In Love With The Bad Boy

Chapter 2: The Silence That Follows

Kat's hands trembled as she clutched the hotel key card, her fingers stiff with the weight of her decision. She couldn’t go back to her condo. Not tonight. Not after what she had seen. The room felt suffocating, as though every inch of space around her was closing in with reminders of her betrayal. Of everything she had lost in the span of a single hour.

She had left Jason’s condo in a blur of shock, her body moving on autopilot as her mind tried—desperately tried—to comprehend what had just happened. But no matter how many times she replayed it in her head, she couldn’t make sense of it. How could he? How could Julianne? The questions came at her like waves, crashing relentlessly against her.

Her heart ached with every step she took, the weight of the world pressing down on her chest. The city outside seemed distant, foreign, as though the world around her was continuing without her, leaving her to sink in her own sorrow.

The elevator ride up to the hotel room had been unbearably quiet. She had stepped inside the hotel suite without a second thought, numbly placing her handbag by the bed before she collapsed onto the edge of the mattress. The comforter felt like nothing more than a heavy burden. There was no comfort in the soft linens, no solace in the silence.

Her fingers, still holding the hotel key card, found their way to her phone. She had turned it on as soon as she arrived, hoping to find some kind of distraction, but seeing the flood of notifications—texts from Jason, texts from friends, and most crushing of all, a message from Julianne—was a reminder she wasn’t ready for. Her finger hovered over the screen for a moment before she turned the phone off entirely, not wanting to read a single word from anyone who might still think they had any right to talk to her.

What was there to say?

What could Jason possibly say to make this okay?

What could Julianne say to explain the pain she had caused?

Nothing. There was nothing they could say that would make this okay. Nothing that could take the image of her best friend in bed with her boyfriend out of her mind.

Her chest tightened as the realization sunk deeper. The tears came again, soft at first, then harder, as if they had been building up for hours, waiting for the moment they could finally escape. The sobs came in waves, racking her body with a desperate, aching need for something—anything—that could ease the rawness inside her.

She didn’t know how long she cried, or how many tissues she went through as she clutched her knees to her chest, trying to make herself smaller, trying to disappear. The tears wouldn’t stop, each one a reminder of how utterly alone she felt, how betrayed she was by the two people she had trusted most in the world.

The reality of what had happened kept slapping her in the face. Jason. Julianne. The two people who had been the center of her life for so long. The two people she thought she could trust without question. And now, they had both torn her apart in a way she never thought possible.

She couldn't stop thinking about the questions that swirled through her head, the ones she couldn’t answer. Had they been sleeping together for weeks? Months? Was it something that had been building all along, behind her back, while she went about her life, believing that everything was fine?

She thought about their group of friends. Had they known? Had they seen the signs? Were they all complicit in keeping this secret from her? The thought made her stomach turn.

She could picture it so clearly now—how they must have looked behind her back. How Julianne must have smiled at her, all the while hiding the truth. How Jason must have pretended like nothing was wrong, like they were still the happy couple everyone thought they were. She had trusted them both so completely, so fully. And now, they had shattered everything.

Her mind drifted back to that moment when she walked into the condo. The sight of Jason and Julianne tangled together, their bodies pressed against each other in a way that was too intimate, too familiar. The way Jason had looked at her, his face frozen in guilt, his lips trying to form words that would never be enough. The way Julianne had stood there, her silk robe hanging off her shoulders, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

The shock had been too much. It had been a punch to the gut, and she had barely been able to process it. But now, sitting in the dim hotel room, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The betrayal, the lies—they replayed over and over in her mind like a broken record, each turn making the wound deeper, more jagged.

The tears had slowed now, but the pain didn’t stop. Her throat was raw, her eyes swollen, her body exhausted from the emotional toll. She pulled her knees up tighter, resting her forehead against them, trying to breathe through the ache.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to curl up in the comfort of her own bed, surrounded by the things that were familiar, the things that felt safe. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t go back to the place where Jason had once kissed her goodnight, where she had spent so many nights dreaming of a future together. The thought of him—of them—there in that space, knowing what had happened, was too much to bear.

She tried to push away the thoughts of home, of the place she had once felt so comfortable. But they kept creeping back in, haunting her, reminding her that her life had been turned upside down. Everything she had known, everything she had built, was gone.

Kat reached for the small bottle of water on the nightstand, uncapping it with trembling hands. She took a long sip, feeling the coolness of the water slide down her throat, but it did nothing to soothe the burning inside her.

She wanted to call someone—anyone—to tell her that it would be okay, that this pain would go away. But she couldn’t. She doesn't have anyone else with she could burden with this. In situations like this, she would call Julianne or Jason. How ironic. The truth was, she felt like she deserved it. She had trusted them both, and now they had shattered that trust in the worst way possible.

And it wasn’t just the betrayal of Jason and Julianne that hurt. It was the realization that she had been living a lie. Her whole relationship, her whole friendship with Julianne, had been built on false pretenses. She had trusted them, loved them, and they had both ripped her heart out in the most heart-wrenching way.

Kat let out a shaky breath, trying to push away the thoughts that kept crashing in on her, but they lingered. They stuck to her like a shadow. She couldn’t escape them, not here, not in this room where everything felt so empty.

She finally sank back into the bed, pulling the covers over herself as if they could shield her from the pain. She closed her eyes, but every time she blinked, the image of Jason and Julianne flashed before her.

Her heart throbbed with the weight of it all, and despite the exhaustion that seeped into her bones, she couldn’t sleep. Not really. She was too restless, too full of hurt and confusion. But somewhere, in the depths of her sorrow, she eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep, her face still damp with tears, her heart heavy with the unbearable weight of betrayal.

And even though her mind was still reeling, her body could no longer fight the exhaustion. The pain would still be there when she woke up. It would be waiting for her.

But for now, at least, there was silence.

And silence, in its own way, was the only thing that could cradle her.