Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I didn’t remember reserving a car. I didn’t remember how I got in it. All I could focus on was trying to breathe in and out. I was having a panic attack, one so horrible that my chest was aching, and it felt like someone was tearing out my heart.

I couldn’t stop thinking about all that had happened over the past hour. It was like I was trapped in a horror film. Finding out my mother had lied to me my entire life about virtually everything had shattered me inside, but when Briar told me Nicholas had cheated on me, had let me live with someone he had been sleeping with for months, someone he forced to have an abortion… I couldn’t take it anymore.

Was this really Nicholas we were talking about? How could he have done this to me? How could he have lied to me, laughed in my face, pretending they didn’t know each other? How had they both been able to keep up that farce? And why?

I had never felt anything so hard, so horrible, never before that day had I felt like everyone in my life was betraying me because it was everyone, every single person I loved, who had betrayed me that night: my mother, Nick, even Briar… I’d thought we were friends… I’d thought…

With trembling hands, I took out my phone. I needed Jenna with me, by my side, because I had no idea how to resolve this. I couldn’t imagine how I could recover from this blow.

“Are you all right?” the driver asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

All right? I was dying.

Jenna didn’t pick up. Then I saw Nick’s photo on the screen. I looked at it with unending pain, a pain far sharper than any I had ever felt before. Seeing his image, seeing that photo of the two of us together, smiling at the camera, my pain turned into an irrational hatred that lodged in my soul, a hatred for him and for any and everyone who had ever hurt me.

I had suffered enough. I didn’t deserve this. I just didn’t. All I had done, all I had been through to get to where I was, and then this… It was like my entire world was falling apart.

“This is your destination,” the driver announced just as a thunderclap crossed the sky, making me tremble.

I paid on the app and got out.

Since Jenna hadn’t responded, there was only one person left to turn to. I went to the entrance of the building and pressed button number eighteen.

I didn’t get the person I expected, but in those circumstances, either of them would have worked. Michael came down and opened up, and he seemed shocked when he saw me. I was an absolute wreck; I could barely even breathe. I didn’t care that I’d only known him for a few weeks: he had helped me, and more importantly, he knew me better than anyone—I had opened up to him in a way I’d done with almost no one else.

Seeing him through the mist of my tears, I stepped forward and collapsed into his chest. He hugged me tight, and just then, I felt my heart fall out of my chest and shatter.

Three hours later, I opened my eyes in a completely unfamiliar room. My head was aching so badly, it was hard for me to focus on anything but the pain, and it wasn’t just my head, there was something else, something I didn’t understand… Then the truth hit me again, cold as ice.

I felt the tears stream down my cheeks once more, but in silence, as if I didn’t want to make things worse, as if I wanted to keep the drama at bay. But why bother? Everything that had happened was horrible, from beginning to end. Everyone had warned me, everyone I knew had told me this could come to pass, and there I was, in a bottomless pit because I hadn’t been capable of seeing it or accepting it in time.

I lay back on the cushions and looked around for something to distract me. I saw two lit candles on the nightstand. I considered getting up, but before I could, the door opened, and there, with a steaming mug in his hands, was Michael. It was strange to see him in pajama pants and a gray T-shirt, and it was even stranger to realize I was in his bed, in his sheets, after crying for hours while he held me.

“Hey!” he said, walking in and sitting beside me. “I made you a cup of hot tea with honey and lemon. After all that crying, your throat must be killing you.”

I nodded, grabbing the cup and bringing it to my lips. I was so crushed, so lost, that I didn’t know what to do or say. My legs shifted under the sheets, and I realized I was no longer in my dress. I was wearing a large white cotton T-shirt.

Michael seemed to be considering what to say, and just looking at him allowed me to see he was even tenser than I was. I looked down at the steam rising from the rim of my tea as I felt Michael’s fingers delicately wiping away my tears.

“He doesn’t deserve you shedding a single tear for him, Noah. Not one.”

I knew what he was saying was true, but I wasn’t crying for just Nick or just me: I was crying for us, for Nick and Noah…because there wouldn’t be a we anymore, right? I would never be able to forgive him. Or would I?

I looked at the raindrops striking the window. It had been a long time since I’d seen a storm like that… The last time had been in Toronto, before my whole life turned upside down, before I fell in love, before everything.

“Anyway, I guess it had to happen…” I said softly, more to myself than to Michael.

It seemed as if that phrase remained there, lingering in the air.

“It’s not the first time either. It’s almost like I’m not capable of making men love me… My father didn’t. Neither did my first boyfriend, Dan. He cheated on me with my best friend. Now history’s repeating itself… I’m asking myself if that’s why I’ve been running away from everything with Nick, if there was a part of me that knew this had to happen and wanted to protect me from that pain…”

Michael took the cup from my hand and, without my managing to stop him, kissed me on the lips, pressing me into the pillows I was resting on. I blinked several times, perplexed, then pulled away with a face full of rage. Rage, and…something more.

“You’re an idiot if you don’t think you deserve to be loved, if you think the bad things that have happened in your life are your fault…” He stroked my hair. “I haven’t done my job with you, Noah. I really haven’t accomplished anything…”

Again, he pressed his lips into mine, and I felt so lost, I let him do it. My mind seemed to disconnect from my body, just as I had wished it would do since I took that car there. Michael’s hands were all over me, and maybe just as a reflex, mine started doing the same.

It was different, the way he touched me; his kisses were different, too. I couldn’t say whether I liked them because I wasn’t really there. I didn’t even know what was happening; my heart and my soul were crushed, blinded, waiting for someone to send a light into that bottomless pit and show me the way out.

When I woke up, it was five in the morning. My brain seemed to be functioning again, and I realized what I had done. It felt like someone had struck me with a mallet in the middle of my chest, hard and precise, and I had to drag myself from the bed to the bathroom to vomit.

I felt sick, truly sick, as if a virus were inside me, eating whatever life was still left in me. I looked down at my body. I was still in that white T-shirt, but my underwear had disappeared. Flashes of what had happened started to reappear in my mind, and I could do nothing to stop them. His hands, his mouth, his naked body on top of mine…

Oh my God.

I retched and brought myself up to my knees in front of the toilet to vomit again for minutes straight. It seemed like an eternity. Then I rested my face on the edge of the sink and started crying again. I didn’t even know how many tears I had spilled since the night before, nor did I understand how I had any left. I wanted to burn that shirt, shower in boiling water, scrub my body with steel wool… With all my strength, I wanted to cleanse myself inside and out and ball up in bed waiting for time to pass before I raised my head again.

Like a robot, I started picking up my things, trying not to make noise. I didn’t want to put my party dress back on, but I also didn’t want to walk out of there naked. I ended up taking a sweatshirt Michael had left on a chair. I’d burn the dress and that damned sweatshirt later; I’d throw everything I’d worn in the fire, burn all the memories and all the things he had touched, because—for God’s sake—I’d let him touch me, let him do even more…

When I turned on my phone to book a ride, I saw dozens of missed calls on my screen. Most were from Nicholas; he’d called me every five minutes for the past six hours… Jenna had called, too. So had my mom.

I rolled my eyes and ignored all of them, reserved a car, and left Michael’s apartment without making a sound.

It was raining buckets, and soon enough, I was soaked, but since I felt dirty, I let the water wash over me, and it actually made me feel better. For a few minutes, I tried to forget everything and concentrate on the plunking of the waterdrops against my face.

The car honked, waking me from my daydream, and I rushed over and got in the back seat. I’d have just as soon caught a plane to Canada, to somewhere with no memories of my boyfriend, where I wouldn’t run into any of his exes, but before then, I had to go to my dorm.

It didn’t take long to get there—Michael lived on campus, too—and when I looked out the window and saw who was waiting for me on the front stairs, I nearly fainted.

No. I couldn’t see him. Shit… I needed to get out of there.

But Nicholas had already seen me, and before I could tell the driver to take me somewhere, anywhere else, Nick had already opened the door and pulled me out of the car.

“Noah, please, I’ve been looking for you like a madman all night. I thought something had happened to you. I thought…” He looked so desperate, and I was such a disaster, that for a moment, I almost let him hug me, I almost let him hold me in his arms, I nearly begged him to get me out of there, to take me away, just so I wouldn’t have to feel anymore what I felt in those moments. But then I remembered the reasons I was in this state, it all hit me, and even more intensely because I had him in front of me right then. He was with me, and I could see and not just think about all I had lost.

I shook and thrashed so hard and so fast that for a few seconds, Nicholas couldn’t grab hold of me, but when he did, near the door of the dorm, he grabbed both sides of my face and forced me to look into his eyes.

“Listen to me, Noah, please, you have to listen to me.”

He looked so desperate… The rain had died down, but we were both soaked and freezing.

“Noah, this was all a big, stupid misunderstanding. I’ve been looking all over for you because I knew what you were thinking, and I was dying inside knowing that you thought I had cheated on you…”

I blinked, not grasping what he was saying.

“I’ve been a dickhead, okay? I know I have. I was an idiot, leaving you alone last night with our parents, and if you want to hate me for kissing Sophia, fine, but—”

His words pierced my soul, and I tried to jerk away from his grasp. He’d just admitted that he’d deceived me, that it was true, that he’d kissed her.

“Let me go!” I shouted, but that only made him grip me tighter.

“Goddammit, Noah, I’d never cheat on you!”

He shook me, and I looked up from the damp, muddy ground, ready to listen to him.

“It was just a stupid kiss, one stupid kiss I gave her, out of anger, because I was mad at you, and okay, you’re right, I was an asshole, because I knew you were jealous of Sophie, and I took advantage of that to get revenge on you. But it wasn’t you I wanted revenge on, Noah. I just let the Nicholas from years ago carry me away, that person you helped me to leave behind; and I swear to you, I’ll never let him come back. That was the worst mistake I’ve made in my life. And you know why? Because now that I’ve kissed another woman, I’ve realized how fucking in love with you I am, and I’m never going to kiss anyone and feel the things I feel when I kiss you; if I’m not with you, I feel nothing. If I’m not with you, it’s like I don’t even have a soul…”

I started analyzing everything he was telling me, and at the same time, my pain was replaced by a terrible fear.

“You haven’t been sleeping with her?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

Nicholas stood back and let the water fall over him for a second.

“I hate you asking me that, but I’m going to be straight with you because everything has gotten so fucked up so fast that you deserve an answer.” He looked straight at me, as though he wanted to emphasize the sincerity of his words. “Never, I insist, never have I cheated on you with anybody. It never once passed through my head, and it never will, Noah.”

I felt such relief, it was like medicine to all the wounded corners of my mind and heart.

“But…Briar told me…” I started to say.

“Noah, what happened with Briar and me was shit, and I should have told you about it, but things were so rocky between us, our relationship was on the edge of a cliff, and I didn’t want to make things worse by telling you I got your roommate pregnant when we were younger, let alone that my father forced her into getting an abortion to avoid a scandal. I was scared you wouldn’t understand. Everything happened so fast that it got out of hand, and Briar ended up having to pay the price.”

Nicholas’s father had been the one to force her to get an abortion? Briar had told me it had been Nick.

“You’re not sleeping with her?”

Nicholas cursed and stared at me again. “I’m not sleeping with anyone but you, Noah. I can tell you don’t fully trust me yet, and I get that, I really do. But we can work it out. Together, we can get past it.”

My head started spinning ’round and ’round… Nicholas wasn’t cheating on me?

I felt so lost, I didn’t realize the tears were running down my cheeks again until Nicholas pulled me tightly into his chest.

For a moment, I didn’t hug him back because my mind needed to pass from hating the love of my life to loving him madly in less than a second.

“What am I going to do with you, Noah?” he asked me, stroking my wet hair and back.

I was so cold, so shocked, that when Nick asked me if he could come inside, I just nodded and let him lead me.

When we walked through the living room and I saw it looking just as it had when I left it less than ten hours before, I started to panic. There were glasses from when the girls had been drinking as they helped me get ready; there was clothing thrown on the sofa, shoes on the floor, makeup… It was so trashed that I walked away from Nick and started ordering it compulsively.

“Noah, what are you doing?”

“I just need to tidy up…clean up in here a little. I need—” Nick’s hands stopped me and turned me around.

“Noah, take it easy, okay?” He looked me all over, and I was so scared, so terrified he’d find out what had happened that I felt nauseous. “You’re shaking. I’m freezing, too. Let’s take a hot shower, okay? We can talk about the rest of this tomorrow…”

I started shaking my head. Guilt was eating me up inside. More than anything in the world, I wanted to take off my clothes and get under the shower, but I couldn’t do that in front of Nicholas; I couldn’t even look him in the face.

He’d just told me he hadn’t cheated on me with anyone, that it had never even passed through his head. He had kissed Sophia, sure, but what did a kiss matter after thinking he’d slept with her? Nothing.

“Nicholas, I…”

I saw the worry in his eyes, and it was just then that he realized the state I was in and what I was wearing.

“Where have you been all this time, Noah?” He didn’t seem to be reproaching me; he was just observing me with curiosity. “Jenna was calling you at the same time I was. I even talked to your friend from school… Where were you?”

I shook my head again and closed my eyes, as if that could save me from what was about to happen.

“I…I…” I couldn’t pronounce the next words.

Before Nicholas could draw his own conclusions, my phone began to ring, one of those stupid ringtones that only worsened the incredibly surreal feeling of the entire situation.

Nicholas took it from my hands to see who it was.

“Why is he calling you?” His voice was cold. I looked up to see his expression.

He was so tense that without realizing it, I took a step back.

“Why is he calling you, Noah?”

“Nicholas, I…”

One gaze was enough for him to understand what had happened.

“Tell me what I’m thinking isn’t true.” His voice was so strangled with fear that I would have done anything to escape, anything to disappear from that place, from the world, to simply stop existing. “Please tell me that’s not his shirt you’re wearing, that what’s passing through my head right now is just my imagination… Say it, Noah!” he screamed and grabbed my arms, pulling me out of my state of paralysis, and the tears began to fall again, dripping on the floor, down, down into that dark pit my demons had dragged me to, filled with my mistrust, all my problems.

“I’m sorry,” I said so softly, I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me. But he had, and he let me go as if my skin had burned him, as if all at once, he wasn’t even capable of touching me.

“No…you didn’t… It’s a lie.” He started pacing around the room, his hands on his head, throwing his hair in disarray, then turned again and grabbed my face in his hands.

“Please, Noah, don’t punish me for this. I already told you I was sorry. Don’t mess with my head. Tell me it’s a lie, just tell me that, please.” His voice cracked with this last word, and I realized we were both ruined. If I had thought before that I knew what pain was, seeing him in pain because of what I’d done was only that much worse. It hurts when someone breaks your heart, but that’s nothing compared to breaking the heart of the person you love with all your soul.

“Nicholas… I’ve been an idiot… I thought…I thought… I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry,” I said, stifled by tears, and stroked his cheek. Or tried to. He didn’t let me. He stiffened, grabbed my hands, avoided me, glared at me.

“You slept with him?” His voice was so wounded that I was glad for the tears to cloud my eyes so I couldn’t see the agony on his face. “Answer me, damn it!”

Those words cut me like a knife. I was disgusted with myself… I thought I was going to vomit again, right then and there. Never in my life had I felt so dirty… He could see it, he could see it in my face—I wasn’t the same person. I never would be.

Without a word, he turned and left the apartment.

I stood there for a few seconds, looking into the void he’d left around me, and that brief lapse of time was enough for me to decide that I couldn’t lose him, that I couldn’t let things end here. What had happened with Michael had been a huge mistake, and Nicholas would forgive me, he had to, because he loved me and I loved him. I refused to accept that our relationship could end after finding out everything I believed was wrong, after finding out he did love me… I had to make him see that it had been a mistake, that we could get over it. I knew that would be the most arduous battle of my life, but I was going to win it. I had to win it.

I ran out of the apartment and down the steps as quickly as I could. I watched him walking down the street and shouted his name. He stopped and turned to look at me. Soon I’d reached him, but I had to stop a few feet away. The Nicholas in front of me wasn’t the Nicholas I knew—he was shattered, and knowing he was shattered made me fall apart, too.

The rain fell, soaking us, freezing us, but it didn’t matter; nothing did, not anymore. I knew everything was about to change. I knew my world was about to crumble apart.

“There’s no turning back now. I can’t even look you in the eye.”

Desolate tears ran down his face.

How could I have done this to him? His words sank into my soul like knives tearing me open from the inside.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I said, trying to control the panic that threatened to shatter me. He couldn’t leave me. He couldn’t, could he?

He looked full of hatred, contempt… It was a look I’d never thought I’d see from him.

“We’re done,” he whispered, his voice cracking but firm.

And with those two words, my world sank into darkness, shadows, solitude…a prison designed expressly for me. But I deserved it. This time, I deserved it.