"Three days, Lani. Three goddamn days. You couldn't wait three motherfucking days?" I turn away from her and talk to the door. I'm too pissed to trust myself facing her. "I don't get it. If you didn't want me, why the f**k didn't you tell me? I mean, f**k."
"Stop saying that word, Hunter. I don't like it."
I whirl. "Fuck you, Lani. I'm a goddamn Marine. I've got a dirty f**king mouth, and I'm pissed off. You cheated on me." I force myself to take two long steps across the room away from her. "I’ve never asked. I come back, and I don't ask you any questions. I'm gone for a long time, and I’ve never asked what you do while I'm gone. But...while I'm here, I kind of expected you to be faithful. Is that too much to ask?"
Lani doesn't answer.
"How long?" I ask. "How long has this been going on with that little prick?"
"Don't talk about Doug like that, Hunter. He's a good man. He—"
"I didn't ask about him. I don't care. How...long." It doesn't come out as a question.
"I first started seeing him about two months after you left the last time." She lowers her eyes away from mine.
That's a full year. More.
She's ashamed, and she should be.
"And you've been going behind me with him all the time I've been back?"
She nods, a tiny jerk of her chin.
"Fuck." I want to hit something. My fist balls and I lift it to punch through the wall or the door, but I don't. "Un-fucking-believable, Lani. If you don't love me, have the balls to say so."
She moves forward off the bed, sheet trailing behind her, clutched to her chest. "It's not that I don't love you, Hunter. I do. But...I'm not in love with you."
"What's the difference?"
She reaches for me and I pull away. She lowers her hand. Her vivid blue eyes shimmer. "There's a huge difference."
I collapse backward against the wall, anger fading to confusion and hurt. Without the anger to prop me up, I'm limp. "Then explain it."
She pulls clothes from the drawers, glances at me, and hesitates.
"What?" I ask. "Like I haven't seen you naked before?"
"It's not that," she says. "It's...I don't know. I just feel weird about it. Just turn around and give me a second, okay? Please?"
I turn and stare out the window at the wind-driven drifts of snow. I ignore the rustle of skin and cloth, resist the urge to turn and watch her dress. It will only hurt more.
"Okay," she says. "I'm ready."
I slip out of the room to the kitchen without looking back at her. "I need a drink."
She follows me. I open a pair of beers and hand her one. She holds it without drinking.
"Hunter, listen. I do care about you. I love you. I've loved you since the tenth grade. But...things change. You're gone. You're fighting, and you're not here. That's really it. It's hard to stay in love with you when you're thousands of miles away for months at a time. I was lonely. Doug was there. I...love him, too. I'm in love with him. I'm so sorry. I can't image how that must hurt to hear, but you deserve the truth."
"I deserved the truth months ago, Lani."
She winces. "I know. I feel terrible. It's just...he's good to me. He takes care of me. He's there for me."
Something dawns on me. "He knew about this? He knew about us? You and me? And he was okay with it?"
She has the decency to look chagrined. "Yeah. I know how that must seem, and he...he hated it, but I told him it would only be for a little bit. Just until you left again."
"How long were you planning on stringing me along?" My beer is gone and I get another. I need it for fortification against the rage.
"I was going to send you a letter." Her voice is tiny.
"God, really? A Dear John? You were actually gonna send me a real Dear John letter? Fuck, Lani. That's the cruelest shit you could've done. There's nothing worse." Suddenly that second beer is gone and a third is cracked open.
"Slow down, Hunter. Please. I can't have this conversation with you if you're drunk."
"We'll have this conversation however the f**k I want. You owe me that much."
On impulse I go get my duffel bag, move around the apartment shoving my things into it, and then rummage until I find the ring. I drop the duffel on the floor by the front door, put my coat on, and turn to Lani. I open the ring box and set it on the counter by the front door.
"For your information, I had something I've been keeping from you, too. I was going to—I loved you, Lani. I was always faithful to you. All the time I was gone, I never hooked up. Never. All the other guys went to the brothels and the bars and shit, and I never did. I waited for you. Because I love you. Because I was in love with you."
Lani crosses the room to examine the ring. "Damn it, Hunter. Goddamn it." She never swears. "You aren't in love with me. You're in love with the idea of me. You've never been with anyone else. I'm comfortable for you. I'm what you know. That's it. That's all it ever was and all it ever will be."
I hesitate, gathering my voice so it doesn't crack. "You're all I had, Lani. Now I don't even have that. I have no one else..." I look down, stare at my shoes, tighten my control. "Maybe you're right. But if you didn't love me, you should've told me. Broken up with me."
She cries now, slow, quiet tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want to have to see you in pain."
I let her see the agony in my eyes. "Well, you f**ked that up."
I pick up my duffel bag and walk out, pushing down the emotion until there's nothing left but emptiness. No anger, no hurt. Nothing.
I walk away, my coat buttoned up tight, duffel slung across my back. It's frigid out. Evening. Seven, maybe eight o'clock. Full dark. Snow drifts, not really falling, just blown around by the knife-like wind. I don't know where I'm going, where I'm walking. I can't see much in the dark with the snow stinging my eyes. I don't care. I welcome the pain of the cold right now. It distracts me from my anger.
I'm pissed that she cheated on me for so long, pissed that she didn't have the goddamn balls to tell me she didn't love me.
Mainly, I'm pissed that she's right. We lost our virginity together, explored our sexuality together. I've never even dated anyone else. Never kissed or held or f**ked anyone else. Never even considered it. I've held on to her for so long because she's familiar and comforting. She's what I have.
Had.
I try not to think about being alone, but it's inevitable. I'm shuffling down a sidewalk, skeins of snow skirling around my feet as I pass through pools of streetlamp light. And then, suddenly, I'm seventeen again. In school. Sitting in trig, doodling instead of paying attention to the lecture since I hate math because it's boring and easy. The principal, Mr. Boyd, comes in and announces that he'd like to see me outside for a moment. And then tells me to grab my bag. My heart suddenly pounds and my palms sweat and something is wrong, wrong, wrong.