ready for it? • t. zegras

fourty three

Trevor gets a message. The noise rings through my room. He doesn't look away from me. His eyes stay on mine with this almost begging look at them. Begging for what? Forgiveness? Mercy? To not make him say it?

I swore years ago that there are limits to how I'll let a man act with me. Believe it or not, going to a dinner that's better as a secret is one of those limits. I've let guys do worse. It's still a limit. One I have to make sure he gets isn't to be crossed again.

"Babe," Trevor says with that begging look still fully intact.

"Who did you go to dinner with that you wouldn't tell me about?" I ask. "You tell me when you go get something to eat alone. With your siblings. Your friends. Who can't you tell me about and why?"

"Teagan—"

I cut him off. "Don't use that tone. You're going to make me feel bad when I shouldn't."

"It was a friend." His voice is normal and steady. Except for when he said the word friend. It wavered.

Trevor's eyes widen slightly. The air stills. My mind races even faster. I've never expected this. Not from him. Not telling me something is one thing. Now it's something completely different.

"What friend?" I press. I feel yucky. I feel nineteen.

Another message. He shrugs. "No one you know."

"Who is she?"

Silence. Terrible, gut-wrenching silence. Nothing like our rare moments of silence. Nothing sweet and filled with smiles only for each other. Instead, I stare at him and hope he sees how hurt I am.

His brows furrow. "How do you know if it's a she?"

"Because I'm not stupid," I spit out. "Jamie thought you were going out with me. Why would he think that if it was a guy?"

"I didn't tell him who it was," he says.

"You're not as sneaky as you think you are." My feet betray me, taking a step forward. "Who was it?"

The gears turn in his head. He's planning his words as carefully as possible. Usually, I love how well I can read him. It's so easy to see right through him. Right now? It's making my stomach churn and twist in a such grotesque way.

"It shouldn't be that hard," I say through the bile trying to escape my throat.

He nods. "You aren't going to like it."

Everything stops. The churning. My thoughts. My ghosts freeze in their taunting places right on the edge of my periphery. I'm not sure which state I prefer. My head is so frozen. The only comparable feeling is when I got a concussion from banging my head on the gym floor during a basketball game my sophomore year. This weird calm after the impact where there's no pain.

"I don't know what you want me to say— Fuck," Trevor huffs. "Stop giving me that look."

Is he seriously getting mad at me? Does he think he has the right to even get slightly frustrated with me? He's the one who crossed the line. What kind of boyfriend thinks doing something his girlfriend—the woman he says he loves—wouldn't like ends with him being able to be mad? He put himself here for all I care.

"Who?" I manage out lowly.

"A friend. Well, she used to be more than a friend and she's in town and invited me to dinner and I— Stop looking at me like that!"

My head twists side to side. I'm sure if I were a ghost, it'd be spinning with sharp music playing in the background. "Like what?"

"Like I'm the worst thing you've ever seen," he says.

"This is the worst of you I've ever seen, Trevor," I say matter-of-factly.

"She's nothing more than a friend now—"

The ghosts laugh at me. It's the kind of thing they would've told me in this situation. It's the kind of thing I would have mulled over until I was sick. This situation is one of those situations Tills and Mira would have to hold my shaking-with-sobs body on the floor until I could even speak.

Again, my head moves. "Why would you do something that you have to make so many excuses for? Why would you do something you'd have to hide because you knew I wouldn't like it?"

"I thought it'd be better," he says. "I thought, y'know, with your past, it'd be better."

All at once, things swarm. My thoughts and the ghosts bounce all around the room. How the mirror doesn't shatter is beyond my comprehension. There are too many things in the air and in this room. Lies and secrets and ghosts alike. They're all the same.

"Please, leave," I whisper despite my urge to scream.

"Ten—"

"Don't. Please." My voice is so low. He shouldn't be able to hear me over all the ruckus. But I swear he's never been able to feel or see or hear those damn ghosts. "This hurts. You hurt me. Now I need to think."

Trevor stands up. "Think about what? Us? Don't tell me—"

"Go home," I say. "Go home and let me figure out exactly how this fits in the code of our relationship. This is the worst I've seen of you. I want it to be the worst I ever will but, fuck, if you can be so okay with doing something you know I won't like? How can I know this is the worst I'll ever see?"

There's a barely-there nod before he leaves me alone in my haunted room. My haunted life and brain and heart.