Tristan's apartment is just a fifteen minutes drive from mine. 

My fingers tap nervously on the wheel as I try to swallow the lump in my throat.

This one has to be wrong. Tristan would never.

I swerve the car into an empty spot and rush towards the apartment. The door is locked, of course, but I decide against knocking. I pull out my copy of the key and unlock the door. 

Everything is the same. There are photos of us from every possible angle all over the walls. Me kissing him, him kissing me. Us hugging in front of the Eiffel tower. Us watching the sun set. 

Us. Us. Us. Us.

It suffocates me. Every single breath rattles out of my body. 

Tristan is not in the kitchen. The stove's off, the smell of bacon and omelette does not penetrate my nostrils. He is not in the halls, not in the balcony. 

I pause just before his bedroom. I can hear him.

I know what lies beyond this door. 

If I opened the door, everything we had built for us would shatter, into a thousand pieces. Our friendship, our love would turn into bitter memories. My heart would be destroyed, broken beyond repair.

I don't want to do that to myself.

To Tristan.

To us.

It is only when my cheeks are wet that I realize that it's the second time I'm crying in the span of 24 hours. My perfect life has flipped upside down, and everything is slipping through my fingers. I bite down on my lip, muffling my sobs.

I hear a moan and I can't take it anymore. I open the door, but I don't want to look.

I know.

I know.

I have seen it before. It had played on a loop in my head during the entire drive from my apartment. I don't have to see it anymore, I know.

He is lying on the bed, his hands around the waist of a girl that isn't me. His fingers are tracing skin that isn't mine. He is kissing lips that don't belong to me. He is sighing a name that isn't Kaitie. He is fucking a girl, in the very bed he made love to me. 

I let out a scream. I am crying, and I am falling, and I can't seem to stop it. 

Bodies scramble. I shut the door behind me and then I am crawling, running, moving away away away, faster. My blurry eyes see the photos of his face and mine, and I want to hurl.

The door opens.

'Kaitie.'

I stop. My breath catches. Stops.I turn around.

It can't be, it can't be, it can't be.

Leah fidgets with her messy hair, her naked body wrapped in Tristan's red bed sheet.

I picked that out from Home Depot. I remember how it felt on my skin. 

Mine.

Betrayal. It's an emotion that feels like a burning hot pain right in the middle of your chest. Being betrayed by both your boyfriend and your best friend only intensifies it. 

I press a palm to my aching heart. 

'How long?' I choke. 

She has the audacity to look guilty. 'Quite long.'

He was with her. Yesterday. And many days before that.

My heart breaks again. I can feel it, the pieces skewering my flesh from within. Tristan emerges from his bedroom in his boxers, his face guilt ridden. He stands next to Leah, his bare shoulders touching hers.

There was no longer an us. 

It was me. Against them.

My world spins.

'Were you ever going to tell me?'

He doesn't meet my eyes. Leah looks up at him, reaching for his arm. The action infuriates me, and I burst apart. 

'WERE YOU EVER GOING TO TELL ME? OR WERE YOU GOING TO SCREW HER EVERY OTHER DAY WHENEVER YOU GOT BORED OF ME?'

I can see red. The sides of my vision are clouding, and my body is shaking with anger. I was feeling myself rise.

No one deserved being cheated on. Not my Dad, not me. No one, period.

'Keep your voice down, Kay.'

'Yeah,' Leah stands between us. 'Let's talk like mature adults.'

I laugh. It's maniacal, frightening, it's not me. 'Mature adults? Are you serious? What is the maturity in screwing your best friend's boyfriend behind her back, bitch?'

Something dark was swirling in me. It was pulsating through my veins and threatening to spill from my fingertips.

I look up at Tristan. My best friend of many years. My boyfriend. My soulmate.

'You never loved me, did you?'

He doesn't answer. 

'Goodbye, Tristan. May you never, ever find love.'

'Kaitie. Kaitie, wait.'

I don't. Instead, I flee, faster than I ever have, before the walls of that house that was once my haven, came crashing down on me.

When I reach my car, Archer is there, leaning against the car. I don't ask him how he got there, I don't ask him how he knew where I was. He just takes a look at my tear streaked face and extends his palms.

'Give me the keys.'

I give them to him without arguing. I've given up. I look out of the window as Archer gets in and revs the engine. 

My family is in shambles, I just broke up with my boyfriend. My life suddenly took a 180 and the only person with me now was the last person I ever thought would care.

'It's okay, you know. Let it out. I am not going to judge you.'

And that's it. I ugly cry into my palms, and cry and cry and cry, till I have no more tears left. 

/*\*/*\

'Kaitie. Are you hungry?'

'No.'

'You haven't eaten since yesterday.'

'No.'

'Come on. I've made soup.'

'No.'

'Wait. Do you need ice cream? Tumblr says that's what girls have after a break up.'

'No.'

'At least, get out of bed.'

'No.'

I had just began an infinitely long term relationship with my bed, and I had no intention of letting go. I fluff up the pillows and throw the blanket over my head to drown out Archer's dull, pathetic excuse of a voice.

Oh who am I kidding?

His voice is soft, sweet and gruff. It reminds me of Tristan, how his voice was wane and weak compared to Archer's. 

Why was I even with him in the first place?

Archer pulls the blankets off me.

Trust me when I say this: Archer Miles has a death wish.

'What's wrong with you!' I yell, sitting upright. I knew I was a sight for sore eyes -  I had gooey mascara all over my cheeks, raccoon eyes, a beehive right on top of my head, coupled with the fact that I wasn't getting any sleep. 

I was an emotional wreck. I had cut myself off from the world. My phone was blowing up until I turned the damn thing off. I couldn't handle hearing Tristan's voicemails. The thought of him hurts me.

Everything hurts so bad. 

I understand what dad must've felt. 

Everything with Tristan had been right. We were both born into wealthy families, but we wanted to be independent. We were both academical, successful, sensible. We were friends first, then lovers. We never fought, never quarreled. We were the perfect couple, the #couplegoals everyone talked about. He complimented me, I complimented him. There never was one disagreement. He had been the one for me. 

Thinking about it, we were easy. Too easy. We never faced complications any other couples would have faced. He never got jealous, neither did I. He was never possessive, didn't care what I did. He never asked me how my day was.

Heck, he never said he loved me, except when he asked me to be his girlfriend.

If anything, that realization hurt more than him cheating on me.

'This isn't healthy for you, Kaitie.'

I sigh, defeated. 'I know, I know. I'm just going to take a walk around, you know? Clear my head a bit.'

Archer frowns, but says nothing. 'Sure. I'll reheat the soup for you when you get back.'

I nod, pick up a coat, fling it over my pajamas and walk out.

/*\*/*\