DOROTHEA

TWENTY-TWO

"...You had to kill me
but it killed you just the same..."

Note: Please beware this part makes mild reference to gas-lighting.

———

"What do you want from me?" Dorothea trembled. "You changed your number. You blocked me—"

"And you act like you've never done one thing to hurt me," Nick cut in. He paused, as though remembering something, then gave a half-hearted laugh. "Oh my god...You're just such a fucking liar."

"Really? Really. When did I ever lie to you?" Dorothea pressed, her voice echoing down the hallway. Realizing the attention that would follow, she drew inward. She suddenly felt that rare twist of rage form in the back of her neck, just like the night she almost jumped the counter and had to resist the urge to knock Tyler's lights out at Bar None. "Tell me," she grilled.

"You were lying to me the entire year before you dropped out of school!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Seriously? Come on." He laughed again. "You and Sophie Carter?"

Dorothea's frantic gaze suddenly locked on the painted cinder block wall across from her. She dug her fingernails into her free hand, her voice low and razor sharp,  "I wasn't screwing my best friend."

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure Sophie would tell that story a little differently—"

"Fuck you," she spat.

"Admit it," Nick countered, a rotten note of victory in his tone, "you cheated on me first."

Dorothea felt as though she swallowed a bucket of glass. "Rot in hell."

"Well, hopefully you'll at least give Taylor a warning, if you change your mind."

Dorothea hung up on him, then held back the impulsive, nasty scream that threatened to escape her clenched teeth. She squeezed her grip around the phone, wishing it was enough to crush the device to a thousand pieces. He would be laughing now, wherever the hell he was, convinced that he had the upper hand. He called her to make sure she knew that. That was always his reason for confrontation. Nick Keller was bottom-of-the-barrel slime and yet he could convince someone he was worth every last penny; that even if it came down to being entirely broke and homeless, she would still the one who was in the wrong.

Dorothea looked up and down the hallway, then back towards the dressing room. Her arms and hands felt awkward, as though she had lost control of their movement. She quickly realized her legs felt the same way as she began walking towards the exit door at the end of the corridor.

Outside, the hot air immediately struck her, along with the midday sun blazing behind a layer of LA smog. Dorothea walked a few paces down the strip of sidewalk in the narrow alley between the warehouses of the studio lot. She was about to lower herself onto the curb, but stopped. She paced. Stopped. Paced.

The sudden blare of a siren in the distance almost knocked her off her feet, yet simultaneously launched her back three years to sitting on the roof of her dorm building at NYU.

She was failing two classes. Summer was approaching. She was wondering if her job at The Palace Diner would be enough to cover books for the next semester. Her dad was sick and only getting worse.

That day, she confirmed the girl who Nick was cheating on her with, only due to the twist in fate that landed them at the same table in the library while studying for finals. They didn't speak. She only listened with her earbuds in but off, as the girl ranted to her friend about Nick Keller, the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Her.