Sloane pov
The bakery is across the city. I took two buses to get there because it's the good one, the one Brett mentioned in passing months ago, and I wrote it down because that's the kind of person I am. I wrote it down, I remembered it, and today I carried a chocolate fudge cake with caramel frosting forty minutes through the rain because it's his birthday and I want us to work.
The box is a little damp by the time I get back but I hope he does not mind. I practiced what I wanted to say on the bus. Something about starting over, about the fact that three years is not nothing and I'm not ready to give up on us.
I rehearsed it twice, I thought as I let myself into the apartment with the cake in both hands and my heart doing something embarrassing in my chest.
I push the bedroom door open, My coworker is on top of Brett, completely naked. She straddles him on our bed, her knees planted on either side of his hips. Her bare ass rises and falls fast as she rides his cock. Wet, slapping sounds fill the room every time she slams down onto him. His dick slides in and out of her pussy, shiny with her juices. Her tits bounce hard with each thrust. She has one hand braced on his chest.
"Oh fuck, Brett," she moans loud and breathy. "Your cock is so deep."
Brett grips her waist with both hands. He thrusts up into her, hard and steady, his balls slapping against her ass. Sweat shines on his stomach. His pants are shoved down to his ankles and his shirt is bunched up under his armpits. He groans low in his throat, eyes half-closed, face twisted in pleasure.
"Yeah, just like that," he mutters. "Ride me harder, baby."
She leans forward, changes the angle, and starts grinding her hips in tight circles. His cock disappears all the way inside her pussy again and again. The bed creaks under them. She gasps every time he bottoms out.
Brett looks over her shoulder. He sees me standing in the doorway with the cake box and rain dripping from my hair. He doesn't stop, instead his hips keep pumping up into her. He doesn't look sorry, instead he just stares at me for one flat second, then turns his face back to her neck like I'm nothing.
I look down at the cake box in my hands. Then I walk back through the apartment, set the box on the kitchen counter—because I carried it for forty minutes and I don't know what else to do with it—pick up my keys, and leave.
It's raining harder now. I make it to my car before my legs stop working properly and get in, pull the door shut, and sit there with both hands on the wheel and the engine off and the rain hitting the windshield so hard I can't see anything beyond it.
One minute, I give myself one minute. It lasts about a few seconds.The sound that rips out of me is ugly and raw, the kind of crying I haven't let myself do since I was seventeen and my dad's store sold for less than the mortgage and I sat in a Walmart parking lot with my knees pulled to my chest. My shoulders shake hard. Tears burn down my face and drip off my chin onto my soaked blouse.
The car smells like wet wool and rain and the faint vanilla of the perfume I wore for him tonight. I can't breathe right. My chest tightens like someone is squeezing it from the inside.
"Three years," I choke out loud, voice cracking on every word. "Three years, and you couldn't even"
I slam the flat of my hand against the steering wheel. Then again. Harder. The horn doesn't go off and that feels like another slap. My palm stings but I do it a third time anyway.
"I took two buses." A wet, broken laugh bubbles out of me. "I took two fucking buses in the rain, Brett, you absolute"
I can't finish. I press my forehead against the wheel instead, shoulders heaving, mouth open in a silent sob that turns into a gasp. I clutch at my chest with one hand, fingers digging into the front of my soaked blouse right over my heart. It hurts. It hurts so much I can't tell if it's the crying or something worse. My nails press into the fabric as I squeeze harder, like I can hold the pieces of me together if I just grip tight enough.
Three years, I think, quieter now. Three years and I paid his rent and covered his groceries and came home from twelve-hour days and made dinner because he forgot, and I told myself it was love, told myself it was partnership, told myself he was in a difficult season.
I remember how I paid for our first dinner because he'd forgotten his wallet, our second because he'd had a rough week. Our third because it was easier than making it a thing, by month six I was covering the rent and telling myself it was a partnership. That he was in a difficult season, that real love required sacrifice.
The first time was eight months in. I came home late from the office. The apartment was dark except for the single light over the kitchen table. Brett sat there, shoulders tight. The moment I stepped inside, his hand shot out and locked around my wrist. His fingers dug in hard, twisting bone against bone. Pain shot sharp up my arm. I gasped and tried to pull back, but he yanked me forward until my hip slammed into the edge of the table.
"You're late," he said, voice low.
He held on, grip tightening. The skin under his thumb went white, then flushed deep red. I could feel my pulse hammering against his fingers. He kept squeezing for a long minute, breathing hard through his nose. When he finally let go, I stumbled backward, cradling my wrist. Four dark fingerprints and one thumbprint already circled my skin.
Then he dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pressed his face into my stomach, sobbing. "I don't know what's wrong with me," he cried. "I don't deserve you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
I stood there with my wrist throbbing and stroked his hair. I told him it was okay, I told myself it wouldn't happen again.
But it did. Always my arms, my ribs.One night he pinned me against the fridge. His forearm pressed across my chest, crushing until I couldn't draw a full breath.
The cold metal handle dug into my spine while his other hand fisted in my shirt, knuckles grinding into the soft spot just below my ribs. Every time I tried to twist away, he pushed harder. I felt the bruises forming right then—deep purple blooms spreading under my skin where no one would ever see.
When he finally stepped back, I slid down the fridge door, breathing shallow. He turned and poured himself a drink like nothing had happened.
Another time he grabbed me from behind while I was washing dishes. His hands locked around my upper arms, thumbs pressing into the muscle until I dropped the plate. It shattered in the sink. He shook me once, hard, then let go. Red handprints stayed on my skin for days. I wore long sleeves to the office and told myself the ache meant nothing.
He never touched my face, never left anything that couldn't be hidden under blazers and concealers. He was careful that way.
Between the bruises he was attentive again. He asked how my day was and waited for the real answer. I was so tired from Gregory and the stolen work and the secret file that those quiet moments felt like love. The last time he went through my phone again. He found Gregory's name and decided I was sleeping with my boss.
I tried to explain but he didn't listen. He threw the phone across the room and it cracked against the wall. Then he came at me fast, backing me into the bathroom doorway. His palm slammed flat against the wall beside my head. His other hand gripped my shoulder, fingers digging in deep enough that I felt the bruise start instantly—hot and throbbing.
He leaned in close, breath warm against my cheek. "Cheap," he said quietly. "You're cheap, Sloane. Good enough to pay the bills, you are not good enough for anything real."
His fingers tightened once more, then released. I stayed pressed against the doorframe, heart hammering, my shoulder already darkening under my shirt.
He walked away and sat on the couch, waiting for me to come out.
When I came out he was on the couch. He talked for a while. I don't remember most of it but I remember the part that came later, when the apology had run its course and something shifted in him.
He leaned back, "I'm with you because you're convenient," he said. "Because you're here and you pay the bills and you're grateful enough not to ask too many questions. You think if I had money I'd have settled for someone like you?"
I went very still.
"Be honest with yourself for once, Sloane. You're cheap. You've always been cheap, good enough for a placeholder. Not good enough for anything real." He said it calmly."You're lucky I stayed this long."
I didn't cry, didn't say anything, instead I picked up my keys and I left and I drove around for hours and I came back because I had nowhere else to go, and I lay in the dark beside him thinking. Cheap, I thought. He thinks I'm cheap.
I thought about my boss who used me, I thought about the man who I loved but thought of me as a place holder.Maybe he's right. Maybe I have been selling myself at a discount for so long I forgot there was supposed to be another price.
The rain hasn't let up. I'm still sitting here with my hands on the wheel, and my face is a mess, I turn the key and pull out into the street.
I'm thinking about the documentation file when I saw a pair of headlights. They're already there, already filling the windshield, and I have exactly one second — one clear, horrible second where I understand completely what is about to happen and cannot do anything at all about it. Then the world comes apart.
The windshield is fractured into a thousand pieces, and the rain is still falling. I can see it through the glass, each drop catching the streetlight for exactly one second before it disappears.
I should have been angrier. I should have let myself be angrier a long time ago.