My best friend never cried.

“It’s not him!” I shrieked, pulling away from her. “It’s not! I’ll show you. Watch.” I started moving my finger over the mouse pad to open up a video when Tori grabbed my hand. “Stop!” I pulled away again. “I wanna see them!”

“You don’t, Syd.”

“Yes I do!” I cried, fighting against her arms, which were reaching for me. “Yes I do! I wanna see them. Let me see them! LET ME SEE WHAT HE’S DONE!” I was screaming. I couldn’t control it.

She slammed the laptop closed, slid it over, and grabbed my shoulders so hard I flinched.

“It’s him. Trust me, it’s him, and you do not want to see that, hon. You don’t.” She shook her head and let her own tears fall. “You don’t wanna see it,” she whispered, her bottom lip quivering. “Honey, please. Please don’t watch.”

I dropped my head and sobbed as my best friend’s arms wrapped around me.

I knew it was Brian. Tori wouldn’t lie and I knew I shouldn’t look.

But I did.

I had to.

“He’s mine. Let me see him,” I whispered brokenly against her hair. I lifted my head, shrugging off Tori easily this time, and reached for the laptop.

She cried with her hand over her mouth as I flipped the screen up and navigated the mouse with my finger.

I wiped at my face.

I was determined to watch every video no matter how many there were or how long it would take me.

I got through three before I ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet.

Tori held my hair for me and rubbed my back.

A true best friend did more than sympathize with your pain. They allowed themselves to feel it, too.

My tears were her tears. We shared them. We cried together.

I emptied my stomach, slumped over the bowl, and wept while dirty images polluted my mind and the mantra my mother used to soothe herself with rang out in my ears.

Don’t get comfortable being happy. It’ll only hurt worse when it’s gone.

I didn’t think her words could touch me. Nothing could touch me.

I had been floating, high above order and reality. Blessedly and blissfully in love.

I thought my mother was spouting bullshit. Her words didn’t have meaning. They would never be true for me.

I was comfortable in my happy. And love? It was beautiful.

Perfect.

Crazy.

Wildly beautiful.

I had thought about calling my mother, if we were speaking, which we weren’t, and telling her she was wrong, that you could be happy without fear of losing it, because I was. I wasn’t scared.

I should’ve been.

God …I should’ve been terrified.

I floated on my cloud of perfect love, delirious and oblivious to the dirty beneath me.

And when I came down, I didn’t float.

I fell. I crashed. And it hurt.

Worse than any pain I’d ever felt.

It was unbearable.

“Where are you going?” Tori asked as I left her in the bathroom after rinsing out my mouth in the sink.

“I need to talk to Brian. I need to hear it from him,” I called out on my way down the stairs.

Her quick footsteps followed behind.

“I’ll drive you. You can’t drive right now.”

“Fine.”

I didn’t have it in me to argue, and I knew I’d be coming back here with Tori anyway so what was the difference?

I saved my energy for the conversation I was about to have.

When we stepped outside, I tossed Tori my keys and slid into the passenger seat. My phone started ringing from my pocket as we pulled away from the house.

I ignored it.

Only one person was most likely calling me right now. I’d been gone awhile and Brian would want to know why.

He could wait to find out. I didn’t owe him a damn thing.

Images of the man I thought I knew filled my head as we drove, ones of him touching and kissing and fucking girls who weren’t me. I put words into his mouth and heard him calling them Wild and Babe and moaning Baby Baby Baby when he was coming. It was torture.

I cried with my head against the window and Tori’s hand in mine.

“Wait here,” I told her after she pulled into the driveway and shifted into Park.

She unbuckled her seat belt, regarding me sadly and uncertainly.

“You sure?”

I nodded, gave her hand one last squeeze, and exited the car.

I’m not sure why I did the next thing I did. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel as if I belonged here anymore. Maybe it was because it was all a dream and I was finally awake. I never really lived here.

I climbed the porch and knocked instead of entering.

Sir barked a few times, then Brian opened the door and flinched at the sight of me.

“Babe, what are you doing?” He reached for me.

I took a step back.

“Can I please come inside?” I asked, wiping a tear away.

He stared at me, taking in my sadness and behavior.

“Wild, what the fuck?”

He made a move to step outside and I halted him with my hand raised.

“Brian,” I began in a warning tone, freezing him in the doorway. “I am asking you if I can come inside. I don’t want to do this out here.”

Something flashed in his eyes then, recollection of what he did or realization of what I knew, I wasn’t sure which, but he suddenly looked as empty as I felt and it took everything in me not to reach out and hold him.

Love is stupid like that.

He silently stepped aside and held the door open for me to enter.

I closed the door, ignoring Sir, who was jumping up at my feet for attention. He gave up after he wasn’t getting it and moved on, leaving me to watch Brian as he padded across the room, rubbing harshly at his face with both hands. He stopped behind the couch and gripped the back of it, keeping his head down and his eyes fixated on the cushions.

“You need to know why I did it,” he said quietly.

“I do, but it won’t change anything.”

His head snapped up at my words.

“Wild,” he whispered.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, fresh tears brimming my eyes as I took a step forward. “You don’t get to call me that. My boy calls me that and you are not him.”

His spine straightened.

“The fuck I’m not,” he growled.

I ignored his defiance and probed for the answers I needed.

“Why, Brian? Why were you doing that and why didn’t you tell me? How could you keep that from me?”

“I was trying to protect you,” he countered, his tone gentler now as he tried to explain. “I didn’t want you ever seeing that. I didn’t want you knowing about it. I knew it would hurt you.” He looked back to the cushions and murmured, “I didn’t think you would ever see it.”

“Well, I did,” I spat, gaining his attention again. “I did see it. I watched you with them. I watched the man I care about more than anything making love to those women.”

“That is not what I was doing.”

“Fine. Fucking,” I hissed. “I watched you fuck those fake, nasty porn stars. I watched it! Do you have any idea what that was like for me? Having my best friend show me something like that? Sitting there not knowing anything about the man I love because he was doing this behind my back for months! I saw you get off on them! I saw enough to make me sick!”