Chapter 394: The Truth
I lost my virginity to a man who was fantasizing about my best friend. I just didn’t know it yet.
The first month with Cain felt like more solid proof that I could be normal. That I could have something uncomplicated and good, something that belonged to me alone.
He’d take me to cheap restaurants off campus, the kind with plastic menus and fluorescent lighting. He’d ask about my classes, my day, actually listen when I answered. He’d hold my hand walking back to my dorm, kiss me goodnight with this careful sweetness that made me feel fragile in a way I’d never been before.
"You’re different from other girls," he told me once.
I didn’t ask what he meant. I was just grateful to be different in a way that made someone want me.
When he asked if I was ready, two months into dating... I said yes. Not because I particularly wanted to, but because this was what normal couples did. This was what progression looked like. And I wanted so badly to be normal.
It happened in his dorm room on a Tuesday night. His roommate was gone for the weekend. He’d put on music, dimmed the lights, all the things he probably thought would make it romantic.
It hurt. He apologized. Said it would get better. I believed him because I didn’t know any different.
Afterward, lying in his narrow twin bed, his arm around me, I thought: This is what normal feels like.
I was wrong.
---
It was three weeks later when it happened.
We were in his room again. His roommate was out at a party. We were having sex, I still couldn’t quite think of it as "making love" even though that’s what he called it sometimes. I was going through the motions, making the sounds I thought I was supposed to make, waiting for it to be over.
He finished with a groan, his face buried in my neck.
"Oh," he moaned. "Fuck, Aria..."
Everything stopped.
He went rigid against me, pulled back, his face cycling through expressions too fast to track. Shock. Horror. Calculation.
"Fuck. Sarah, I’m sorry. I was just—I don’t know why I said that. It didn’t mean anything. I was just—"
He kept talking, words tumbling over each other, excuses stacking up like blocks. But I wasn’t listening anymore. I was somewhere else, somewhere cold and distant, watching this scene from outside my body.
"I should go," he said finally, already pulling away, reaching for his clothes.
I didn’t stop him.
He left. The door clicked shut. I lay there in his sheets that smelled like him and sweat and sex, staring at the ceiling, completely still.
I didn’t cry. Crying would have required feeling something, and I felt nothing at all. Just a vast, empty quiet where something should have been.
He texted the next day. I’m so sorry. Can we talk?
I replied: It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.
Are you sure?
Yes.
And I was. Because whatever I’d thought we had, whatever fantasy I’d constructed about being chosen and wanted and normal... it had been built on sand. His slip hadn’t created a problem. It had just revealed the truth.
We kept dating.
He was more attentive after that, like he was overcompensating. More gifts, more compliments, more public displays of affection. Look how much I care about Sarah. Look how into her I am.
I played along. Smiled when I was supposed to smile. Laughed at his jokes. Had sex when he wanted to.
But I was watching him now. Really watching. Looking for the cracks in his performance, the moments when the mask would slip.
It took two weeks.
We were in my dorm room this time. My roommate had transferred schools, so I had the space to myself. We’d just finished, quick and perfunctory and Cain had fallen asleep almost immediately after, sprawled on his stomach, one arm hanging off the bed.
I lay next to him, staring at his phone on the nightstand.
I’d watched him unlock it dozens of times. Watched his fingers move in a specific pattern. Six digits. I’d memorized them without meaning to, the same way I memorized everything about people.
2-7-4-9-1-3.
I picked up the phone. The screen lit up. I typed in the code.
It unlocked.
I should have felt guilty. Should have felt like I was violating his privacy, crossing some line. But all I felt was cold, clinical curiosity. I needed to know. Needed to confirm what I already suspected.
I opened his messages, found the group chat with his friends. Five guys, all from his high school. They talked constantly, memes, sports scores, complaints about classes.
I typed my name into the search bar.
Eighteen results.
I started reading.
October 15th
Cain: so I’m making progress with Sarah
Kyle: the weird quiet chick?
Cain: yeah. she’s friends with Aria. super close.
Kyle: ohhhhh I see what you’re doing
Cain: yeah she’s like the key. Aria won’t give me the time of day directly but if I’m dating her best friend...
Marcus: dude that’s genius
Cain: right? and honestly Sarah’s not bad. easy to deal with. grateful for the attention
October 28th
Cain: update: I’m in
Kyle: YOU FUCKED HER?
Cain: lmao yeah. took her virginity too
Marcus: BRO
Kyle: was it weird?
Cain: little bit. she just kinda laid there. but whatever, I’m playing the long game
Marcus: you’re getting pussy while plotting on Aria. respect.
November 3rd
Kyle: how’s operation get with Aria going
Cain: slow. but I’m being patient. Sarah trusts me now. Aria sees us together all the time. just gotta wait for her to break up with that senior
Marcus: you think she’s hot enough to go through all this?
Cain: dude yes. you’ve seen her. and she’s got this whole thing where she doesn’t take shit from anyone. I want to see what she’s like in bed
Kyle: meanwhile you’re stuck with the weird one lol
Cain: honestly sometimes when I’m fucking Sarah I just think about Aria. like I’ll close my eyes and pretend
Marcus: LMAOOO
Cain: I’m serious.
Kyle: you’re going to hell
Cain: worth it
---
I read all eighteen results. Every joke. Every casual dismissal. Every confirmation that I was exactly what I’d always been, a tool. A means to an end. The thing people used to get to what they actually wanted.
I set the phone back on the nightstand, exactly where he’d left it.
Then I lay back down next to him and stared at the ceiling.
Something inside me had gone very, very quiet.
Not loud. Not violent. Just silent. Like a door closing so softly you don’t hear it lock.
I acted normal for the next three days.
We got coffee. Went to class together. I let him kiss me in public, hold my hand, perform the role of devoted boyfriend. I smiled and nodded and said all the right things.
But inside, I was planning.
Not consciously, not at first. But ideas kept surfacing, scenarios playing out in my head. What I could do. What I should do. What would be satisfying versus what would be smart.
I told myself I just wanted to talk to him. To confront him about what I’d seen, hear him try to explain it away. That would be enough. That would be the mature, normal thing to do.
I almost believed it.
I went to his dorm on a Thursday afternoon. No text, no warning. His roommate’s class schedule was pinned to their door, I’d memorized it weeks ago. He wouldn’t be back until six.
I climbed the stairs to the third floor, walked down the hallway that smelled like stale beer and microwave popcorn.
His door was closed but I could hear something on the other side. A sound. Rhythmic. Breathing.
I tried the handle. Unlocked.
I pushed the door open gently and tiptoed into the little doorway.
Cain was on his bed, pants around his ankles, laptop open on his desk angled toward him. His right hand moved in steady strokes, his eyes fixed on the screen, his mouth slightly open.
"Aria..." he breathed. "Fuck, Aria..."
On the laptop screen: a photo. One I recognized because I’d taken it. Aria at the beach last summer, wearing a blue bikini, laughing at something I’d said. I’d posted it to Instagram with some caption about friendship. She’d made it her profile picture.
He was staring at my best friend’s face while he touched himself in the room where he’d fucked me. Saying her name like a prayer. Like she was the only thing that mattered.
Like I was nothing.
I stood there. Three seconds. Four. Five.
Watching him reduce me to what I’d always been. The shadow of nothing. The tool he used to get close to the sun. The thing he tolerated in pursuit of what he actually wanted.
And something clarified.
Not broke. Not snapped. Just became perfectly, crystalline clear.
Without making a sound, I walked to the kitchen area, every dorm room had one, a tiny alcove with a mini fridge and hot plate. My feet moved without conscious direction. My hand reached for the drawer, pulled it open.
Found the knife.
It was a cheap thing, probably from Target, with a black plastic handle. But the blade was sharp enough. He’d used it to cut vegetables when he made dinner for me once. Played house. Pretended he cared.
I picked it up.
Walked out to the hallway again.
He still hadn’t noticed me. Still had his eyes closed now, head tilted back, hand moving faster. Getting close.
"Aria," he moaned again. "God, you’re so hot..."
I moved.