It was a live or die moment.  A get yourself off the ground or stay down and let this end you event.  Walk away and leave him behind, or stay and let this kill you, kill yourself just to see if he'll bleed out with you. 

I always thought I was too strong to be broken by anything.  I always told myself that, at least. 

But love changes you.  No matter how strong you are, it makes you stronger.  No matter how weak you are, it makes you weaker.  No matter how hard you are to conquer, it will bring you to your knees.

A part of me held onto a small bit of denial.  For days I held onto it.  I couldn't get out of bed, but I held on.  It couldn't be real. 

It had been Dante's voice, but it hadn't been him.  An imposter had broken me.  Somehow Dante would make it right. 

I was holding onto that delusion for dear life when I started receiving the texts.  One after another.  The first was only words, short and to the point. 

This is Tiffany.  Dante and I are getting married.  Just thought you should know before it's announced publicly.  He would like Gram's ring back. 

I was still staring at that bit of evil when the next message came in. 

Oh and I thought you should see these.  Enjoy. 

What followed was a furious flow of picture texts, one after the other, all showing roughly the same thing. 

Him with her.

My God.  Her?  Tiffany?

Turns out it was right there in our foundation all along—the thing that would break us.  Her?

The intimacy of it is what killed me. 

He was supposed to be mine.  Inarguably.  Irrevocably.  Every part of him, inside and out, belonged to me.

I'd never seen him so much as touch another girl's hand, and there he was, in picture after picture.

Sprawled on his back, being straddled, hands on her slender, naked hips. 

That's what felt like the biggest betrayal, that he'd hidden it so thoroughly from me, this other side of him. 

That his devotion to me could be nothing but a lie. 

And just like that, the delusions, the denial, were gone.

I won't deny it.  Those pictures broke me, took something precious inside of me, and left a hollow shell behind. 

I did some terrible things after.  Unforgivable things.  Because I was lost, broken, and afraid. 

Nate was just too easy of a mark.  Too convenient.  Too perfect for my purpose; which was, of course, revenge.

He came to me, flew all the way out to L.A. just to comfort me. 

I let him, or at least let him try, let him go through the motions, hugging me, holding me, whispering reassurances.

I let him think he seduced me.  I let him think that I wanted him back, as much as he wanted me, that I cared, that I was even capable of feeling, that anything he said or did or felt got through to me.

Nothing did, but I must have faked it convincingly enough. 

I let him think that I loved him.  I let him think that I would marry him.

I did it all for one reason.  An obvious, vengeful one. 

Nate was in the shower when I intercepted a call for him from Dante.

I was feeling particularly hateful when I answered it with a purring, "Hello, Dante."

Silence on the other end. 

That was fine.  I had enough to say for both of us.  "Nate's in the shower.  He's not like you.  He doesn't like to wear his sex, always has to get cleaned up right after.  Can I take a message for you?"   

He managed to make out some word-like noises, something like, "Don't.  No.  Please, no." 

"Too late.  We did.  Many times.  Did he tell you?  He proposed.  I said yes.  You're not invited to the wedding." 

"Oh my God.  What did you do, Scarlett?  What did you do?" 

I shuddered at the awful, anguished sound of his voice.  I could feel his pain, reaching out across the distance, over the miles that separated us.  Moving north to south.  East to west. 

Racing over mountains, across roads and through cities, flowing down from him to me.

It pounded out to me until it felt like my own pulsing hurt. 

Every gory bit of us was strewn and twitching in the space between us.

"I think that's pretty obvious," I managed to get out.  "Do you want me to spell it out for you?  Would you like me to send pictures?"

"You're heartless," he told me, sounding like he couldn't quite believe it. 

Like he thought I would deny it.

I did not.  "Of course I am.  Did you think I wouldn't be?  You were my heart.  And you left."

The sounds he made then were almost comforting in their familiarity, anguished, desolate noises that matched perfectly just how I'd felt since he'd left and taken not just my heart, but my soul with him. 

So he wasn't over me.  He still felt something. 

It was humiliating how relieved I was. 

I needed him to feel.  Needed him to hurt, needed his wounds to throb in time with my own. 

Needed to bring him to my hell.

At least then I would not be alone here.

A small distinction but a real one.

So I couldn't have him.  At least I would still have the satisfaction of knowing that we suffered together. 

"And what about you, Dante?" I finally managed to choke back at him.  "Where did your heart go?"

"You still have it."  He lobbed it at me like an accusation.

The bastard.

"And you can keep it," he continued, voice ragged, breath uneven.  "But I'm finished with you.  Finished.  We are done."