What the Moon Made

A SERIES OF DECISIONS

The rest of dinner passes without incident.

Which is somehow more unsettling.

Theo doesn’t flirt with me again. He doesn’t ask about Kyle. He doesn’t mention my heartbeat or the fact that apparently he can hear it betraying me from across a table.

He is perfectly polite.

Calm.

Controlled.

But every time I look up, his eyes are already on me.

That same intense stare.

Like he isn’t merely looking at me.

Like he is studying me.

Memorizing me.

It should make me uncomfortable.

It does.

Just not in the way it should.

By the time dinner ends, my nerves feel stretched thin enough to snap. Theo offers to have his driver take me home, but I decline before he can finish the sentence.

The bus is fine.

The bus is normal.

The bus does not have dark eyes, broad shoulders, or an uncanny ability to hear my pulse.

So, naturally, I choose the bus.

The ride home takes nearly forty minutes.

Kyle still hasn’t texted.

Not once.

I check my phone more times than I’m willing to admit, watching the screen light up with everything except his name. An email from my editor. A weather notification. A coupon for twenty percent off shoes I cannot afford.

Nothing from my boyfriend.

By the time I reach my stop, the hurt has hardened into anger.

Good.

Anger is easier.

Anger doesn’t make my throat ache.

Anger doesn’t make me wonder what I did wrong.

I walk the two blocks to our apartment with my arms folded tightly across my chest, rehearsing everything I am going to say when I see him.

He forgot.

He lost track of time.

His phone died.

There was an emergency.

There are explanations.

There are always explanations.

I tell myself this as I unlock the apartment door.

The moment I step inside, something feels wrong.

I stop with one hand still wrapped around the doorknob.

The apartment is dark except for the soft yellow light coming from the hallway.

“Kyle?”

No answer.

I close the door behind me.

My stomach tightens.

There is a pair of pants lying in the walkway.

Kyle’s pants.

I recognize them because I bought them.

Of course I did.

A few feet farther down the hall is his shirt.

Then a woman’s shoe.

My body goes cold.

No.

I stare at the shoe.

Black. Strappy. High-heeled.

Definitely not mine.

A soft sound comes from the bedroom.

At first, my brain refuses to understand it.

Then I hear it again.

A moan.

The air leaves my lungs.

For a second, I cannot move. I cannot breathe. I can only stand in the middle of the apartment I pay for, surrounded by the trail of clothes leading to my bedroom.

Our bedroom.

Another moan comes through the partially closed door.

My feet carry me forward before my mind catches up.

I push the door open.

And there he is.

Kyle.

My boyfriend of three years.

In our bed.

With another woman.

A sob rises in my throat, but I choke it back so hard it hurts.

They both turn toward me.

The woman screams and grabs the sheet, pulling it over herself.

Kyle’s face drains of color.

“Willa?”

He says my name like I’m the one who shouldn’t be here.

Like I’m the one who has some explaining to do.

I stand frozen in the doorway.

My eyes move over the room without my permission. His clothes on the floor. Her purse beside my nightstand. The framed picture of us still sitting on the dresser.

Kyle scrambles out of bed.

“Willa, wait.”

I take a step backward.

“Don’t.”

“It’s not—”

“Do not say it.”

He grabs his boxers and pulls them on, nearly falling over in the process.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

A laugh tears out of me.

It sounds broken.

“You cannot possibly be that stupid.”

“I can explain.”

“You were supposed to meet me for dinner.”

“I know.”

“I waited for you.”

“I know. I messed up.”

“You messed up?”

My voice rises.

Behind him, the woman is hurriedly gathering her clothes, keeping the sheet wrapped around her body. She won’t look at me.

Good.

I don’t want to look at her either.

This isn’t about her.

This is about him.

“I sat there for almost an hour, Kyle. I called you. I texted you. I thought something happened to you.”

“I had too much to drink.”

He moves toward me, and the smell hits me before he does.

Alcohol.

Sweat.

Her perfume.

My stomach turns.

“You’re drunk.”

“Willa, please. Just let me explain.”

“Explain what?” I demand. “Explain why you brought another woman into the apartment I pay for? Into the bed I bought?”

“It was a mistake.”

“No. A mistake is forgetting to set an alarm. A mistake is putting salt in your coffee instead of sugar. You took your clothes off and had s*x with someone else in our bed. That is a series of decisions.”

“Keep your voice down.”

I stare at him.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re making this worse.”

Something inside me snaps.

“I’m making this worse?”

“Willa—”

“I have done everything for you.”

My voice cracks, but I don’t care.

“I work more than forty hours a week. I pay the rent. I pay the electric bill. I buy the groceries. I bought the pants you threw in the hallway on your way to screw someone else.”

His jaw tightens.

“This isn’t about money.”

“It is always about money because you don’t have any!”

The woman slips past us, clutching her clothes to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

The front door closes a few seconds later.

Kyle drags a hand through his hair.

“You didn’t have to humiliate me in front of her.”

I blink at him.

“You cannot be serious.”

“You always do this. You act like you’re better than me because you have a job.”

“I don’t think I’m better than you because I have a job. I think I’m better than you because I wouldn’t do this to someone I claimed to love.”

“I do love you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I made one mistake.”

“You have been ‘figuring out what you want to do with your life’ for two years.”

His expression darkens.

I should stop.

Some quiet instinct tells me to stop.

But I’m too angry.

Too hurt.

“You sit here all day while I work myself sick to keep us afloat. And this is how you repay me?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re pathetic.”

His hands curl into fists.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“Willa.”

“You have no money. No job. No ambition. You are not a real man, Kyle. You’re a pathetic little boy who needs a woman to take care of him.”

The slap comes so fast I don’t see it.

I only hear it.

A sharp crack.

Then pain explodes across my face.

The force knocks me backward. My heel catches against the edge of the hallway rug, and the room tilts violently.

My head strikes the floor.

For one terrible second, everything goes black.

Sound returns first.

Kyle saying my name.

Over and over.

“Willa. Willa, s**t. Baby, look at me.”

Hands grab my arms and pull me upright.

The hallway sways.

I blink, but the walls won’t hold still.

“Oh my God,” Kyle breathes. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

My cheek burns.

The back of my head throbs in time with my heartbeat.

He is holding me.

Kyle is holding me.

The same hands that just—

I shove him away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry. I swear, I’m so sorry.”

He reaches for me again.

I stumble backward.

“Stay away from me.”

“You hit your head. Sit down.”

“I said stay away from me!”

My voice echoes through the apartment.

Kyle freezes.

For the first time since I met him, I am afraid of him.

The realization clears some of the fog from my head.

I turn and walk toward the door.

Or try to.

The floor shifts beneath my feet, and I have to catch myself against the wall.

“Willa, you can’t leave like this.”

I grab my bag from where I dropped it.

“Watch me.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just sit down. We can talk about this.”

“There is nothing left to talk about.”

I wrench the door open.

“Willa.”

I slam it behind me.

I don’t wait for the elevator.

I take the stairs, gripping the railing as I stumble down each flight. My vision keeps blurring, and I can’t tell if it’s from hitting my head or from the tears spilling down my face.

Probably both.

By the time I reach the sidewalk, I can barely breathe.

I walk.

I don’t know where I’m going.

I just know I need to get away.

Away from the apartment.

Away from Kyle.

Away from the image of him in our bed with someone else.

My feet move faster.

The streetlights smear into long streaks of yellow. Cars pass in flashes of white and red. People become shapeless shadows moving around me.

I wipe at my eyes, but more tears replace the ones I clear away.

My cheek throbs.

My head pounds.

My stomach twists.

I walk faster.

Then I slam into something solid.

A wall.

No.

Not a wall.

A person.

I bounce backward, but a pair of strong arms circles me before I can fall.

The world tilts again.

One arm slides behind my back. The other hooks beneath my knees.

Suddenly, I’m lifted from the ground.

“Put me down,” I mumble, but the words come out thick.

The arms tighten around me.

A familiar scent cuts through the haze.

Dark wood.

Smoke.

Something wild that I still don’t have a name for.

My eyes flutter open.

Theo is staring down at me.

The calm mask he wore through dinner is gone.

His eyes move across my face, stopping on my swollen cheek.

Something terrifying flashes behind them.

Not surprise.

Not concern.

Rage.

Pure, lethal rage.

“Willa.”

The way he says my name sounds almost inhuman.

I try to ask him what he is doing here.

I try to tell him I’m fine.

I try to say anything at all.

But darkness closes in from the edges of my vision.

The last thing I feel is Theo pulling me tighter against his chest.

Then everything disappears.