The Day I Lost My Taste for Love, and for You Chapter 08
The expression on Jessica’s face froze solid.
“Who are you calling garbage?” she shrieked, unable to hold the wounded act together any longer.
Oliver went white, like a man who had taken a punch to the chest.
“Anna…” He stared at me in disbelief. “Five years together, and that’s garbage to you?”
“What else would it be?”
I looked at the pain on his face and felt only how absurd it was.
“Five years, and it counted for less than one weightless little ‘I was joking’ from her. When you stood there watching me swallow live maggot cheese, where were those five years then?”
I took a step forward, closing in on Jessica.
“And you.”
“You love a good joke, don’t you? You think you’re careless and rough around the edges and there’s no malice in you.”
I took out my phone and opened the photo app.
There was one folder in it that I had locked separately.
I opened it.
Inside was a two-minute video.
The image shook, because it had obviously been filmed in secret.
—
The setting was the hallway outside a private room at a restaurant we used to go to.
I had gone to the restroom that night, and on the way back, I heard Jessica’s voice coming through a door that had not latched.
“I’m telling you, that idiot Anna is the perfect toy.”
In the video, Jessica was laughing so hard she doubled over, showing off to two other girls.
“She can’t even taste anything. I could feed her literal pig slop at this point and she’d swallow it.”
One of the girls sounded uncertain. “Doesn’t Oliver step in? I thought he was protective of her.”
“Oliver?” Jessica gave a contemptuous snort. “He’s a doormat with a conscience. All I have to do is pout a little, act hurt, and he loses his sense of direction completely. Watching those two fight over me while he makes Anna apologize to me, you have no idea how good that feels.”
The sound coming out of my phone carried clearly through the quiet lane.
Jessica’s boasting laughter landed on Oliver’s face like a series of open-handed slaps.
The neighbors watching from their doorways drew in a collective breath.
“How can a woman be that vicious?”
“Best friend, my foot. That’s an enemy.”
—
Every trace of color drained out of Jessica’s face.
She lunged for my phone on instinct.
“Turn it off! That’s edited! You’re framing me!”
I had expected it and stepped back out of her reach.
“Edited?” I looked at her coldly. “Should I send this to HR at your company and let their tech team authenticate it?”
Oliver stood frozen.
He looked at Jessica as though he had never seen her before.
“You… you’ve been using me this whole time?”
His voice shook badly, like a man whose faith had collapsed under him.
He had believed he was balancing two women. He had believed he was making room for a friend who was difficult but good-hearted.
In the end, he had been a knife in somebody’s hand, aimed at the woman he was going to marry.
Jessica panicked and grabbed his sleeve.
“Oliver, let me explain! I was drunk and talking nonsense, I never meant any of it…”
“Get off me!”
Oliver swung his arm out hard enough to send Jessica sprawling on the ground.
—
His eyes were so red they looked ready to bleed, and he stared down at the woman in the dirt.
“How much poison did you feed me to get me to hurt Anna over and over again?”
He turned his head, and his knees suddenly gave out.
He dropped straight down and knelt in front of me.
Muddy water splashed across his expensive trousers.
“Anna, I was wrong. I know I was wrong.”
He tipped his face up, tears and snot running together, as pathetic as a stray dog.
“I was stupid and I was blind. I’m not asking you to forgive me now. Give me one chance, even if it means following you around like a dog and taking care of you for the rest of my life. Please.”
He reached out to put his arms around my legs.
I stepped back and stayed out of reach.
Watching him grind himself down into the dust like that gave me no satisfaction at all.
I felt nothing but a deep sadness.
“Oliver, it’s too late.”
My voice was quiet, and it carried perfectly in the cold winter air.
“Regret that comes this late is worth less than dirt.”
—
I bent down and picked the box with the heater back up.
“Go home. Don’t come looking for me again.”
I turned around and did not spare either of them another glance.
At the end of the lane, smoke was already rising from the chimney of the little courtyard house I rented.
I pushed the gate open.
Behind me, I heard Oliver howl in despair.