Shia's Love Story

Almond-honey eyes stared blankly ahead. She saw nothing but his bright smile that was slowly turning malicious. Every memory they shared was tainted with lies, slander, and betrayal. What she once thought was hers alone was no longer just hers. He was for everyone else besides her.

Her phone hung limply in her hand as she gazed at him spewing more and more lies. Saying that it was all a misunderstanding. Saying they got the wrong guy. Shia knew better. This was the final straw, and even if the lies had convinced her slightly, the lipstick smudge on the corner of his mouth and shirt collar left nothing to the imagination. He fucked some girl just before coming to talk to her. The thought made her want to retch.

He noticed her silence and approached her stone figure, laying a hand on her shoulder. His touch sent a violent volt through her bod, forcing him away from her. He had the nerve to look hurt by her actions.

Standing hastily, she swallowed her screams, looked at the floor, and said in a hollow voice, "Fuck you."

His normally smoke-hooded eyes went wide, and he staggered backward as if she shot him with a bow and arrow lined with poison. "S-shia...I told you it's a lie! I would never do something like that to you."

Her gaze remained on the floor. "Time and time again, I stood up for you. Risked my neck to be with you. Denied everyone's claims that you weren't who they said you were. Yet almost every month, there is a new allegation of you cheating. Shayna, Maxie, Victoria...the list is endless because who knows how many more there were? While I bust my ass at this university, you are out with other females, making me look stupid while I wait for you to return." She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and tears trickling down her rusty brown cheeks. "How many times have you lied? How many times have you been with the others and then come and touch me? You're a filthy, disgusting animal, and I want to hate you so much that my chest burns. Yet I still love you to the bottom of my soul. You were my best friend and lover for a whole year. This relationship meant everything to me, and you shattered it. I stuck by you when your parents threatened to kick you out. I stuck by you when you were on academic probation from school. I stuck by you when you hit rock bottom. I gave my all to you...just for you to through it back in my face like it never mattered."

"Shia..."

"Shut. Up." She glared fiercely through one eye as her curly, unruly hair covered the other. "You have no right to apologize! You have no right to say my name! You. Have. No. Right! Once you bit into the forbidden fruit, you lost all grace with me. It just took me this long to realize what a piece of shit you honestly are. Yet I still want you to hold me and comfort me and tell me this is all a bad dream." She wrapped her arms around her covered midriff and shivered despite the heat flowing through her body. "I want to be laid up next to you and have you stroke my hair and face like you used to. I want to feel your kisses covering my skin in love and desire like you used to. I want to feel your breath ghosting across my collarbone while you snore softly against me. But every thought makes me want to puke. Makes me want to hurl myself off the balcony of the university library. You. Disgust. Me. You make me sick. I'm done with your lies. I'm done with your betrayal. I'm done with you. Get out."

Her breath came out in heavy pants as she tried to control the sobs wracking her frame. The walls of her dorm were closing in slowly. The edges of her vision were getting blurrier by the second. All the outside noise of traffic and business became muffled to her ears; she didn't even hear him leave the room. She sank to her haunches and tried to regulate her breathing, but nothing was working; her breaths kept coming out in heavy pants. Everything was happening too fast. She shakily stood up to get to her phone that she dropped carelessly, but she felt her axis shift with the movement. All she saw was the floor coming to greet her. Then coal darkness covered her vision.