the first one • j. hughes

11

"Are you kidding me?" I say.

Monty turns around. "Are you kidding me?"

I'm shocked into not responding right away. Am I kidding him? Seriously? Not only did the dude cheat on me on so many different occasions. But he thinks he can show up to the place he refused to go to for months and ask if I'm kidding him. Seriously?

"Don't even say it," he says. "You're going to try and say I came here like stalking you or something. I came to apologize. Instead, I got a front-row seat to you rebounding with the main dude I was worried about our whole relationship." Monty has the audacity to smile past me. "Hi, Jack. Good to meet you."

Jack clears his throat. He's pretty far behind me. Right where I need him. "Can't say the same." Aw, he's soooooo tough. Monty never wanted to meet him. Monty doesn't get it. He looks convinced Jack's actually anything but moral support.

"Well, maybe I should have taken your strategy and worried about other girls." I shake my head when Monty's eyes snap back to me. "Maybe then you wouldn't have cheated on me. Maybe I should have worried at least thirteen times."

"I came to fucking Michigan to apologize!" He says the name of the state I grew up in with such disgust. As if somehow, in some way my childhood growing up with money was lesser than his because it wasn't in New England. At one point, I'd be hurt or sad. Now, I'm simply annoyed.

"Nobody told you to do that." I laugh. "How'd you even know exactly where I was? I don't know how else to see that other than stalking."

Monty rolls his eyes. "People in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks, Ken."

"What's that mean?"

"That means you practically fucking stalked me when you found out about the thing I came to apologize for," he shouts. His next words come out low. "Tell your bodyguard to back down."

"If you came to apologize, do it."

"I don't know if I want to anymore. I'm not very sorry seeing as you seem to be plenty over it with your little group of guys to rebound with." He hesitates. He's grasping at fucking straws. "What? Gonna spend the whole summer fucking me away?"

"If I am it's not with a whole group of guys." More laughter threatens to bubble up but I keep it down. I can't even bring myself to feel angry at that one. It's the funniest accusation I've ever gotten. "I'm kind of into this little thing called monogamy. Ever consider that? Maybe we never had enough in common to date and make it out alive."

Again, he has to take a moment to think. What he should be thinking is that he isn't going to get anything out of this but a headache. He sighs. "I don't want to do this with an audience."

"He'll find out about it all eventually. Might as well get it as accurate as possible. Help try and salvage your reputation." Not that it could ever be salvaged in my eyes. Much less in my friends' and family's eyes. I've always been the most likely to forgive and I'm not forgiving Monty anytime soon.

"That's the issue, this is our business--"

"There is no our anymore!" I shout before lowering my voice. Even though I don't want to. But we're in public. "I'm done with you and have been since April. Besides, any our we ever had included every other girl you were involved with."

Monty rolls his eyes and I want someone to hit him for once in his life. "Then this isn't his business because he wasn't part of that our? Right, Ken?" He holds a hand up quickly, waving me off. "I don't even need you to answer that. We all know you're never going to have anything in life that doesn't include Jack. Nobody's ever going to want you if you keep this dude around. I tried getting you to see that. You need to learn that this kind of thing shouldn't be his business."