Never Before Ever After

CHAPTER 3

The Betraying Confession

A R C H E R

From outside of our bedroom’s huge glass window, the sun was beginning to rise as rays of light were slowly piercing through the clouds and my imagination of what I wanted started fading further and further away. When I should have proposed to her at this point with the sun rising outside our window, she should have sobbed happily and uncontrollably in shock that I had shown up here, as she had not anticipated my visit. Ideally, from my imagination, she would have agreed to my question, knelt down with me, given me a big hug, and would have repeatedly told me how much she loved me and how happy she was with what would have happened at this point over and over again. It would have been at this point that I would have been joyful and could have announced my impending nuptials to the world by posting pictures of us on social media for the first time.

This should have been the perfect time for all those, but it was not.

“Oh my God, Archie.” Maxine frantically said as she pushed Clint away from her and immediately grabbed his shirt and placed it on her. “Babe… I…” She muttered as she glanced at Clint who was grabbing the pillow which was next to him. “Arch, I did not know you were coming over. This is not–”

“Do not say that it is not what it looks like, Max.” I cut her off as I stared at her erect n*****s which were seen through the t-shirt that he owns.

“I… Babe…” She stuttered and sighed heavily.

“Archie, I am sorry.” Clint finally spoke.

The sun was still shining but my heart was beginning to hurt so much that it had never been before. There was silence amongst the three of us but there was nothing else that I had heard other than my pounding heartbeat and every noise around me was muffled. The anger was building so much from inside me that I could only see nothing but red and how it reminded me of the view of my girlfriend spreading her legs for another man who is my own best friend and how she was letting him f**k her like that on top of the bed that we both shared together.

I sprinted towards Clint and landed a punch on his face a split second, hearing Maxine scream as she was trying to push us away from each other but she could not do so. I was stronger than her and I am not letting this f*****g asshole see another daylight.

Since I was much taller and much bigger in body size than Clint who was only five feet and eleven, I had the advantage of beating him to death. I let my anger come over me and did not even stop punching his face while he tried to throw some punches which landed on my mouth.

“You were my best friend!!” I screamed at him before throwing another punch on the side of his face as he staggered and fell on his knees. I grabbed the back of his head and grasped his hair, “How could you f**k my own girlfriend inside my own house and on my own bed!?! You f*****g asshole!!!”

I pushed him away strongly, releasing him as Maxine was kneeling down on the floor next to Clint while she was holding him. He was covered in cuts and blood while she looked at her the same way she would look at me when I was hurt or in any form of injury from before.

It completely broke me.

It literally tore me apart because this was something that I never thought would ever happen to me, to the three of us and I never thought that my own best friend whom I had trusted my own girlfriend with while I am away for work would end up f*****g her while I am busy earning money to save for my future with her. There was so much pain and heartache inside my body that my tears were profusely falling over my cheeks as images of how they were f*****g on top of this bed still reminds me of how she loved it and how she was moaning his name as if it was something she had been used to.

I grabbed the pillows, threw it away from the bed and clenched my fingers against the duvet and tried to push it away while I began to scream the pain and the anger out from my body. I cried and cried as I sobbed loudly in pain and in raging anger while there was so much hurting inside my chest.

“Why?” I asked them, crying hysterically as they were standing right across from where I was. I watched how she was holding him and how he was holding her back, “Why did you have to do this to me?! WHY DID THE BOTH OF YOU HAVE TO BETRAY ME LIKE THIS?! WHY?!” I clenched my fists and covered my eyes with it as I continued to sob while slowly sitting down on the bed. I pulled my fists away from my face, “I trusted you Clint! I trusted you to take care of her, but not to f**k her!!”

“I am so sorry, Arch.” He muttered as if his apologies would do anything better, before adding, “I am truly sorry that you had to witness it this way and you caught us this way. We… She said you were not coming over so I came here and…” He groaned before adding, “We really wanted to let you know about the whole truth but… But we did not know how to say it to you.”

I scoffed as I faced them again, “So do not tell me that you have been doing it…” My eyes travelled towards Maxine who looked sorry before looking away and stared at Clint as if they were speaking with their eyes. I clenched my fist and strongly hit the mattress with my knuckles as it made a loud thudding sound which made Maxine shiver as Clint was holding her, as if he was protecting her from me. “How… How long…” I croaked, not even sure if I wanted to know about the answer because I know it would hurt me even more. “How long have you two been doing this behind my back?” I asked again, gritting, as I pulled my head up and faced them once again while they looked at each other as if none of them wanted to answer me. “Days? Weeks? Months?”

They answered me with silence.

I stood up again and screamed, “I ASKED YOU HOW LONG GOD DAMN IT?!”

“Five!” Maxine screamed back while her eyes were looking back at me.

“Five what?” I dared ask and in the back of my head, if she would have said five days then I would forgive her and–

“Five years.” She cut me off from what I was going to say and immediately her words weakened my entire body that I felt like I could faint. She added, “I… I wanted to let you know. I did but… I… I did not know how to say it.”

“Five years?” I asked, scoffed and shook my head sideways, not believing what she had said because it is half of the years that we had been together. I laughed humorlessly under my throat and the pain from earlier turned into a hundred folds. My tears kept streaming down my face while I kept laughing, “Five years…” I muttered again before pulling my head up and faced her, “Five years of purely f*****g or five years of being in a relationship with him?”

“Archie–”

“You shut the f**k up I am not talking to you, you motherfucker!” I pointed my finger at Clint and cut him off even before he could say a single thing. I turned to Maxine, “What is it, Max?!?!”

Maxine whimpered as her tears fell over her cheeks, “Five years of being in a relationship with him.”

I was completely left mortified with what she had told me and blamed myself again for even asking her.

“I am sorry, Archie.” She said immediately before adding, “You can not even blame me.”

“I can not blame you?!” I mocked as I was laughing humorlessly after hearing her say it. “So you blame me that you cheated when all these years I have been faithful to you, Maxine! For ten years I have only loved you!!”

“You never really showed me to the public!” She screamed at me as her tears were falling more and more over her face. So this was because of that? I thought to myself as she added, “You were never proud of me being your longtime girlfriend! You never once talked about me in your interviews! You never acknowledged, not even once, that you were in a long term relationship! You never did Archibald!”

“What has my relationship with you got to do with my work as an NBA player?!” I screamed at her as I gestured my hands and shrugged my shoulders. “I told you why I did not want to let the world know, I respect you so much and I respect and treasure our relationship! I can not let something that we had for such a long time be scrutinized by the public just because they can and just because of my popularity would allow others to say mean and horribly disrespectful things about you! I can not let these people disrespect you in any way or have your own privacy be ruined because of me so why can’t you see it that way?!”

“Because you have always been selfish!!” She screamed at me, grabbed the pillow and threw it on me as it landed on my face. “Ever since you were drafted, you have been selfish! Ever since you signed for that stupid NBA team, you were always training and training and f*****g training! I told you to choose us, choose me, over the contract! Choose me over basketball but you did not!”

“Now who is selfish?” I asked her strictly.

“I do not f*****g care about what you think of me right now! I continued staying with you,” She pointed at me with her forefinger, “Hoping that you would change your mind and go public together! But you were so far away from me and you were always so busy!”

“So you made some excursion into another man’s d**k and landed your mouth on it so you had no other choice but to suck it?!” I mocked her as she looked at me angrier. “I was busy training to get better, to earn more money and to save it for our future!! You know how important basketball has always been for me! It has never been about which or who, Maxine!!”

“You did not even choose me over stupid basketball!!” She screamed back as her tears were still falling.

“How did I not choose you when you were the main reason why I had to improve myself to earn more money so that I can provide for you when we get married?!” I screamed at her angrily, unable to control my anger anymore. “How could you throw something away that we had for ten years?! How could you ruin my future that I had always planned with you over my best friend?! How?!”

I slowly pulled the ring from my pocket, “For five years, half of our relationship, you cheated on me over my best friend, and you blame me for something you have been so selfish from the start about?! You are selfish, Maxine, and you always will be selfish! I wasted ten f*****g years of my life being in love with a woman as low and as filthy as you!” I showed it to her as she whimpered while looking at me so I continued to say, “I was supposed to propose to you today, thank God he found ways to prevent me from marrying on a f*****g cheater like you.”

I walked towards the door and tried to stop myself from ever hitting Clint again and before I could leave, I halted and looked back at them, “Oh by the way, you better pack up your things because I am selling the entire apartment today.” I informed her.

“What?!” She gasped as she added, “Archie you can not do this to me!”

“Oh yes I can.” I answered right away while chuckling under my throat, “I bought this entire apartment for you and it is owned under my name so I have every f*****g right to throw you out whenever I want to. You better start packing right damn now because I do not want to see you here tonight.” My fists were trembling in anger, “Also, you can send the car key of the Audi that I gifted you to Mr. Klein because I am going to sell it as soon as possible. If you do not comply, I will file a case against you, Maxine.”

“You can not do this to me!!” She screamed angrily.

“How dare you say that?! I can, Maxine.” I stated firmly as I stared at her while she was crying more. “You stripped me of my rights as your boyfriend so I can strip off the luxurious things that I showered you with. Now both of you can go f**k in hell so never speak to me again nor call me. Starting today, I do not know either of you.”

Even though everything in my chest was hurting so deeply that I was unable to speak a single word, I managed to muster the fortitude to leave the apartment and restrain myself from crying.