Tessa's POV:
"I…kissed someone. I cheated on you, mistakenly." Robert's shaky voice blurts out the ridiculous truth to me. I felt the floor under my feets just slips away like I'm falling, the chattering of peoples in the coffee shop that I'm surrounded by just stops like all of sudden I'm deaf and my vision blurs this person across me like blindness is taking over them.
I got cheated on?
And what the hell he meant by mistakenly?
Mistakenly really?
How could you cheat on someone mistakenly?
This is bullshit!
I know we aren't dating but he kissed someone while we are seeing each other, get to know each other and I thought giving him this chance as he asked for it would be worth a try, I thought maybe in the end I'll might eventually date him then maybe that'll lead us to something, something big. But I didn't ever thought he would do this to me before we even start any relationship.
He just kissed some bitch and it's so wrong to me, unfair really. Why on earth he would do that to me? I don't deserve this.
I thought he would be different, he won't be playing with my heart, he won't break my trust into millions pieces and certainly I'll not regret giving him the chance. But guess what? He is no different. He is just like Hardin.
The Robert I thought was respectful to every single one unlike him the disrespectful person on this land. Robert, who was a thoughtful with his words and never said a single hateful words or even yelled at me or to anyone, and whereas he, who wasn't thoughtful whatsoever and had a mouth only to spit hurtful stuff and do yelling at everyone, no matter what or who are they. Robert, who makes my fear disappeared by facing them not avoiding it, and whereas he who made my fear and that fear ares haunting me forever, making me avoid them at any cost. Robert didn't lie to me and he always supported me in everything, whereas he, who lied at constant, never cared what would be the consequences of that and he always had a problem with supporting at my every life's decisions and sometime he did things that'll hinder them, completely.
Comparing. Yeah I'm doing comparison between these two man, I always do which is nothing new to wonder, is it? It's in my blood, you can't expect me to stop, did you?
Then you're fool to think that.
But with all that negatives things he did, all the imperfect faults he had, he never ever cheated on me. He never kissed anyone or thought about doing it with someone else but me. And only me.
And that's one of the quality I like, I loved about that man, unlike Robert here, who is admitting that he did what he is saying he did.
Maybe Robert needed that attention and physical attachment that I didn't give him, I haven't kissed him, well I didn't even hold his hand romantically for at least once, I didn't do anything physical. Hell I didn't even attached to him at any emotional level too that I should have, I just couldn't open up with him. I thought I could like I did with him but at last I just… couldn't. Like my heart and brain isn't connecting with each other to do that.
Maybe Robert felt I was neglecting him, but in real I wasn't intentionally. Maybe I didn't give him any recognition that I thought I gave him to begun any relationship. That's why he did what he did but that doesn't make it less hurt, is it? It is still wrong, so much.
Now the inner him, his voice is telling me, more like nagging me that no one, no one else unless it's him could fill the emptiness inside me. Why he's in my mind again I should just push him away? But he isn't now, he isn't moving, his memories are stuck in my brain, living up there for rent free and saying that you can't, you could never move on, the way you planned it out.
And now he will stay there forever, and I can't do shit to push him away, can I?
"Tessa!" Someone's voice breaks my stance and brings me back to reality. The floor slides back on under my feet, the chattering of the people inside the small coffee shop I was surrounded with are returned and also my vision brought back in, looking at the first thing across me. Robert. "Say something." He insists.
"Why? Who? And how?" Is the question I could muster.
"It was all of sudden and I accidentally get involved in it. And I didn't want to do that to you, it all happened mistakenly, I swear." He gives me the stupidest excuses that I don't want to hear or I asked for it.
"Don't with the excuses here, please." I spit it throught my clench teeth at him.
"I know you are mad at me but listen to me first." He begs in his low voice so the people around us couldn't hear our conversation.
"I'm listening you here Robert, aren't I?" I rest my back at the wooden chair behind me and cross my arms against my chest. "First tell me, who is she? Her name!" I demand with narrowing my eyes at him.
He closes his eyes and takes a long breathe before spilling the infamous name. "Kelsey." He revels.
"What?" I uncross my arms and slam my both open palm against the table in between us in shock. I'm shocked. My true friend, my good friend did this to me. She back stab me right at the center of my spine. Why my some friends are betraying me in some way even though I didn't do anything to them. She was the one of those people who I trusted blindly and this is what I got in return, betrayal.
"Tessa, calm down." He mutters after giving a smiling apology to the neighbouring table when I slammed by palms on the table.
"Doesn't she have a boyfriend?" I say, lowering my voice when I get some looks from the other tables.
"She broke up with him six months ago." He informs. "Just hear me out," he requests when he sees my angry features across my face going up.
"Then spill and how the hell it happened and from since when?" Shaking my head furiously, I question him.
"Okay, but promise me you'll not tell this to her." He pleads with joining his both hands on the table.
"What?" I raise my brow. What he is doing?
"Please, please Tessa. I'm begging you." His facial features are so strong and so serious, like it means so much to him.
"Okay I guess, now talk." I give in and calm myself a bit to hear the story of their lives.
"So, do you remember the night, your birthday night, last year?" He says with a brow raised.
"Yeah." Are they having their affair since then? If yes, then he was playing me for eight months, saying he likes me and wants to date me.
"So before that, a day earlier when I got home from my school I heard some noises coming out from my apartment. The sounds were coming out from her room and her boyfriend was there too." He begins and went into the past, the origin I guess you can call it.
Where is this going? She must having sex with her boyfriend, what this is have to do with Robert and Kelsey's kissed?
Looking at my confused face, he explains, "But it wasn't that noises that two people make inside a room alone, you know what I mean." Yeah, I know but he continues anyway, "Meaning they weren't having sexual intercourse in her room if you assumed that." He informs me in a low voice so the angry people around our table can't hear him.
Then what…?
"Actually her boyfriend was beating her." He drops the boom that I wasn't expecting at all.
"What?" I gasp. My whole angriness towards my friend just vanished and turned into empathy by only one disgusting word, beating.
"He was beating her when I get home and the door to her room was cracked open slightly, so I saw him clearly without a mistake that, he was hitting her with…," he pauses. It's difficult to him to revels her truth, I can see that in his blue eyes without him saying anything to me. "He was hitting her with his belt." He tells me and the grip of his intertwined fingers get tighter on the table in front of him, like he's getting angry.
If I would be his place and seeing my friend getting abused, I'll get furiously irate too, surely more than him because she was so close and loving to me and as a woman's connection too.
"So as a friend, roommate and a real man, I interfered in their situation and tried to stop him and in that chaos we were having, I punched him, which he needed of course. Then later he walked out from my apartment in anger before threatening me that I'll pay for this." He scoffs and gently shakes his head like the threat is a dirt to him, meaning it meant nothing.
Good. Bastard like him, the unreal man like him deserves more than a freaking punch across their face. They deserves death.
"But Kelsey… wasn't happy with me because of what I did, she got vexed." He adds.
"What? Why?" She should be happy. Happier that the abusive boyfriend left from her life for good.
"Love can make people blind, I don't know but she didn't like me interfering into their business. It's their relationship problems and I should keep my nose away from it, but I didn't so she was mad at me and we had a quite an argument from there." He explains, softly about her mind set here.
I get it, she loved him and her feeling were real one, that's why she doesn't wanted to leave him. But it's not worth it to get mistreated and beaten up, is it?
Absolutely not.
"So that's why we were so off in your birthday party, if you remember." He adds, looking at me.
"Yeah. I do." I nod, lightly. Of course I remember them constantly arguing and fighting with each other like one of them would be dead by the end.
"She demanded me to say sorry to her boyfriend for what I did to him, but I wasn't wrong so didn't obviously, so she was even more mad at me and she was fighting me whenever she could." He divulges with a shrug. "I tried to make her understood that his behavior is bad, worst at the most and she should leave him but she didn't listen to me whatsoever. And she somehow tried to talk him out to not to break up with her, so out of pity or something else that I don't know what, but he got convinced." Rolling his eyes he says.
Poor Kelsey. I never thought the witty, funny and flirty girl would ever gone through something like that. Her smiling and laughing mask was hiding her crying and broken soul behind it and that making my heartache for the girl, and made me cry for my friend.
"I thought he promised her, he won't hit her again like always maybe, but then two months later after your birthday, I heard them again."
Oh no.
"I couldn't saw them because this time the door was locked but the noises were so clear at my ears. I heard her sobbing, his shouting and the slashed of his belt repeatedly, from her room." Robert gently shakes his head and his intertwined fingers gets even tighter than before, like the memory were killing him from inside. "I didn't care what she told me to not to interfered between them, so I try to helped her again, even later I might get an earful from her." He says.
I admire Robert even more now. He is the real gentleman. Even she told him not to, he rebelled and protected her from her monster of a boyfriend.
He continues, "I yelled them to open the door, I tried to break the door too though it didn't work out and at last I plead my helpless friend through the door to open it but he didn't let her."
My both grip on the edge of my chair become strong out of anger, imagining the story Robert is telling me, the helpless friend crying and getting beat up by his psychotic asshole of a boyfriend.
"That bastard got hard skin so I threatened that I'll call the cops if he didn't open it and in fear of course, he did open it finally." He scoffs, like there might would be a murder later to that story.
If there is actually has a murder of that abusive–psychotic boyfriend, then that's the perfect way to end his story, once and for all , so no other woman have to face what my dear Kelsey faced by herself.
"And the second he did, Kelsey ran away from his side and straight came to me and hid behind me in fear. He beaten her up this time with no mercy like a wild animal if you call, her clothes were ragged-ripped from her body and had belt marks throughtout her arms." He makes a disgusted face at the memory of the poor pulverized girl who was to feeble and exposed by this incident. Who wouldn't be?
Hearing the words, my grip on the edge of my chair's seat loosen as a shudder–shiver rakes up into my spine. My inner organs are making me want to throw up and a few tears are shred from my eyes and lands into my lap.
"That's how I knew she needed my help so without thinking I took his belt from his grasp and beat the shit out of that guy in my apartment with his own fucking belt and dumped his beaten up body down the stairs." He conveys the story through his clenching teeth.
Best thing I have ever heard. Abuser getting abused, it is the most satisfied thing I ever heard. I know it's very bad and dark thing to say it, but if you just imagine, if you replace yourself with Kelsey but if you don't want to, that's fine, but if you do then you'll think that too and you'll feel better at the most when the abusive man laying on the floor crying the way she did and feel the was she felt when she was beaten up, it is the best– satisfied thing you'd ever experienced.
"This time I asked her reason, what's the reason he was doing it for, you know and she told me."
What would be the reason, it's not an excuse to hit anyone. What the hell!
"You remember that dare where you and Kelsey kissed as a joke, she told him and that's why he hit her." He blurts.
And my body sinks into my seat automatically and my mind goes at the memories of the game of truth or dare at my stupid birthday party, eight months ago.
"She told him everything she did in that game, from giving you a lap dance, licking off the whipping cream from your body and at last giving you a simple peck in your lips." He looks up from his hand and his eyes stare at my lips for a second then goes back to his hands.
As he's speaking the words, the moments from that night, I replay them in my mind the whole game from that party. She was happy, she was having fun with her female and male friends that night, guess she was might acting like she did always.
"And the possessive–arrogant person he was, he didn't think that it's a simple game between the two friends here. He only thought that she cheated on him and she kept it as a secret for two months. He also thought she was cheating on him with me at first time he hitted her, which wasn't the case at all. I had feeling about you and I, as you know but I wasn't thinking about me and her at that time or neither she was, she was very loyal to him but he didn't see that. He just look at the one point, that she kissed you at the game." His intertwined fingers loosen on the table and he points his both index fingers out at me.
"Oh no. It's my fault." The uncontrollable words just leaves my mouth before my brain could think of.
That stupid game of truth or dare only creates problems like always. Now it caught Kelsey instead of me. What a bullshit!
"No, it's not yours or hers fault, it's his small mentality." Robert states. "I felt disgust by my men species now who acts and do shits like that. I just can't even think what the hell his mentality is, what goes through his small mind."
All men are trash.
Except Robert and Landon.
I'm not including him right now, not yet.
Robert continues in here, across me , "That was the day she finally got rid of him, finally break up with him for good. I tried to help her lighten up her mood after that but she didn't opened up for the next three months, she was maintaining space from me and that's fine with me, I didn't wanna force to anyone and not especially women so I let her be what she wanted."
Could I respect him even more than I'm already is? He has the best quality one could ever gotten. The admiration I have towards him is going up and up and up.
But he cheated on me, so I am not forgetting that. My subconscious brought me back at that topic right away.
"After that, two months after that, she finally started to talk to me but in a very guarded way, not the way she always do, laughingly, making jokes or teasing everyone, but that was a start. A new start, she was taking time to recover and she should take it, after all it's her life." He shrugs with a small smile on his face.
I haven't spoken anything because of the loads of things, the stuffs which making my mouth numb to muster anything and my brain is taking its time to process the haunting truth of the mankind throwing at me with full force.
And it's better if I let him tell the whole story rather than just make assumptions which mostly would be the wrong one. I did that in past and I won't be doing it again. I'm changing my that quality because it created most of the problems in my life. So it better if I let Robert brings the truth by himself.
"And now for a month she is way better." He continues. "She smiles and laughs genuinely. She even make jokes about shoving tampons into my mouth if I steal and eat her ice-cream from our fridge." He chuckles, lightly.
It's contagious so I chuckle with him too. I brings my left handed sleeve to my cheek to wipe off the tears collected there throughout hearing the sad story. Looking at my action of wiping my tears with my sleeve, Robert pulls out some tissues from the steel stand in his right side of our table and handing out, he offers me with a small nod and a smile.
Smiling back I grab it from his hold and bring it under my eyes to wipe off the moisture there. I sniffle and my throat felt dry so I drink finished off my coffee which is now cold not any hot anymore.
Giving me full time to drink the coffee then later he continues, "So now the mistakenly cheating incident I had mentioned was happened last night." He starts.
I cross my arms and put them on the table to hear him closely.
"Like every other night, her and I were watching TV like usual in our couch and in that we had a conversation. She said she's grateful to have a friend like me and all these type of things which is basically good quality about me. I don't want to sing the praises she said about myself, I'm not a narcissist."
He shakes his head and I sniffle a chuckle.
"So yeah, she was praising me and thanked me that I helped her from his abusive ex and I tell her, she shouldn't be thanking me, it's my duty to protect my friends after all. Then she happened to rest her head on my shoulder like you did once when we fall asleep at your apartment." He remind me.
Yeah, I remember that too. After that, I accidentally slept off in his arms, then in the next morning Robert and I had breakfast at some diner and he asked me to new his girlfriend but I rejected him, more like telling him I needed time to think.
"Then she turned her head me and start looking me with a admiration who tells me so much about her in her eyes and then suddenly she caught me off guard by pressing her lips–" he cuts himself off from their private moment. Thank God, I didn't want to hear. "The second I realized what is happening I stop and pull away. It was like only for five seconds I swear. I pull away immediately after that. And she didn't even know that I'm seeing you. I haven't told about us to anyone." He rambles quickly explaining the situation.
"Why? I haven't you?" I ask him, softly.
"Because I thought it's better if we talk it out first and make it official then only I'd tell anyone. It's not only my truth to tell it's yours too, so that's why I didn't." He explains politely.
"That very thoughtful." It is really.
"Yeah." Smiling he nods. "There's something that I wanted to ask you." He tells me.
Something is coming maybe a bad one.
"What's that?"
"The thing between us isn't exactly working, is it?" He asks in a low voice, only so I can hear.
"Why are you thinking that?"
I thought we are doing nice, not great but at least nice.
"Because I felt it by myself, you know so I was thinking that the thing, the seeing each other thing between us it's not working." He mutters straightening his back at me.
Is he going into that direction, where I think he is going?
"So we should just call it off. What do you think?" He says right away.
He is dumping me?
What the fuck!
————————————————
Quite a chapter this was.
It wasn't in the published book or anywhere but I thought to add it.
Don't take any physical or emotional abuses from anyone. Physical abuse is bad and the emotional one are as bad as the physical one. Some people don't changed with their habits so leave them!
Not everyone could change their habits like Hardin daddy (sorry for putting daddy, it's one of my kinks, wherever I see Hardin I just put the word daddy beside him)
I don't know shit about 'love' in real life, only know the love between the two frictional characters from the novels because I'm single since the day I was born but I do know that abusers are not the one we should love.
Abusers can't be lovers!
Enough of my ramble. (๑♡⌓♡๑)
Do it! ⭐