“Stay away from me.”

“Baby, what happened?”

She begins to cry loudly as she backs herself against the wall, and I just want to know what the fuck happened and why she’s acting so scared of me.

“You know exactly what happened. You know exactly who I am!” she screams.

I stand there, in the middle of her room, confused as shit while my mind races to find clarity in this.

Suddenly, it hits.

She knows.

But how?

She’s freaking out, and I can’t seem to find the right words to explain myself.

“How could you?!” she screams, and I don’t know how I’m gonna calm her down. My heart is pounding, and the utter fear inside of me has me in a panic.

“Babe, let me explain.”

“Explain what?! That you’ve been lying to me this whole time? That you’ve just been using me? Why?!”

“No! It’s not like that. I didn’t know.”

“How could you not know? God, I’m so fucking stupid.”

“I didn’t know when I first met you. I didn’t know until I saw your tattoo,” I try telling her, but I see it in her eyes. She doesn’t believe me, and I don’t know what to do.

Fuck. What do I do?

“What?!”

“Babe, please let me explain.”

“Get out! Get the fuck out! I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Her words pierce through me, and I choke in a breath as she falls to the floor, wailing, but I can’t leave. My mind is racing, and I’m at a loss.

“Just leave me alone,” she cries.

“I’m not leaving,” I tell her because I don’t know how to leave her. I can’t. I’ve never seen her so mad and to have all that anger directed at me makes me terrified to walk away until I know we’re okay.

I quickly move to the floor, kneeling in front of her, but she coils herself away from me.

I’m desperate.

“I fuckin’ hate you,” she throws at me, and it kills. “You made me fall in love with you, and it was all a goddamn lie.”

“God, Candace. Please let me explain,” I beg as I reach out to touch her.

“Get out! Get the fuck out!”

My head snaps back when I hear the door slam open.

“Get the fuck out and away from her before I call the cops,” Kimber says as she stands in the doorway, but I don’t give a shit about her as I look back to my girl who is falling apart on me.

“Babe, please. I love you so fuckin’ much. Let me explain. Don’t do this.”

“I didn’t do shit, Ryan! Just go. It’s over!” She covers her face and won’t even look at me. It’s like a damn knife in my heart, and I feel like I’m drowning. I don’t want to believe her words. She’s just upset. She can’t really want this to be over.

“I’m serious. After the shit from last night, you better get the fuck away from her and leave. Now!” I hear Kimber say from behind me.

I don’t know how to fix this or what I can do. Every time I speak, I seem to only make it worse. So against everything I want to do, I stand up and walk away. It’s like I’m losing her piece by piece with every step I take, but I love her too much to hurt her, and I’m so fuckin’ mad at myself for lying to her.

Walking past Kimber, I can’t even look back to Candace who’s crumpled on the floor crying. It hurts too much to know I’m the cause of her pain. How could I do this to her? How could I have been so selfish?

“Fuuuck!” I scream, gritting it out of my lungs as I slam the door shut and walk out to my car. Getting in, I strike my palms against the steering wheel, pounding it over and over again, screaming. It hurts coming out, but I need to feel the pain because I feel like I just lost everything.

I’ve seen her cry and be upset in the past, but this . . . this is beyond just being upset. Instead of going back inside to be with her, comfort her, explain to her how stupid I am, I drive back home. I don’t want to, but I do. I don’t feel like I have a choice since I just ripped out my girlfriend’s heart because I was too much of a coward to tell her the truth.

Walking through the door, I see her phone that remains at the bottom of the stairs and begin to wonder what the hell happened while I was asleep. How did she find out? I have a thousand questions swarming inside of me, but I’m just too far gone to concentrate to try to make sense out of all of this.

I don’t know how to respond or what I should do. I figure I’ll give her space to calm down before I try talking to her again. She has to understand. She has to listen and believe me when I tell her how much I love her. I can’t lose her, but what if she doesn’t believe me?

The agony ripping through me hurts so much, and I can’t control the unrelenting tears that begin to pour out of me, taking every bit of happiness with them, until I’m nothing but numb, sitting on the couch and staring out at the rain.

Time doesn’t exist right now. Nothing does. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here in a stagnant melancholy when I hear a knock on my door. I hope with everything I have that she’s standing on the other side. When I walk over and open it, I barely get a glimpse of Jase before his fist barrels into the side of my face, clipping my jaw, causing me to lose my balance as I stumble back.

“I told you not to fuck around with her.”

Looking up, he steps inside and slams the door shut. I wish he would come back and bury his fist into me again. I deserve every hit. When I straighten myself up and wipe the blood from my split lip, he’s pissed and has every right.

“What the fuck, man?” he slings at me.

I don’t even try to defend myself. I’m a piece of shit and know it.

“You better fuckin’ say something and give me a reason to not beat the shit out of your ass.”

“Is she okay?” I ask because that’s all I care about.

“No, man. She’s not okay. She’s a fuckin’ mess right now, and I don’t know what to do for her. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” I say as I walk over and flop down on the couch. “I didn’t know it was her.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not bullshitting you.”

“Did you just feel sorry for her?”

“Fuck no. It wasn’t like that.”

“Then tell me what it was like, because right now, my best friend is falling apart,” he says, completely pissed, as he sits down in the chair.

His words hit me hard, and I lose it. I don’t even try to hide my pain from him because at this point, I feel like I have nothing left. I give him the honest truth when I tell him, “I was the one who called 911 that night. But that girl was unrecognizable, so when I met Candace, the only thing that struck me about her and that girl in the alley was their small size. I swear I didn’t know it was her.”

“But you did eventually.”

“She has this tattoo. The same tattoo I saw that night. I had already fallen hard for her when I saw it, and it fuckin’ killed me. I didn’t know how to tell her at that point. I couldn’t hurt her.”

“So you lied to her?”

“It didn’t seem like a lie, man. Not for a while. Not until she opened up to me about the rape.”

“So why didn’t you tell her then?” he asks.

“I was scared I’d lose her. It was selfish, but I love that girl with everything I have. I just . . . I didn’t know how to tell her.”

“When I met you at the bar that morning . . . you hadn’t just found out, had you? You already knew.”

“Yeah, man. I knew,” I admit. “It was just the first time she opened up about it.”

Jase leans forward, with his elbows propped on his legs when he releases a deep breath and says, “You should have told me. We could have figured out a way to tell her.”

The two of us have become pretty decent friends, and now I see that I deceived him as well.

“I’m sorry, man,” I tell him, completely defeated.

He stares out the window when he says, “She’s devastated.”

I want to help her, but I’m not even sure if I know how. “What do I do?” I ask, desperate.

“I don’t know. She feels betrayed and lied to. Like she was some project just to make you feel better about what you saw.”