Page 5

I storm into my bedroom. A place that was once a haven after living on the streets, but now it’s like everything here—tainted.
I grab a black duffle bag from the closet and throw my clothes and make-up inside.
The hangers clatter against each other as I grab what I need when I spot his black Amex card lying on the dresser. The same card he used to buy me expensive gifts, or wine and dine me at fancy restaurants. Only now do I realize this card represents the materialistic trap I’ve been stuck in.
I snatch it, shoving it into my purse because a night in a hotel is the least he owes me. After tonight, I’ll have to beg a friend to let me stay.
Then I see his gold card to Club Elysium on the floor, the membership he treasures more than anything else in his sad life. A smile curls upward as I crouch to the floor and take it. Twirling between my fingers.
The smile remains until I glance at myself in the mirror. My long, dark brown hair is boring next to Jodie’s golden blonde tresses. Yet, I do like my bright blue eyes and olive-colored complexion, but Jodie is who everyone wants to fawn over.
I close my eyes and shake away my insecurities as I take out my phone and send a message to Carly.
“Hey girl, want a night out on me? I’m buying.” I pause, thinking about how I’m going to process this whole thing with her, but for now, I just need to escape. “At Club Elysium.”
“It’s a members-only club,” she says about the sex club hidden in a side street deep in Manhattan.
“And I have got a membership card.”
There’s silence for a few seconds before she yells, “Fuck yeah! I’m in.”
Minutes later, my bag is packed, and I dump it at the door, but I’m not ready to leave yet. I need to see them one more time to etch the evidence of his infidelity in my brain–or my phone.
I creep back to the spare bedroom, careful not to make any noise. I stand at the doorway with my back against the wall, trying to remain out of sight.
My eyes roam over the rumpled sheets on the bed, the discarded clothes strewn over the floor. Then at them.
They are oblivious to me being here, lost in their moment of lust. Her mouth is bobbing around his dick. His fist grips her hair as he stares at her, mesmerized.
His mouth is open wide, his face contorted, and his dick is so far down her throat it has rendered him speechless.
He looks fucking ugly when he’s about to come.
I should move, but I remain frozen in the doorway with my hand still gripping the cool metal of the handle. I’m etching every detail in my brain for when my dickhead ex-boyfriend tries to tell me it never happened.
But it is, and the scene before me is not the first time. The trouble was that the last time I only caught them afterward. With disheveled hair and her lipstick on his face. At least Jodie panicked and pretended she was at Felix’s apartment to see me.
I should’ve walked away that time and not accepted it when Felix told me I was paranoid. I certainly shouldn’t have acceptedhim turning it on me by telling me he was angry at my lack of trust in him.
“Jodie...”
I press the record button on my cell as Jodie glances at me. She doesn’t stop looking. She’s not worried. It’s like she is goading me.
“I’m coming, Jodie...”
His breathy moan cuts through the air like a knife in butter, and I should feel it twisting in my gut. I should be devastated, shattered. Or better still, I should unleash a tempest of fury.
Instead, I’m eerily calm as I add Felix to the long list of disappointments in my life. Right below ‘deceased parents’ and ‘losing my inheritance.’
That is probably why my heart doesn’t hurt. I’ve been through too much, seen too much, to break over something as mundane as infidelity from a man I never loved.
My pride, though? That’s smarting. It’s screaming at me to storm into the room and make a scene worthy of my family name. To let Felix and Jodie know exactly who they’re dealing with.
But I can’t do that. That’s not who I am anymore. Or at least, not who I’m supposed to be.
Jodie knows I’m here, but he still doesn’t know as I creep away and make my way to the front door. When I reach the entrance to his apartment, I lean against the door and stare back down the hallway. I let out a soft but bitter laugh and think about what happens now.
What should I do?