As soon as the calls connects, and I hear the voice on the other end of the phone, everything in me breaks. The last bit of trust I had, the hope that Kade would be different, any kind of belief that I deserve happiness, it all shatters into a million pieces.
“Oh, yes. Right there. Oh, god, fuck me, Kade. Yes!” I hear a voice I recognize shout through the line.
Amber.
The girl from Willow’s café.
Getting fucked by the man who told me he loved me.
No. The man who told me lies from the moment we met.
Lies. Secrets. Betrayal.
It never ends.
Tears escape my eyes in rivers, but I don’t feel them. I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel my insides being ripped to shreds by her moans and his grunts.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“What the fuck?” The voice reaches me through a fog of agony. Every cell in my body is shooting pain through my system. I’m not sure who’s talking, and I don’t necessarily care. What’s the point of caring when all that does is decimate you in the end?
I feel the bed I’ve curled up on dip slightly with the additional weight of a body. I barely notice the movement though. The agony is all I can focus on. I’ve experienced pain in my life, but never like this. It’s like someone reached into my chest, grabbed ahold of my heart, squeezed it for good measure before ripping it out, leaving behind a gaping and bloody hole.
It fucking hurts.
“Mon, what happened?” This time I recognize Dakota’s voice disturbing the pain-induced stupor I’m in, but I don’t open my eyes. It’s marvelous the damage one phone call can cause. Especially when the one on the receiving end doesn’t see it coming—the trusting fool.
“Mon!” she cries loudly, and I finally open my eyes as the worry in her voice registers. My eyes connect with Dakota’s green ones.
Looking at her and the worry for me on her features brings me back into the reality of what happened. I groan, the thought of what I heard on the phone shooting intense pain through my system again.
Why would he do this to me?
Part of me doesn’t understand why this hurts so much. I’ve known Kade for a little over two months, been sleeping with him for one. It didn’t hurt this much when my ex did the same thing to me years ago. He mostly hurt my pride.
But this is different. I feel like I lost a limb.
“Mon, please talk to me.” Kota’s voice is soothing, like she’s talking to an injured animal about to attack.
She knows me so well.
“I can’t…” My voice breaks halfway through the second word. The pain clogging my throat. “He…”
I can feel her stroke my hair in an attempt to comfort me. But nothing can comfort me. Not after what he did. She repeats this for minutes, just being there. Showing me she cares.
I know I can’t stay like this forever; life doesn’t work that way. But I wish I could stay in this cocoon of pain and denial for a while longer.
“Hon, you’re scaring me. Please, talk to me.” It’s the pleading in her voice that finally breaks through the fog.
Surrounding myself with the numbness that’s never been far ever since Veronika showed up, I gather what little I have left of my energy.
“Kade called…” My voice is unsteady, breaking on his name. Dakota clasps my hand, her fingers engulfing mine. I concentrate on the feel of her skin on mine, the one constant in my life.
“And?”
“I don’t know why he would call… when he was too busy fucking Amber to actually talk to me.” A small voice in the back of my head questions why he’d call me when he’s fucking someone else, but it’s being silenced by the overwhelming pain I feel.
“He fucking did what?” Her reaction is quick and loud. She jumps from the bed, the movement making the bed sway once more. My stomach is in knots, saying it out loud makes it real. Before I could pretend it didn’t happen. Or that it wasn’t me it happened to, but some fictional person I made up in my head.
“Don’t make me say it again,” I whisper brokenly as tears start falling once again.
“I’m sorry, Montana. I just… I can’t believe he’d do that to you,” she says, unconvinced.
“I heard it, Kota. I’m not making this shit up.” Anger is slowly replacing some of the hurt. Anger is good. Anger is better than the pain of what he did to me, to us.
“I know, babe. I didn’t mean… I just can’t see someone who so clearly adored you doing that to you.”
“Yeah, well the fucker did it anyway,” I say, the anger now clear in my voice. Why is everyone always defending the jerk? First with him talking shit about me behind my back, now this. Him fucking me over isn’t that out of character.
He is not the first man to cheat and he won’t be the last. Clearly, the words ‘I love you’ mean nothing to him, words you say to appease the other person but have no meaning to you. Mark was the same, telling me he loved me while fucking around on me at the same time.
I sit up, unable to lie down while the hurt and anger course through my body, chasing out the numbness.
“Montana—”
“No,” I yell, and walk toward the window before I turn to look at her. She flinches; the devastation I feel must be stamped all over my face. “No, Kota. He was screwing her.” I throw my arm out. “Like I mean nothing. Nothing at all.”
I can’t stand the look of sadness on her face, so I turn and brace myself on the windowsill. “I don’t know
