anymore. It wasn't worth it. It wouldn't change anything. I raised my shoulders a little in a helpless pathetic shrug and I started to walk away from him to get my purse and leave.
"Goodnight," I said without even looking at him. I hadn't made it to the door yet when he caught up with me and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I froze and stayed still for a moment. I closed my eyes and without turning around to face him I said, "I'm done."
He didn't say anything. His hand dropped from my shoulder. I turned around with tears in my eyes. "I mean it. For good. I am."
He looked down at me, saw how serious I was and immediately looked away, like he was about to start crying too. He put his hands on his hips and looked off somewhere beyond his living room. He nodded his head slightly. Then he looked back at me.
"Why? Where is this coming from?" He had a hint of annoyance in his tone.
"You're dating someone else! I'm dating someone else! What are you doing? What do you expect to happen??"
His shoulders raised in a shrug. "I don't know! You act like I have some ulterior motive...some plan all laid out."
I straightened and my jaw set. I gave him a look that said he had just said the wrong thing to me and he was about to regret it. "What, like the bet you made with Aaron?"
He looked genuinely confused at first, and then his face dropped as he realized what I was talking about. "How - who told you that?"
"Does it matter? Because apparently I'm the last one to hear about it. Everyone knows," I laughed bitterly.
He was still shaking his head, trying to figure out what had happened. "Cheryl?" I just glared at him in response, not saying he was wrong. "What? Where did she even hear about that??"
"So you know what I'm talking about. It's true."
"No," he said quickly. "Well, yes and no. What hap-"
I put my hand up to stop him. "That's why I'm done, Mark. It's painfully obvious to me now that I mean absolutely nothing to you. You just used me to prove to your asshole friend that you could get in my pants. Do you have another bet going right now? To see how long you can keep sleeping with two different girls and get away with it?"
"Karen and I haven't had sex in over a month. But no. And stop using the word 'bet.' It's not like there was any money involved or any pools going. Jesus."
"I don't think that really makes it any better."
"For fuck's sake, do you honestly believe I would ever do anything to deliberately hurt you?"
I stood still and quiet for a moment and then I reluctantly walked over and sat perched on the edge of his couch. I was ready to spring up and leave at any second. I wasn't sure I even wanted to hear anything he had to say. I watched him as he walked over to sit in a chair across from me. He knew better than to try to sit next to me right now.
"Did you ever actually even like me?" I blurted before he could say anything.
He looked disgusted. "Don't do that, Eliza. Listen to me. You were so different than anyone I'd ever met. I couldn't believe you even talked to me after we got tricked into having dinner together and it didn't go that great. When I told my friends about you, none of them took me seriously. They all just laughed and said there was no way a girl like you would get involved with me. So, I told them I bet I could prove them wrong. That's all, okay? I wasn't running around telling people 'Hey, I'm gonna nail this virgin.'"
"Did you tell them about my situation though? That I was a virgin and why I was a virgin?"
He hesitated, reluctant to answer. "Yes," he said, ashamed.
I closed my eyes at the sound of the word. That was a huge betrayal to me. I hadn't told hardly anyone what I told him that night at my house. And by telling him, I felt that it created some sort of sacred bond between us. I was opening up a very dark and private part of my life to him. After I had just met him.
"You...fucking...asshole," I said quietly.
"I know." He looked a little panicked, like was was desperately trying to come up with something else to say. "I know," he repeated more softly.
"That wasn't your business to tell. That's something that I kept very guarded. Because it was important to me. What, were you just...pretending to care when I told you?"
He shook his head. "I feel like you're not going to believe anything I say now."
I laughed, "You didn't feel as strongly about me as you acted. Did you? As soon as I opened up to you, you ran and bragged to your friends and made a game of it."
"I didn't. Not at first. But obviously that completely changed."
"Before or after you fucked me?"
"Before!" He got defensive as if I had accused him of something completely crazy. "It was never that I didn't like you. I just didn't know how to feel about you. I meet you in this club and you're totally stand offish, like you want nothing to do with me. Then you can't get out of my house fast enough the next morning. Your friend had to trick you into running into me again, and then you call me a liar pretty much right away. Then you stood me up. To be completely honest with you, after all of that and then after you told me you were a virgin...I thought you were some stuck up prissy chick."
I shook my head. "What a strange feeling. Thinking someone genuinely has interest in you and then learning it was just an act for their own gain."
"Look, it just wasn't what I thought at first, okay? I obviously thought you were very different than what you are and because of that, I didn't think it would go anywhere. So I didn't take it seriously. I'm sorry if I made you think differently."
"I'm so embarrassed. All this time...I had no idea. All of your friends just saw me as a joke. As someone you just manipulated into sleeping with you."
"Well of course I wanted to sleep with you. Look at you. You're fucking gorgeous. And yes, every guy wants to sleep with a virgin at some point in his life. That was reason enough to want to sleep with you before I even really got to know you. I was an asshole. When I first met you, I was thinking with my dick. I have before and I will again. Most guys do. The truth is that's what this was to me at first, but I realized pretty fast that it was something a lot more."
He was done talking and looking at me expectantly for a reply. When I didn't say anything, he held his hands out in surrender. "I'm sorry Eliza, I don't know what else to say about it."
"I don't either."
He lowered his voice. "So is this really it then? After everything else we've been through, this is the breaking point for you? This is what is going to scare you off for good?"
"I don't know," I lifted my shoulders. "I don't even know what to say to any of this. Or how to feel. Or what to do. I mean, where can we possibly go now? It seems like things always end up bad with us."
"Have the past couple of weeks meant absolutely nothing to you?"
"I...don't know. What we've been doing is wrong. So wrong. I can't do it anymore. For my sake, for your sake, for Karen's and Ben's..."
"You were the one that started this, Eliza. I told you it wasn't a good idea for us to start talking again. But you didn't listen."
He was right. Which meant I obviously still wanted him. Which was the reason I had to stop this for real.
