On Sunday morning, I feel the sun shining on my face as I wake up and I think that maybe I can get through the day without crying. It's been over a week now since I found Clay and Jesse together, so maybe I can start to find some normalcy again. I get out of bed in a good mood, thinking that I'll make a nice breakfast before doing some shopping.

But that good mood and any progress I thought I would make today all goes down the drain when I open my bedroom door and see Clayton sitting on the couch with Jesse beside him and they're laughing like they don't have a care in the world. 

Seeing them together feels like it's ripping a hole through my chest because it's just another reminder that they abandoned me for each other and now they're flaunting it in front of me, as if bragging to me about how they won some fucked up game. As if I needed the reminder. Clay's apartment is just down the hall and he doesn't have any roommates, so there's really no reason for them to be throwing it in my face on a Sunday morning. It especially stings because I was so sure that I could start feeling better today.

"Good morning," Jesse greets me. At least he has the brain power to look uncomfortable about the situation. 

"You have to do this here?" I ask him. "The fuck is wrong with Clayton's apartment?"

"We were just-"

"I don't care what you're doing," I interrupt Clay when he tries to justify his presence. "I don't want you in my apartment."

They don't have a response to that and I don't wait for them to think of one, making my way into the kitchen to make breakfast. I don't know if I have the stomach for it anymore, but I'm going to try to get through it anyway.

I barely have the griddle set up when Bella walks through the front door. I didn't invite her over, but she usually comes for Sunday breakfast. Today, she's wearing sunglasses inside, her dark hair tied in a tired bun on her head. She's clearly hungover and looking for some reprieve. 

"I don't smell bacon," She pouts.

"I'm working on it," I assure her. "Start cracking eggs."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Bella asks in a harsh tone before she can reach for the carton. When I turn around, she's glaring at Clayton. 

Both Clayton and Jesse look baffled and have absolutely no idea what to say or how to explain this. I look on as they flounder, looking at each other and then at me as if I am the one that has an explanation for them. 

I know that coming out in our conservative community is scary for them, but I can't let that be my problem right now. Not after everything that they've done. They wouldn't be in this position anyway, if they were at Clayton's apartment instead of ours. 

"We got back together," I hear Clayton blurt out as a desperate excuse and I have to bite back an incredulous scoff.

Bella looks to me now for confirmation. I have to deny it, tell him to find another excuse. I don't have to lie to her about something like this. How can I pretend to have a boyfriend and lie to Bella like that? Pretend to be in a relationship with Clay, like we're happy and nothing is going on anymore? 

I open my mouth to tell her the truth, because those two can't keep getting away with using me as a pawn like this, but Jesse  beats me to it and interrupts me by saying, "Yeah, it was just a big misunderstanding."

"Oh," She blinks a few times and digests this information. "Well, that's a relief. When she told me that you've been cheating on her for two years, I could barely even believe it, I should have known that it wasn't true. I mean, what kind of piece of shit do you have to be to lie to somebody for that long? Sorry about the truck then."

"Don't worry about it," Clayton mumbles, looking very uncomfortable. I'm stunned into silence and I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore, but I still feel a shock at the fact that they're so willing to put their secret relationship over my well being. How can they say that they're sorry and then in the next breath, stomp all over me like a stone in the pavement?

This is my brother. He's been my best friend since conception, my safety net when things go wrong, the person I tell everything to. The person who I thought would always be there for me, no matter what. Getting cheated on by Clay is painful, but finding out that I mean so little to my favorite person on the planet has absolutely obliterated me.

"You don't have enough here for all of us," Bella notices, looking at the ingredients on the counter that's only enough to feed the two of us. I can't respond, as the lump that's forming in my throat is too large to talk through and if I open my mouth, the only thing that will come out is a big, slobbery sob.

When I don't say anything, Jesse quickly interjects by saying, "We already ate."

I continue cooking, trying not to feel like the worst person on the planet, getting stomped on by the people I love, and pour some pancake batter onto the griddle.

"I got laid last night," Bella tells me as I'm flipping pancakes and the two boys are still sitting on the couch watching TV, looking incredibly uncomfortable. That's one positive thing that came out of this, that they're uncomfortable now. Not nearly as much as I am, but it's a start. "He's still asleep in my apartment, actually."

"Who'd you go out with?" I finally find my words and there's only five of them, but it's a start. I wish the words that were coming out of my mouth were explaining to Bella what's actually going on, but I feel like if I have to explain it in this moment, I'll just combust and cease to exist.

"Esther," She responds. Esther is her roommate and one of our friends. She's really nice and she likes to go out to the parties with Bella more than I do so they go out together a lot. "He's on the club swim team here and you know how swimmers are built, right? He's a fucking rock. And he's not even using steroids. Or if he is, he isn't using the kind that shrink your junk because his junk is not shrunk."

"I'm happy for you," I say with a small laugh, immediately feeling absolutely jealous of Bella as I usually do when she talks about her great sexcapades. I'm not saying that Clayton's junk is shrunk, as Bella says, because it's really not but he was never into me and it was obvious in our sex life. Even when we did have sex, it was never any good. Bella, though, always has the best experiences and all of the confidence in the world to get what she wants.

"Ditto," She responds. "You've been so miserable being broken up with Clayton. I mean, it sucks that you were crying that whole time for nothing but at least you don't have to cry or be angry anymore. The world is right again."

"Yeah, it's a relief to us all," I say to her. I don't know why the truth won't leave my lips, but my brain refuses to form the words. I can see Jesse and Clay on the couch, anxiously side eyeing us as if waiting for the bomb to drop. I want to drop the bomb, but I can't find the words.

"Speaking of my slutty swimmer, I'm going to go back and kick him out of my apartment but I'll be back in time to help scramble the eggs," She promises as the bacon is simmering and the pancakes are almost done. She puts everything down and hurries out of the apartment. I'm kind of glad that she's gone for a little bit so that I can talk to Clayton and Jesse about what the fuck just happened.

The second that the door shuts behind her, Clayton is already making his case. "I'm so sorry, Wren."

"Shut up," I snap at him, keeping my focus on the griddle. "Don't talk to me. You're not fucking sorry. You've been using me for two years, you clearly don't have a problem with it. It's my fault for not having a backbone to just punch you in the dick and say that I've had enough. I have a date on Tuesday, so good luck explaining that to Bella."

"You have a date?" Clayton repeats slowly.

"I do. I would say that it's too soon for us to be seeing other people but you've been seeing other people for a while now so I'd say that it's time for me to move on," I explain, not giving him any details. I wasn't sure if I was going to meet the stranger on Tuesday because I understand how incredibly stupid and dangerous that will be but now, I just don't care. I need to do something crazy, something that I would never in a million years see myself doing. Which, right now, means meeting a criminal at an address of his choice without even knowing his name.

"What's his name?" Jesse asks, as if he can read my thoughts.

A very reasonable question that should have a very quick answer but in this situation, that is just not the case. "Why, you want to fuck him too?" I ask harshly. "It's none of your business what his name is. Nothing that I do is your business anymore."

"We'll tell her," Clayton goes back to the original topic before I can hurl more harsh words at my brother, who now looks like he might be on the verge of tears. "Thank you for giving us this time, I know that we don't deserve it."

"I'm not doing it for you," I tell him. 

"We'll make this right, Wren. I swear," Jesse promises me, but his words evaporate into the air like nothing, because it's all just meaningless hot air.

"No you won't," I mumble in frustration. "Just leave me alone, stop with the fake apologies and empty promises, Jesse, I am so tired. When I find another apartment, we won't ever have to talk to each other again and you won't have to pretend to feel guilty anymore."

"You're looking for another apartment?" he asks, springing to his feet to join me in the kitchen.

"You think I want to live here? And have to see you two together all the time, like you didn't do anything wrong? You think you're making this the greatest place on earth for me to be?" I fire at him angrily. How is he so shocked that I don't want to live here with him? Like he can't see how much he's hurting me by pulling all of this shit.

"Please, don't do that," he pleads with me. "And don't ice me out, Wren. I need you."

"I needed you too, asshole," I snap at him, feeling my eyes starting to water. "Look where that got me."

Before he can respond, Bella is re-entering the room and I quickly wipe my cheeks from any stray tears.

"It is incredibly hard to send that body away," Bella informs me, completely oblivious to the tenses conversation she's walking into. "But he'll get over it."

"I have a date on Tuesday," I say to her as we're starting the eggs. Jesse grabs a drink from the fridge and apprehensively returns to the living room with Clay. "I need something to wear."

"That's cute," She smiles. "Where's he taking you?"

"I don't know but I need something sexy," I say because if I'm going to get murdered, I might as well look good in my final outfit. 

"Really?" She looks surprised because of the fact that I never wear anything sexy. "What kind of sexy are we talking? Just a little bit of cleavage or full on Jessica Rabbit?"

"What do you think that I could pull off?" The eggs are quickly done and I put half of them on my plate, half on Bella's and then we start heading for my room.

"Wren, you're a total smoke show, you can pull off whatever you want to pull off," She assures me with a small laugh, as if I was so silly for even asking the question. "You can just come over and raid my closet on Tuesday and figure out what you need to borrow."

"Alright. Thanks," I glance over at Clayton and Jesse sitting on the couch before I decide to be petty. "Hey, Babe. I'm going to be hanging out with Bella for a while so you can head back to your apartment, you don't have to hang out here."

He gives me a deer caught in the headlights look, maybe surprised that I even have a petty bone in my body. I'm surprised too. "Um. Okay."

I offer him a sweet little smile and then go into my room with Bella.

"So what was the misunderstanding?" Bella asks me once we're in my room just the two of us.

"I still don't understand it myself," I tell her with a little shrug.

"How do you know that it's not true though, the cheating?" She wonders.

"I don't know, I guess." I don't know how to answer her questions and quickly start to flounder. "This whole mess has just been a blur."

"I'm going to do a little bit of research," She explains to me. "I don't think Clay would cheat, but we should be one hundred percent sure if you're going to stay with him. I don't want you getting hurt again."

I swallow hard, wondering what her 'research' might pull up. "Okay," I mumble out.

"Wren, you are so sweet and innocent and naïve," Bella informs me with a mouthful of pancake. "And because of that, you need a protection squad. If it turns out that Clayton really is or was or has ever cheated on you, a scratch in his car will be the least of his worries."

I offer her a smile—the biggest one that I can force onto my tired face—and I say, "You're a really good friend, you know."

"Yeah, I know," She confirms jokingly. "I just don't know what you'd do without me."