“No. I don’t want you to touch me. I can’t trust you. I can’t be with you.” She shook her head. “It’s lies.”

“I love you.”

“No, everything you’ve ever told me has been built on lies, Jason. How can you expect me to even believe you?” she asked.

He didn’t know how to tell her that everything else about him had been the truth. Dropping his hand, he looked around at the food. “I fell in love with you, Sydney. You’re the first woman who has ever made me feel anything.”

“Get out.” The two words were spoken softly. Her head was bent over, and she refused to look at him.

“Can’t we talk about this?” he asked.

“I want you to get out of my apartment. I don’t want you near me. Get out.”

“Sydney.”

“Get out!” She screamed the two words at him, finally looking at him. Her eyes were bright red from tears.

She needs time.

“I’ll leave.” He held his hands up in surrender.

Stepping back, he made his way out of her house, closing the door behind him. Dawn was sitting on the step by the door. Glancing over at his car, he saw Richard was leaning against it.

“Don’t ever come back,” Dawn said.

He glared back at her. “You can think all you want to about me. I did what I had to every single fucking day to get by. I never cheated on her. I’ve never fucking looked at another woman since I’ve met her.” He stopped seeing it was useless to even try to reason with Dawn. “Take care of her.”

Jason didn’t stay to listen to Dawn cursing him.

Walking to his car, he climbed into the passenger side. Richard was in the passenger seat by the time he was moving away from the curb.

He wasn’t in the mood to talk right now, and Richard gave him the space he needed.

Driving to his apartment, he wasn’t surprised when Richard followed him up.

Once inside, Jason left closing the door to Richard, while he went straight for the freezer where he kept his vodka. He needed a stiff drink.

Grabbing a shot glass, he poured out a measure, then tipped the glass to his lips.

Richard stood in front of him.

Pouring a second, then a third glass, he drank it all down, not caring that he was going to have the world’s worst hangover tomorrow.

“Today didn’t go well,” Richard said.

“No shit.” He stared at his friend, drinking down his fourth drink. The burn had stopped, and he rested his palm over the glass where it rested on the counter. “It’s fucking over. I fucked up, and this is what you get for lying.”

“Shit, man, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I encouraged you to lie,” Richard said.

“No. You gave me the idea of lying. You didn’t exactly order or force me to lie to Sydney. I had so many moments when I could have told her the truth. I didn’t, and now I’m paying the price for that.” He poured more vodka out, laughing. “The first woman I fall in love with, and I’m the one to fuck it up. I can’t believe it.”

He shook his head. There was no point in trying to find a positive. He was in love with Sydney, and now he had nothing, not even his work.

****

The clattering of plates echoed around the room as Sydney stacked the dishes up. Every now and then she wiped at her tears, angry with herself. Her heart was crushing inside her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.

Jason had lied to her. He’d lied to her about everything.

She heard his car pull away from her drive, and she didn’t care.

Liar. You’re breaking apart inside.

“Good riddance,” Dawn said, coming into the house.

The sound of her door closing was like the last nail in the coffin. She dropped the plates she’d been holding, and they smashed around her feet. Not caring, Sydney held her stomach as she bent forward, throwing up what she’d eaten before her life went to shit all around her.

“Shit, honey,” Dawn said, rubbing her back, and pulling her hair out of the way.

When she was finished, Sydney left her sister’s side, grabbing everything to clean the mess up.

“Sydney, talk to me.”

Ignoring her, she got to her knees, and started to clean everything up. Throwing the broken plates into the trash, she soaped the carpet. Tears blurred her eyes as everything seemed to crash down around her.

“Sydney?”

“Don’t,” she said.

“He lied to you.”

Sitting back on her legs, she stared at her sister. “Yes, Jason had lied to me.” She forced a laugh, wiping at her tears with angry movements. “He’d lied to me, and the last four weeks had been the best of my fucking life. How ridiculous is that, huh? I can’t even have a great couple of weeks without someone lying to me.”

Scrubbing the floor, Sydney couldn’t stop crying. Her tears were making her so damn angry. She should have seen this coming.

“Was it serious?” Dawn asked, stopping her from scrubbing by placing her hand over hers.

Pausing, she took a breath in order to compose herself. “He told me he loved me, and I loved him. God, Dawn, I love him.” She patted her chest where it hurt the most. “It was all lies.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No, but you didn’t give him a chance either, did you? You didn’t give him the option of telling me the truth. You just had to put the fire out.” She threw the cloth into the bucket, then made her way back into her kitchen. Sydney cleaned the bowl out, then filled it with more water. She didn’t feel better. She felt like crap, worse than crap, if that was even possible.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn said.

“Are you? I mean are you really sorry, or are you just saying it because you think that’s what I want to hear?”

“Sydney, I was worried about you. He’d lied and cheated.”

“No, he hadn’t cheated on me.” Sydney believed him on that. He’d been too insatiable.

“Whatever, he’s a porn star. There’s no way you can have a relationship with him.”

“Why not? He’s been talking about getting out of the business.” Sydney stopped as she started to think of the conversations they’d had together over the past couple of weeks. Had everything Jason talked about really been about him?

“You can’t be serious.”

“What do I have to lose? I’m not part of a reputable bank, or agency. I pack fucking hampers and bake fucking cakes, Dawn. I don’t matter to anyone or anything.”

“You matter to me.”

“And I thought I mattered to him, but I guess that doesn’t matter.” Pressing a palm to her temple, Sydney’s head was starting to really hurt. She needed her sister to leave. “Go away,” she said. They’d grown up together. Dawn should know by now not to fight with her.

“I don’t think I should go.”

“And I don’t think you should be here. It’s bad enough that you were here when everything escalated. I don’t want you here right now. I want to break down without your company.”

“He’s not worth it.”

“I was in love with him!” She screamed each word to be heard over whatever crap was going on inside Dawn’s head. “I was in love with him. I still am in love with him. For the sake of our friendship, get out.”

She faced her sister, letting Dawn see that she wasn’t in the mood to fight with her. Dawn placed the cloth she had in her hand down on the counter.

“Okay, I’ll, erm, I’ll see myself out.”

“You do that.”

Dawn made her way to the door as Sydney went back out to clean up the mess.

“I love you, Sydney.”

Closing her eyes, she didn’t say the words back. In that moment, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

Once the door closed, she finished cleaning away all the mess before washing the whole of the kitchen, scrubbing from top to bottom.

By the time she took a shower and settled on her bed, she was exhausted. Her exhaustion didn’t stop her tears though. She touched the bed where he’d slept a couple of nights ago.

Placing her palm on her pillow, she saw his beautiful smile in her mind, and how happy she’d been. Four weeks together, and she’d fallen in love with him. Jason had changed her in ways she hadn’t thought was possible.