Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
I blew out a breath, nerves getting the best of me.
“Okay. I guess the first thing I want to say is that the cheating wasn’t about anything you did or didn’t do.
I know it got out of hand because of the videos going viral and all the horrible comments…
but it wasn’t anything to do with you. You were perfect, Sadie. ”
She made a face. “That’s a copout. I couldn’t have been perfect, or you wouldn’t have cheated.”
“No, you were. I’m serious. The person who wasn’t perfect was me.
I went from a nobody on campus to an instant celebrity after the starting quarterback got hurt and Coach put me in.
That was the third game of the season, and it just got more and more crazy after that.
It was like I could do no wrong on campus.
Girls threw themselves at me constantly, professors gave me extra time on assignments, I was signing autographs, my fraternity treated me like I was some sort of god, and the list goes on. I let it go to my head.”
“I saw that happening. It wasn’t pretty,” she admitted. “I can remember being embarrassed when you thought it was your right to cut to the front of every line.”
I winced. “Yeah. Not my best days, that’s for sure.
” I looked down, not wanting to get to the next part but knowing I had to.
“And then there was Aubrey.” I met her eyes.
“You were right, of course, about her wanting to get close to me and break us up. But it took me too long to see it. At first, I really did just think she was my friend. But as time went on, she became… really sexual with me. And she was always encouraging me to cheat. She talked about how ridiculous it was that I was this amazing athlete that every girl wanted to fuck, but that I was stuck in a relationship.”
Sadie winced and drank half her glass of wine.
I put my hand on her arm. “I didn’t see it as being stuck in a relationship.
Not even then. But I was starting to listen to Aubrey, other girls, my fraternity brothers, the football team, hell, even some coaches, telling me to release steam by fucking around.
They said everyone did it, and that college was the time for that.
They talked about me having the rest of my life to settle down. You know the drill.”
She nodded. “I remember you asking me once if you’d thought we’d met too soon. That was you having doubts about us. I asked you about it, but you wouldn’t admit it. Why?” The hurt I saw in her eyes killed me.
“Because I was selfish and wanted both,” I admitted.
“I wanted to be free to experience different women. But I wanted to keep you, too.” I ran a hand through my hair and looked up at the stars.
It was brisk out, but not cold. I was actually enjoying the breeze.
It had gotten too warm in the country club.
“My therapist says that’s where I made my biggest mistake.
He says I should have made a choice. I could either have kept you and ignored all the talk, all the women, Aubrey, and so on.
Or, I could have broken up with you. Trying to have everything—thinking I deserved everything—was the height of arrogance.
But it took me losing everything before I began to see exactly what I’d done. ”
“Thank you for telling me that. When did you start cheating with Aubrey?”
“Have you ever heard of emotional cheating?”
She nodded. “That’s where you spend more time with a woman other than your girlfriend or wife, tell them things about your relationship, confide in them, and just basically give more of yourself to the other woman, right?”
I stared at her. “Wow. You really do know what it means.”
“You’re not the only one who went to therapy, you know.
My therapist and I talked about emotional cheating.
I wasn’t completely sure that had been going on with you and Aubrey, but I suspected it had.
It was hard to figure out all of your lies without talking to you, but I assumed all those times you told me you were with guys from the team or your fraternity weren’t true. I’m sure you were with Aubrey, right?”
I sighed. “Yeah. Most of those times.”
“So, you were having an emotional affair for months.”
“Yes. I had never heard of it before therapy. But that started with her long before anything physical happened. I’m not sure exactly when the emotional affair started, but I think it was towards the end of our first semester.
We had a class together and she introduced herself to me as one of your friends. ”
Sadie snorted. “We were never friends.”
“I didn’t know that yet and by the time I found out, I was already friends with her.
Anyway, she suggested we take more classes together the next semester.
I agreed, thinking it was no big deal. Then second semester started and class turned into getting a coffee or lunch afterwards, and that led into the next class, which led into dinner, and before I knew it, I was spending most of my time outside of practice with her. ”
“Why’d you hide it from me?”
“You saw us together in the dining hall and warned me that she was into me. You told me that she went after guys that were in relationships just to break them up. I didn’t want to hear it.
I’d become invested in her. You treated me like I was still the same old Harrison I’d always been.
But Aubrey treated me like a superstar.” I shrugged.
“It makes me sound like a douche, but I liked it. A lot. It was addictive, and I didn’t want to give it up.
So, that’s when I started lying. I would tell you I was out with guys from the team or from the fraternity when I was really hanging out or eating with Aubrey. ”
She nodded, the expression on her face hard to read. “I was afraid of that, but I didn’t want it to be true.”
The light breeze blew her hair around, and I was tempted to touch it. I clenched my fists to keep myself from doing it.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes and looked straight out over the river. “I need to know when the physical stuff started.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have…”
“I need to know.”
My heart was beating too fast. I drained a glass of wine and poured another.
She held her glass up and I poured more for her, too.
“Nothing physical actually happened until a few weeks into summer semester. But I think I knew it was leading there for at least a month or so before that. I… started having dreams about her. I usually jacked off to images of you in my head, but I started seeing her instead. I should have ended the relationship way before any of that started happening, but I definitely should have after that. I should have ended the friendship and stayed the hell away from her. But I didn’t. ”
I cast a quick glance at her to see how she was taking things so far, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just drank her wine and listened.
“What I’m about to say is not to blame Aubrey.
She was an awful person, but I made the choice to sleep with her.
I could’ve said no. And I didn’t. She was incredibly sexual around me, though.
She was always talking about sex. Always.
She even let one of our professors fuck her knowing I was standing in the hallway watching it happen. ”
Sadie made a shocked sound.
“I know. I should have run for the hills then, but I didn’t. It was like I was entranced by the unknown. I became almost obsessed with what it would be like to be with a different woman. I couldn’t get it out my head…”
“And she helped keep it there by talking about it.”
“Yeah. So, a couple of weeks after you left for summer break, she came to visit the frat house.” I told her what had happened with my fraternity brother and then Aubrey following me upstairs. “That’s the first time it happened.”
“Didn’t you care that you were cheating on me?” her voice was small.
“Yes. After the first time, I took a shower and washed myself over and over again to try and get any trace of her off me.”
“Then why did you do it again?”
I shook my head. “It was stupid. It wasn’t even satisfying.
If anything, it had left me feeling more pent up, more frustrated.
So, I thought I needed more sex before I’d enjoy it with a woman who wasn’t you.
What I didn’t realize is that the difference was that I didn’t love Aubrey.
And I did love you. The chemistry between you and me was totally different than the chemistry I had with Aubrey.
She gave off sex vibes all the time, with any guy.
You weren’t like that. Sex with you meant something.
It was making love. With her? It was just fucking. ”
She didn’t say anything but seemed to accept my explanation. “And the videos?”
“I had no idea she’d been filming us. I’m still not totally sure how she did it. If I’d known, I would have handled ending things with her a little differently.”
“You really did end things with her before I came back to campus?”
“Yeah. It was right before you came back. That’s when she said she’d tell you if I didn’t pay for her to get implants.
I said no way, and, well, you know the rest.” I paused to take a sip of wine, wishing it was a beer or whiskey.
“I had no clue what was coming. She did say I’d regret it, but I had no idea she was planning to burn my world down and drag you down with it. ”
“So, the videos were the only times you were with her that way?”
I nodded. “Yes. The physical cheating was six times over the span of a couple of weeks. Any number of times was too much, obviously, but that was the extent of it.”
We talked for a while about what happened after my injury and how my inflated sense of self shrank rapidly. How it had been humbling seeing that people had only cared about me because of my prowess on the football field. And how fast Candy ditched me once she knew I’d never play in the NFL.