Part 2 (aftermath of chapter 8) : I Know What You Did Last Summer: Nathan and Maxie

he knows (from Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello)

She can't honestly believe that I don't know. We went from being each other's world—lovers, partners—to glorified roommates. All those nights she and Dillon are "working"—give me a break. But still, I'd rather have her here with me in some capacity. Even if we've drifted away from one another these past few months. I'm not a masochist; I'm just a coward. Every night she comes home and I pretend to be asleep, 'cause neither of us can say what's really going on.

We used to be worth fighting for, didn't we? A year ago I would have had to have been stopped from killing Dillon if I even suspected he was making moves on Maxie. Now, we both pretend that we don't know what's going on. So it's no surprise that she's home late again and heads straight for shower—for which of our benefit, I don't know—and I make no move to greet her.

She finally comes to bed, but she doesn't immediately turn her back to me. Instead she turns on the bedside lamp.

"Nathan."

And she's speaking to me? Something's up.

So I roll over to ask if she's okay. Except it comes out,

"Did he hurt you?"

Because, fuck all pretense now.

"No."

Good. She's over the charade too.

"I think I hurt him. But that seems to be my specialty."

The sad confession rolls off her tongue, like she needs to get this off her chest. Now's the time to remind her that I'm not Lulu; I'm not her girlfriend and I don't want to hear about how she hurt her other boyfriend's feelings.

"This is it for us."

Not a question. A demand.

"For him." She's leaving me for him. That's why she's finally decided to talk about it.

"For us," she insists, which is bullshit.

"Don't lie to me, Maxie. Please, not now."

"I'm not. Dillon probably wants nothing to do with me now."

Surprisingly, I still want to hit something when she says his name.

"Why?" I ask instead. And it's the big why for it all. I don't have to explain because for as distant as we've grown, we still know each other.

"You know why."

"You slept with Dillon," I bite back, at which she simply scoffs.

"What, Maxie? That's the truth."

"No, the truth is that Dillon was a reaction."

"To what?"

"Don't you dare play dumb." At least she's looking at me now, and with more emotion than I've seen in months.

"Please, enlighten me. What was bad enough for you to cheat on me?" I know her. What I'm offering is a challenge, 'cause I don't want to be the one to spell out the end.

"I wasn't the first one of us to bring someone else into our relationship."

She won't say Claudette, but sure enough she's there.

But she knows me too, knows that the only words left between us now are the truth, and the truth will be the thing that kills us. She's done hiding.

"Did you stop loving me?" Damn, I sound pathetic.

"Never. I…I needed you, but you weren't there so I….And at first, I made myself sick with how guilty I felt. I was sure that you would know and you would hate me. But you didn't. And what was supposed to be a one-time thing with him wasn't. I knew the right thing to do was to tell you, but the longer it went on the less you seemed to care about my life. So I stopped caring about us. And after a while I knew—I knew that you had to know, and you just didn't care. I just wanted someone to care."

I swear, if she says care one more time I'm going to scream.

But she's not wrong. I felt her slipping away from me and I just let her. It was a defense mechanism, and one I only used because I knew we'd come back together in the end. Obviously I was wrong.

"It's been too long since we've been all in," I agree. And I stepped out first, if I'm honest. My double life was created first and then caught up with us. I pulled away to protect her, but it only ruined us.

"So this is it." I don't even know how the hell I'm so calm right now. It's not shock; this was the next logical step.

"Yes."

I know.