{UNEDITED}{BRAYDON}

        It had been a month since I had actually last heard from Chloe. She only wanted to speak to me so she could break my heart for the second time in the space of a month, something she seemed to be pretty good at doing; probably the only thing she was good at doing.

        I was an idiot to think that she actually wanted me back and that she had changed. I should have realised that she never ever really loved me and she was only with me because she felt some sort of weird loneliness in her life, she only ever needed me so that she had someone to pass the time and make her life a little more bearable.

        I know people are going to think I am some sort of monster or that I am plain cruel, but I can’t be dealing with her shit as well as dealing with my own. It was hard enough accepting that she was pregnant with Matthew’s baby, so trying to accept that she is going to marry the twat, that’s damn near impossible. I just want to go over to his place, have one hell of an argument before making it clear that Chloe was never going to love him; she was only going to leave him when she had got her fill of him.

        She wasn’t the type of person to say ‘I love you’ and actually mean it. She just said it because she thought she had no other choice. She needs to be taught that those words actually mean something before she says them to another person, she can’t simply go round saying things she doesn’t even mean – it hurts knowing that she used me, that she was never planning on staying with me and that she was always going to go running back to the twat who treated her like she was nothing.

        The sound of my phone ringing brought me back to the reality of everything. Mainly the fact I was supposed to be writing an essay which was due tomorrow and I still have two thousand of the two thousand words to write.

        I looked at the caller ID, seeing that it said Chloe, I answered it far quicker than I should have done. But, if she was ringing me, then it meant she had something important to say and I wasn’t going to deny her even more time to lie to me.

        “Hello?” I said, it came as more of question than anything, but perhaps she would get straight to the point rather than trying to be nice to me.

        “I need to see you. We need to talk,” she replied. I could tell that she had been crying and, although I should have cared and asked her what was wrong, I didn’t really give a damn. She had probably only gotten what was coming to her and had been coming from the moment she agreed to marry that twat.

        “I don’t think there’s anything left to say. Do you?” I laughed bitterly.

        “I know my dad spoke to you,” her rely was simple but at the mention of her dad, there was so much anger and hatred in her tone. I had never heard her speak that way about him before. Sure, she had told me what he was like, but she had always tried to look past that and see that he did actually love her; even if he never made the effort to tell her.

        “He told me all I need to know. There’s nothing else for you to say,” I reiterated my previous point, being a total arse to her was easier than telling her what a bitch she was and how little I actually wanted to see her face.

        “You know what, I am so damn tired of everyone believing what they hear about me and never bothering to ask me about it. I am not some two-faced bitch who uses guys and neither am I a heartless cow who enjoys the pain of others,” Chloe snapped, pausing to allow her breathing to even out for a moment before she continued with her rant. “I know I have made mistakes, I’m not even going to deny that, but no one ever gives me the time to explain. They just listen to everything they hear about me but they don’t actually question me about it and I have had enough.”

        I had never heard her lose her temper like that before, let alone seen her lose her temper. She had always been calm and was the type of person to accept what people said about her with a smile on her face, she never reacted and never even let people see that they had gotten to her.

        Something must have really snapped in her for her to be behaving like this. Either that, it was just the pregnancy hormones messing with her emotions and putting her all over the place.

        “Fine. Come to mine and we’ll talk,” I muttered, not wanting to face her wrath if I disagreed to seeing her after her little speech, “and bring your fiancé with you, I have some things to say to him.”

        She didn’t even reply before she hung up. She had the nerve to hand up on me after everything she had done, she still felt the need to act like she was innocent in the entire situation. I was only doing what any normal person would in my situation.

        They would run and not want anything to do with the girl who had cheated on them. I was even willing to raise another man’s baby before I realised she was only using me because she couldn’t have the person she really wanted, I was her second option until she get her claws into Matthew and make him her own.

        I wouldn’t be surprised if she had told him that she loved him already. It had, after all, been a month which was more than enough time for her to throw the phrase around a couple of times without thinking about it or what it meant to the person she was saying it to. She had never been one for thinking things through properly, the fact she slept with Matthew was proof enough of that.

        To be honest, I want to see Matthew even less than I want to see Chloe, but there are some things which need to be said and there’s not a hope in hell of me saying them over the phone. I am going to enjoy saying them to his face and telling him precisely what I think of him because, I don’t care what anyone says, there’s no way a person changes as quickly as he did just because they’re getting married.

        He was a player before and he will be a player after. Chloe isn’t going to change him and I don’t know why she thinks that she will be able to. I have known Matthew long enough to know what he’s like and I know he’s not going to stick around once the baby is born, he’s going to run back to the life he is used to and not bother even looking back.

        “Braydon. Why is Chloe at our front door with another guy?” My mother asked suspiciously as she appeared in my room.

        “I invited them here. We need to talk,” I shrugged. I wasn’t going to tell her the real reason because she would kill Chloe where she stood, I didn’t want that before I had even been given the chance to speak to her. “Send them in.”

        “Whatever,” my mother sighed, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared. I could hear muffled sounds from the front door, so I guessed that my mother was saying something to both Chloe and Matthew. It probably wasn’t anything nice either, but my mother had never been one to hold her tongue and she had always made her opinions very well known to people. It was one of the many things which I loved about her.

        “So glad you could make it,” I said, not bothering to hide the coldness in my tone as I pointed to the bed in the middle of the room, indicating that they could sit down if they wanted to. I was happy on my chair, so I wasn’t in a hurry to move from here. “Now, what do you want?”

        “I want to know what my father told you,” Chloe replied bluntly.

        “What makes you think he told me anything he should have done?”

        “My father doesn’t do anything without the purpose of making me miserable. He would have told you anything to convince you I am some bitch you should keep away from,” Chloe said and she didn’t even falter when she spoke. She seemed to have this new and unending confidence, a determination not to let her father win and to right all the wrongs which he had done to her. “Now, tell me, what did my father tell you?”

        “I don’t see that it really matters now. You used me again, pushed me to the side like I was nothing, and then ran off with Matthew without giving me so much as a second thought,” I laughed bitterly as the words rolled off my tongue.

        “I didn’t’ ‘run off’ with Matthew. I wasn’t given a choice in anything which is happening now,” Chloe chuckled and I could see how hard it was for her not to lose her temper. The fact Matthew’s hand was turning red for how hard she was gripping it showed me that one, but he didn’t move and neither did he complain. He simply sat there and took whatever it was that she was doing to him.

        “Not what your father told me,” I shrugged. I remembered back to the visit which I had from him a few weeks ago.

        He told me that she was engaged to the father of the baby and that she didn’t even give me a second thought before accepting his offer. They had already bought their house together and were going to be moving in together at the end of the week. They were even doing their baby shopping at the same time as planning their wedding, they had everything sorted and I wasn’t going to stick around to be told Chloe didn’t want me

        “Let me guess. He told you that Matthew proposed to me in some romantic manner and I gushingly accepted, telling him there was no way I could live without him?” Chloe laughed again.

        “He also told me that you two had bought your house and were--“

        “I honestly can’t believe you were stupid enough to believe everything he told you. If I was planning on getting married at eighteen, do you really think I would plan my wedding to Matthew? Of all people, Matthew?” Chloe asked and I could feel the anger in every single word she spoke. I had never seen her angry, so I didn’t know how many more comments it was going to take before she was on her feet, preparing to kill me. It was going to be fun finding out though.

        “He had proof of everything he was telling me. He showed me photos of the dinner you two had when he proposed to you.”

        “Wow. You really are an ignorant fool. I honestly cannot believe you fell for his lies,” Chloe uttered. I could see the tears in her eyes, ready to fall if I said the wrong thing again, but I didn’t really care. She had nothing to make me see that she was telling the truth, while her father had all the evidence I could ask for.

        He showed me photos of the two of them together, even before they allegedly slept together, there were photos of the both of them together. They were hugging and, when they weren’t doing that, they were whispering things in each other’s ears and laughing like two people in love. It made my blood boil just thinking about it and, with him sitting in my room now, I just wanted to punch that smirk off his face.

        “Not my fault if you’re slut and put it about wherever you can get it.”

        “You never cease to amaze me,” Chloe said so quietly it was practically a whisper. “If you want to believe my father, then carry on but, just know this. I never want any of this to happen. I didn’t want to get pregnant, I didn’t want to get married, I didn’t want to fuck my own life up and I didn’t ever want to hurt you. I loved you,” Chloe said, her tone was soft as she stood up and walked over to where I was sitting.

        “Guess what? You hurt me the moment you got pregnant with his baby and totally destroyed me when you agreed to be his wife,” I said. A hard look on my face. I didn’t want to show her that she had hurt me nor did I want her to see that I still loved her and wanted her back.

        Hell, I would give anything to have her back. I would even beat the crap out of Matthew to show her that I was the right person for her and that Matthew was never going to be anything other than a worthless piece of crap. You only had to look at him to know that he was never going to love her, that he was only ever going to be there because he had no other choice.

        “I didn’t agree to be his wife. My father gave me no other option. He’s been arranging this wedding, telling me who I can and can’t have there and how everything is going to be. I haven’t had a say in anything which has happened in the last month,” Chloe shouted, her fists clenched and her breathing becoming quicker with each remark she made to me. Matthew must have seen that she was suffering because he walked over to her and took her in his arms, hugging her right in front of me without consideration for how he would make me feel.

        I didn’t think twice about what I did next, I just acted on what I had wanted to do since finding out Chloe had slept with him. I pushed him away from her so hard that he landed on my bed and I wasted no time in putting my fist in his face, the first hit colliding with his nose and immediately drawing blood. The second landed on his cheek and, with another two firm hits to somewhere on his face, Chloe finally managed to pull me away from Matthew.

        I went to punch him again, only to find Chloe stood between the two of us with tears rolling down her cheeks. She had her hands up to prevent me getting anywhere near Matthew again, I may have hated him and wanted to cause far more damage than I did, but I wouldn’t dare attempt to hit him again while Chloe was in the middle of the two of us.

        “He deserved that,” I explained myself without too much care in my tone. He got what had been coming to him for a long time now. I didn’t even care that there was blood all over my bed now, I was just happy that I’d got my punches in before he could have his shot.

        “Yeah. I’m not even going to say I didn’t deserve it because I know I did, but you shouldn’t have done it in front of Chloe. You selfish bastard,” Matthew retorted, sitting up and holding the bridge of his nose as he tipped his head backwards in an attempt to stop the bleeding. It’s a shame I didn’t hit him harder and then I may have broken it too, but the bruises will do for now.

        “Oh. So now you suddenly give a damn and want to be there for her. Why? Did she pay you or perhaps she promised you that she would love you for a very long time?” I laughed sarcastically. It was a joke to think that he actually cared about her now and wanted to keep her safe when, four months ago, he was telling her to kill the baby or tell it that its own father was dead because he couldn’t be dealing with it. “Let me tell you now, she doesn’t know the meaning of the word love. She may tell you she loves but, in her mind, she’s already lined up who she’s going to fuck next.”

        “Shame you won’t even cross her mind,” Matthew said with a laugh. I knew he was only trying to wind me up and get a reaction from me, if he wasn’t careful then he was going to get a show he never forgot and worrying about Chloe would be the last thing on his mind.

        “Matthew. Please don’t,” Chloe pretty much begged him.

        “Yes Matthew. Listen to your fiancé. Don’t provoke the ex,” I deliberately goaded Matthew, stepping around Chloe so quick that she was unable to stop me from putting myself face to face with Matthew once again. I was ready to wipe that smug look off his face and I was just about to, when a banging sound echoed from behind me. I didn’t have time to even turn around before Matthew was on the floor.

        “Chloe? Can you hear me?” Matthew urged. I turned around to see that he was checking her pulse before he moved her into the recovery position. I had only ever seen that done on TV, I didn’t realise they actually did things like that in real life. “Don’t just stand there, call an ambulance.”

        “You drove here. Take her to the hospital yourself,” I said. She wasn’t my problem anymore so I don’t see why he was trying to make her my problem, I don’t know why she was trying to make me give a damn all of sudden.

        “She’s a pregnant teenager who has just collapsed, if I move her than I could only make things worse. Now, call a bloody ambulance,” Matthew snapped. I could tell, in that moment, that he did genuinely care about her and their child. Any other time, and I am sure he would have been the same as I am now, but there was something between the two of them.

        I don’t even know why I let it bother me so much. She used me and then left me when I wasn’t good enough for her anymore. She had probably been planning that for god knows how long now, so I shouldn’t have been feeling as disappointed as I did upon the realisation that Matthew actually loved Chloe.

        “Argh. If you want something doing, then do it yourself,” Matthew’s tone brought me back to reality. He pulled his phone from his pocket and frantically dialled 999 before asking them for an ambulance and then quickly passing on all the information which they asked for. As I listened to what he was saying, I realised that he had learnt more about Chloe in a month than I had in three and a half years.

        I hated her and I hated him. They ruined something which could have been so special. I had tears in my eyes as I thought about all the things which could have been had Chloe not slept with Matthew, there were so many things I had planned which were never going to happen now. They were just forgotten dreams.

        “Look, I’m sorry for hitting you. I shouldn’t have done it, but you took the one thing from me which actually meant something to me,” I sighed as I sat on the edge of my bed and watched Matthew holding her hand, whispering things in an attempt to wake her up or at least give him a sign that she was able to hear him.

        “I never stole her, Braydon, if you had just heard her out then you would have realised that. Her father will be so proud that he had managed to fuck up the only good thing she had going on in her life,” Matthew snapped, his attention turning fully to me. His nose had just about stopped bleeding but there were marks all over his face which were going to look ten times worse tomorrow morning.

        “What are you talking about?”

        “She loved you, I mean really loved you. She was distraught when you told her you didn’t want to hear from her again because she knew she had hurt you for the second time, something she never wanted to do. She just wanted to tell you the truth,” Matthew paused for a moment as if he was gauging my reaction to what he was telling me. On the inside, my emotions were all over the place and I felt like such an idiot, but on the outside I didn’t show a thing and kept my expression blank. “She really doesn’t want to marry me and she just wanted you to understand that. I had even told her that, when we were married, she could keep on seeing you and keep the relationship you had. I wasn’t ever planning on coming between the two of you.”

        “You weren’t?” I asked. To say I was shocked by his words would be an understatement, speechless would better describe how I was feeling right now.

        “No. You fucked your relationship up all by yourself, you didn’t even need my help in doing it. Well done.”

        “I can tell you love her just by the way you look at her. Make sure you don’t let her go,” I just about managed to whisper before I walked out of the room. I couldn’t stand to be in there any longer, looking at the two of them and the way he was caring about her, it simply hurt too much to look at any more than I already had done.

        “Trust me, I don’t planning on doing so,” were the last words I heard from Matthew as I walked to the front door and walked out of the house. I never cried in front of people, not even my parents, so I wasn’t about to do so now. Walking and crying had always been the way for me, people passed you by and never bothered to give you a second look so you never had to deal with questions.

        “Chloe Parker?” I heard a voice say suddenly and I looked up to see the paramedics were already here.

        “In there,” I pointed to the open front door. “Second door on your left.”