Chapter Tags: major angst, mentions of cheating, guilt, paranoia, mentions of sex, slut shaming, more angst
Chapter WC: 3055
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Your POV
You let yourself out of the stall, heading towards the mirror as you wipe under your eyes and check that your makeup hasn’t run too much and it’s not too obvious you’ve been crying. A woman exits the stall next to you, flashing you a sympathetic smile before washing her hands and leaving the restrooms quickly. You swallow hard, telling yourself to just forget about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what you did or how that’s made you feel. Don’t think about Jensen or– Instantly you choke on another sob, taking a deep breath and forcing yourself to once again suck it up. You’re doing the right thing now, and that’s all that matters. You can’t undo what you’ve done, but you can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
You reach for a hand towel from the dispenser and dry your face, feeling the skin under your eyes is tender and sore, thanks to the fact you’ve been crying nonstop for several hours now. You’d fallen asleep at first, content and happy in your little bubble where it was just you and Jensen like old times. But after only a short nap, you’d awoken a lot more sober than you’d been before, and instantly realised what you’d done.
Your head had been so loud, thinking about your conversation with Jeff, about him questioning Drew’s loyalty to you, only feeding your paranoia more. But that was no excuse for what you did. It might be possible that Drew is cheating, but that didn’t give you the right to cheat on him too. And with Jensen of all people. You wonder for a brief moment if it would make things better or worse – if Drew knew that Jensen was once the love of your life, the one that got away. Would he find comfort in the fact that it was an impossibly hard situation for you to be in, that you found yourself needing the stability that Jensen used to bring you even if it was only temporary? Or would it hurt him more? That the sex wasn’t meaningless, that it wasn’t just some stupid mistake with a stranger.
You dry heave, wondering if this time you’ll actually throw up like your body has been threatening to for hours now. But the nausea settles just a little again and you manage to control yourself. You take some more deep breaths, considering being able to face the world beyond the restroom once again, but before you can will yourself to move, your cell rings in your pocket. You pull it out to see Jensen’s name, and instantly the nausea is back. You press ignore, too afraid to hear his voice, but immediately he calls again. It takes three times for you to relent.
“Jensen, please,” you beg him, holding back fresh tears.
“I just need to know you’re okay,” he tells you desperately.
“Of course I’m not okay,” you choke out. “Jensen, we had sex, and Drew…” you trail off, seeing a woman walking in. “He doesn’t deserve this.” Jensen doesn’t say anything, but you don’t need him to. “How could we do this to him?”
“I’m sorry,” Jensen finally offers.
The worst part is, you know that Jensen doesn’t really have anything to apologise for. He’d tried to stop it, he’d made you walk away. Only he didn’t realise he was sending you to your bedroom to stew, to pace the floor and consider what you were walking away from. In that moment you didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore. You didn’t want to fight it. You wanted Jensen, you wanted everything he could give you – used to give you – and not just the sex, but the emotional support too. You’d just wanted to feel wanted and loved, and no one had ever made you feel like that more than Jensen, despite how things ended between you.
“I wish there was something I could do to change it,” he adds, snapping you out of your thoughts.
“It’s my fault,” you confess, but it only makes you feel worse; admitting it out loud.
“It’s not, sweetheart,” he insists. He always wants to see the best in you, and sometimes you can’t stand that. You don’t deserve it. “Just come home, we can talk about it.”
“I can’t,” you swallow. “I’m waiting to board a plane.” You’re met with silence, and you can’t help but feel like you’ve let him down. Maybe Jensen thought that last night wasn’t just a one off. “Jensen, I’ve gotta see him,” you remind him. “I’ve gotta… it was a mistake,” you try to tell him, your thoughts too scrambled to have a real conversation about it right now.
“I know,” he replies, to your surprise. “You should see him,” he agrees.
“I should?” you check, half expecting him to talk you out of the airport and back to his place.
“He’s your fiancé, and if you want him to keep being your fiancé, you need to work things out.”
“He’s not going to be anything once he knows what we’ve done.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
You don’t know how to reply for a moment. Of course the idea of not telling Drew had crossed your mind, but you know the right thing to do would be to come clean now, before he finds out some other way. You still haven’t decided if a whole truth or half truth is best. You don’t want anyone to know about Jensen, because until now you’ve gotten away with no one finding out about your past. But is a half truth just as bad as a lie? If you don’t tell Drew everything, then maybe he’ll never understand.
“Jensen… I don’t think I can keep this a secret.”
“You kept us a secret,” he reminds you.
“That was different,” you argue. “I was keeping the secret to keep you.”
“I don’t see a difference.”
You realise that technically there shouldn’t be one, and you can’t exactly tell Jensen that it being him made you fight harder.
“Y/N, we don’t have to tell him anything. He won’t ever find out from me. If it was truly just some big mistake, if you never want that to happen again, then there’s no reason to ruin what you have with Drew over it.”
You consider his words, the line going quiet as you do so, but before you can reply, an announcement calls your flight number, telling you to start boarding.
“I’ve got to go,” you tell him, swallowing hard.
“Be safe.”
You hang up, staring down at the photo of you and Drew as your lock screen and take a deep breath. Maybe Jensen’s right. If last night was a mistake, then hurting Drew over it seems pointless. The only thing that matters is that it’ll never happen again.
It’s a little after midday when you arrive at your apartment complex. You’d managed to do something decent with your makeup on the plane, sucking up your tears and pushing them down, faking it enough for other passengers that you think maybe you’re ready to fake it for your fiancé too. You take one last deep breath, plastering a fake smile on your face, and push your key into the lock, opening the door, focusing on the little ounce of excitement that you’ve got at the idea of finally being home and surrounded by all your things. But as you swing the door open, the place is practically empty. There’s a few pieces of bigger furniture, but all the artwork that lined the walls, all the bits and pieces that littered the surfaces to make your home home are gone.
You look around, frowning as you close the door behind you.
“Drew?” you call out tentatively, but there’s no reply, and given how empty the place seems to be, you figure you’d hear him home if he was.
At first you consider that there’s been a break in, but the things that remain look far too neat for that. That’s when your paranoia kicks in: he already knows about what you and Jensen did. He’s left you.
You rush through to the bedroom, but your bed is no longer in there, and none of your clothes are hanging in the closet that’s wide open. Now you’re just even more confused. You reach for your cell, deciding to call Drew and put yourself out of your own misery. Maybe he can explain what’s going on.
“Hey, I can’t talk right now,” Drew tells you, slightly out of breath.
“Why?” you press immediately, images of him with some other woman flooding your brain.
“I’m a little busy, can I call you back in like twenty minutes?”
“Doing what?” you ask, accusingly.
“I’m just working out at home.”
“In our apartment?” you press, looking around it.
“Where else is home?” he laughs awkwardly.
“Well I don’t see you here.”
You’re met with silence for a long moment, and then Drew finally chokes out a “What?”
“I came back, Drew, you’re not here and neither is any of our stuff. What the fuck is going on?”
“Fuck,” is all Drew replies with. You don’t say anything else, curious to see what he scrambles to come up with to explain all of this, and knowing the pressure of silence will make him talk. “Wait there, I’ll come and get you, and I’ll explain everything.”
You’ve barely been able to look at Drew as he drives you to wherever it is you’re going. It’s silent and awkward between you, and needless to say it’s not the reunion you’d envisaged you two having after months apart. What you’ve done with Jensen is far back in your mind now, which is only focused on figuring out what the hell is going on.
Drew finally pulls up onto a drive of a large family house – manicured lawn and a large front door, a porch sweeping across the entire front.
“This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” Drew admits when he cuts the engine.
“Find out what?” you prompt, frustrated, scared that this is something terrible.
Drew gets out of the car and after a moment and some deep breaths, you reluctantly follow him. You slam the door closed to highlight that you’re upset, and look at him pointedly, waiting for him to explain what’s happening.
“Welcome home,” he tells you weakly, vaguely gesturing to the house.
“What?” you press, frowning.
“Just after Christmas, I found this place on the market, and I figured it was the perfect home to start our family in. So I bought it and I’ve been doing it up and I was waiting for it to be finished. I was going to fly out to Texas in a few days and bring you back here to surprise you.”
The flood of information takes a moment to kick in. At first you’re just extremely relieved that he’s not cheating on you or living some secret double life. It explains why he’s been so busy and distant. Drew is terrible at keeping secrets from you. But then in the next second, anger floods your veins.
“You picked our first family home without me?” you ask him.
Drew glances around, and then laughs awkwardly. “Let’s not give our new neighbours a show before we’ve even moved in. Let me show you inside.”
You reluctantly allow him to lead the way, even though the more you think about it, the more pissed off you’re getting.
“Is this why you were so against me accepting the job?” you find yourself asking, not even taking in the large hallway or living room that could fit three of your living rooms from the apartment inside.
“Well, this and our lives are here in New York, I don’t want to live in Texas.”
The confession hurts more than you thought it would, and only confirms to you that you do want to move back there permanently. The idea of it never being an option is too much to even think about. Drew shows you around the rest of the house, ending in the large master bedroom with a walk-in closet and en suite, but you can’t find anything to like about the place when you’re this upset.
“I thought you’d be happier than this,” he admits.
You scoff, hardly able to believe that this outcome hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Drew, you picked and bought our first house without talking to me about it. We’ve never even discussed what we want out of a home or where we’d want to settle down… I don’t… how could you think this was a good idea?”
You don’t want to seem ungrateful when he’s clearly put a lot of work into the place, but this is nothing like you’d wanted. You’d always imagined looking around homes together, arguing over how many bedrooms you might need. It’s not something you thought you’d even need or want for a few years, yet.
“What about the wedding and… how could you keep something this big from me?”
Drew looks insulted that you’re not happy and thanking him, but you’re too upset to be tactful about it.
“Wow, you wanna talk about keeping something big from someone?” he asks. You frown, wondering what he’s talking about, and he reaches under the bed and pulls out the box of keepsakes you’ve always had. The box is private, and Drew knows that, but he opens it and reaches inside for the little black notepad you know only too well.
“I found your little slut diary,” he tells you, waving it in front of you. You take a deep breath, biting your bottom lip anxiously. “I wasn’t going to bring it up or even tell you I found it, but since we’re talking about keeping secrets…” You swallow hard as he opens it. “Justin… three out of five stars. The sex was average but one extra star for eating me out.”
You close your eyes, ashamed by it. You should’ve burned the damn thing. You were still a teenager when you made that stupid book. It was just a bit of fun – a joke between you and your friends to begin with, but you found yourself rating and reviewing every guy you slept with for over a year, until you matured a little more and realised how embarrassing doing something like that was.
“Liam… two out of five stars. Small dick, didn’t know how to finger me either, more like stuffing a turkey.” Drew continues. “Ben… five out of five stars. Oh, this is a good one. First ever orgasm, he had to change his sheets.”
“Drew,” you demand, “stop.”
“I could go on and on, I mean, I stopped counting at forty. But there were more.”
“I was a kid,” you argue, shaking your head, your cheeks burning. “It was stupid, I shouldn’t have done it.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” he scoffs. “You told me I was your first.”
How you could forget that Drew didn’t know your past like Jensen does makes you feel even more ashamed.
“You painted yourself as some innocent saint that didn’t fuck around or whore herself out. I thought I was number one… what number even am I?”
You don’t reply until you realise he’s actually waiting for one. “I don’t know,” you confess.
Drew laughs bitterly, shaking his head. “Were you ever gonna tell me? Or were you going to just let me marry a slut?”
“Drew, that’s not fair. I was a kid and I was going through some shit…” you argue.
“I don’t fucking care, Y/N, you lied to me about it. That’s what hurts.”
“I’m sorry. When I met you, I was trying to be a new person, I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. I didn’t expect us to end up where we are, and the lie became too big.”
Drew considers your words, throwing the book down on the bed and then sitting on it. You stand there awkwardly, not sure what you want your brain to focus on first. There’s just too much happening right now.
“I want to move past this, and I want us to live together in this house and be happy for the rest of our lives. But we can’t do that if we’re not honest with each other,” Drew explains calmly. “So this is your last chance, Y/N. Is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”
You stare at him, Jensen instantly flooding through your brain. And you want to scream at him – yes, so much. You want to tell him about how you fell in love with the man that had been married to your aunt most of your life; your father’s best friend, the man you’ve been living with for the last four months. You want to tell him that being with Jensen was the most alive you’ve ever felt, but it fell apart and now you’re here, and you don’t want to look back, you want to move forward. You want to come clean about the night before, about the big mistake you’ve made and how it’s only made you realise one thing. But that one thing is the only thing that blurts out of your mouth.
“I want to move back to Austin for good.”
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