Nina's face was filled with confusion, and Zoe knew her's was as well.
"Why is she here?" Nina asked, her tone accusatory. Zoe recoiled at the question and instinctively moved closer to Ben. He immediately moved away.
"Jacques was being really creepy and she had nowhere to go, so I let her come to Paris with me."
Let me? Zoe thought incredulously. He was the one who offered! Zoe had wanted to stay behind at Noelle's, but Ben all but forced her to stay with him. She wanted to stick up for herself, but her brain was moving at a hundred miles per hour while her mouth stayed at zero.
Ben was still with Nina. Sort of. Zoe wanted to be surprised, but she wasn't. Nina was the type of girl that boys like Ben were supposed to fall in love with. Who they were supposed to be with. Zoe was the type of girl that was supposed to fall for golden boys like Ben. They were all just playing their respective parts.
"You took her on the Paris trip? Ben, that was supposed to be our trip!"
"You're the one who bailed because you hate Paris!"
"You're supposed to know I hate Paris! Why would you plan a surprise trip to a place I hate?"
Zoe couldn't believe what she was hearing. That's why the hotel room seemed so off to Zoe-- because it was always meant for two. It was why they fit so perfectly together on it. Anyone would. It felt like Zoe was suffocating under the weight of all of the realizations she was coming to, and there were even more to come.
"Sorry I wanted to go to the City of Love for our one year anniversary!"
One year. They had been dating for an entire year. They were together before Zoe, during Zoe, and probably after Zoe. She was just a blip in Ben's radar. Someone to keep his mind off of beautiful, perfect Nina Girard. Zoe bit her lip, hoping the pain would stop her from crying.
"Yeah, and you spent our one year anniversary with another girl." Nina shook her head, and Zoe could feel the daggers Nina was sending her. Zoe didn't blame her. She'd react the same way. "And every time I was on the phone with you, you were with her?"
So that's who Ben was on the phone with. Not his agent. His girlfriend? His ex-girlfriend? His on pause girlfriend?
"You broke up with me before I left!" Ben broke out into laughter, but it wasn't out of amusement. It was forced. It was empty. It hurt to hear. A sound that Zoe had come to love was twisted beyond recognition. "And it's not like she's some prostitute I picked from the street. She's Mathieu's little sister. You've known her for years. Hell, you fucked her brother."
"Fuck you," Nina snapped. "I'm not a fucking idiot, Ben. I know what you do. I know what you do every time we go on break. You run to Noelle, or Juliette, or Alice, or whoever the stupid girl of the week is, and you did it again. Except, this time, you have the balls to rub it in my face."
"You aren't even supposed to be here! This is my house! You live in Bordeaux!" Ben brought his hands up to his head in exasperation.
"Not even going to deny you fucked her in the suite you picked for us?"
"When are you going to get it through that thick, industrial sized head of yours that I did not have any sexual contact with Zoe? At all? I never thought about her in that way, ever. I promise." Ben ran his hands down his face in frustration. "Jesus, Nina."
Zoe hated how close she was to crying. Zoe hated how Margot was right. Zoe hated a lot of things at that moment. But mostly, she hated how in love she was with Ben. She hated how he could act like she was the only girl in the world when she wasn't even the only girl in his life. She hated how his eyebrows danced when he concentrated on something. She hated how he was so generous with his money. She hated how his laugh sounded like an angel singing. And she hated how, even knowing the outcome, she would spend the weekend with him all over again.
"You expect me to believe that?" Nina rolled her eyes and took a step back.
"Tell her, Zoe," Ben demanded, his eyes pleading.
"He's right," Zoe said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Nothing happened."
Nina eyed the two of them, before releasing the tension in her shoulders. "I'm going to take a beauty nap. But when I wake up, we're continuing this conversation."
Nina turned on her heel and stormed off, presumably to one of Ben's guest suites.
"Sorry about her," Ben said, rubbing his temples. "She's a handful."
"You're with her?"
Ben looked taken aback. "I mean, I guess now we're back together."
"You didn't mention her at all." Zoe didn't know how she managed to sound so calm. Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears.
"There wasn't much to mention. She broke up with me. Now we're back together."
Zoe didn't say anything. She let the silence do the talking. She stared at Ben, and drank in his features. She wanted to run her hands through his mane of curly hair and ask him: why did you make me fall in love with you?
"I was serious when I said that nothing happened between us." Zoe watched as Ben gulped, and he fidgeted in his spot. "I mean, you're a great girl, gorgeous, funny, smart, nice... but. I love Nina."
Zoe stared at him, long and hard. "Is that why you were in Noelle's room?"
"What?"
"At her party. You were in her room, talking about something. You were asking her to go to Paris with you, and she told you no because of her new boyfriend, and then you saw me and thought I was the perfect target." Zoe paused, a single tear streaming down her cheek. "You knew I was in love with you this entire time."
"I'm--"
"You're not sorry," she interrupted. Ben stood there in his tuxedo, brown eyes glimmering beneath the moonlight. Zoe didn't see a boy that was sorry. She saw a boy who needed to tie up loose ends. "Margot was right about you."
"You're waiting for this perfect fairytale boy to show up, and guess what Zoe? He doesn't exist! People make mistakes, people change, people lie... people are... people. You know, the only reason you came to this fucking party is to see Benjamin, and don't even say anything because I know you still have that crush on him and I guarantee that you have this... warped image of him as some sort of Prince Charming. And you're going to fall in love with him all over again the second you see him. And I'm telling— no, I'm promising you, he's gonna break your heart, Zoe. He's gonna break your fucking heart."
"What'd she say?"
"Doesn't matter." Zoe tilted her head. "I'm heading over to Mathieu's before I leave."
Ben's eyes widened in alarm. "Are you going to tell him?"
"About what? Nothing happened, remember?" It pained her to say it. Ben's shoulders deflated, and for the first time that night, he seemed remorseful.
"I never meant to hurt you, Zoe."
"I hate you." I love you.
"I'm sorry."
Zoe forced herself to look down at the floor. She wanted to wipe Ben's face from her memory; she wanted to scrub his touch from her skin. She felt like discarded trash. It was the worst she had ever felt, and she wished she had just listened to Margot those forty-eight hours ago. More tears streamed down her cheeks, and she debated whether or not to bring the clutch that Ben bought her, and she decided against it. She didn't want to bring any piece of Ben back to Lille.
The silence in the air spoke loudly enough for her, and she left. Victor took her to Mathieu's apartment, where she cried on his couch for all of an hour. She didn't have to tell Mathieu any of the details, but he knew. He understood. He had experienced nearly the same thing with Nina the fateful night that they hooked up.
Nina had known that Mathieu had feelings for her, and went to him as a rebound when Ben broke up with her. Unrequited love and broken hearts ran in the Dupont family, much to Zoe's displeasure.
Mathieu looked like he wanted to tell her something the entire but didn't have the guts to so. Whatever it was must've not been that important then.
The crying allowed her to fall asleep quickly on the plane. She was still wearing the dress that she was supposed to wear to the charity gala, but she didn't care. She just needed to get away, no matter how outlandish she looked. Finally, after a couple of hours, she landed in Lille. Home sweet home.
She had enough cash on her that allowed her to get a cab back to the apartment from the airport. After that, she promised herself that she would go to the fireplace and burn all the money Ben gave her. Or she would get Gabin to roll a blunt with it so she could get high for the very first time.
When she got to her apartment building, she let the doorman know that she was locked out of her apartment. Zoe was kind of glad that she and Ben's blow up happened so early in the evening, meaning that she could get all the beauty sleep she needed before her meeting the next morning. And she had time to buy toilet paper.
She took off the dress Ben gave her and contemplated burning it as well, but she refrained from doing so. She threw it on the ground, stomped on it, and tossed it in the back of her closet. It was then that she realized Margot wasn't in the apartment and wondered where her friend was. She needed Margot's car because that was where she had left her phone and wallet.
With an elongated sigh, Zoe flopped back onto her bed. She stared up at her plain white ceiling as a montage of her time with Ben played in her head. They had good times, sure, but it was all with bad intentions on Ben's side. He knew they had an expiration date and strung her along. Simon the Lorax guy was right. Margot was right. Mathieu was right.
Zoe was just too in love to see the warning signs.
***
oooooof. dramatic! thoughts?
vote + comment! <3