Everything Was A Lie

Audrey didn't know how she made it back home because everything that happened after she fled the hotel suite felt like a blur. It was like she had stepped outside of her own body and watched herself move.

Regina’s laughter still rang in her ears and Derek's disgusted voice still echoed in her head. 

The sounds wouldn’t stop.

A loud horn blasted suddenly and Audrey blinked her eyes, coming back to her senses. She stumbled backwards just as headlights flashed toward her.

“Do you have a fucking death wish?!” the driver yelled angrily through the window. 

That was when she realized she just almost ran into oncoming traffic. She was standing in the middle of the road, with the traffic light showing green.

The entire ride home she stared blankly through the window and when she reached home, her feet dragged lazily on the floor as she stumbled into the quietness of the penthouse. 

The moment she stepped into the house, her wobbly legs finally gave up and she collapsed hard on the floor. The sound of a painful crack followed, which was probably a sprain on her wrist or ankle. She wasn't sure which was it because the pain barely registered. Because nothing could compare to the pain inside her chest.

Her mind was too busy replaying the scene she witnessed in the hotel. Her breathing became uneven as she stared blankly at the marble floor beneath her.

Tonight was their third wedding anniversary. Tonight was supposed to be when she told Derek that they were finally becoming parents. Tonight was supposed to change everything. Tonight was supposed to be perfect. 

But tonight turned out to be the worst night of her life.

She had imagined so many versions of tonight. Derek finally smiling at her. Derek hugging her with so much love. Derek touching her stomach with so much love in his eyes.

But instead, she saw him tangled in the arms of another woman. Not just another woman. Her best friend. 

Audrey felt her chest squeeze tightly, it physically hurt and she couldn't breathe. Her heart was beating so rapidly, yet it felt like it was being ruthlessly stomped on. Like someone reached into her chest and crushed her heart with their bare hands.

What she just saw was too much for her to handle.

“How…” she whispered with shaky voice. “How could you do this to me?”

Her husband was cheating on her with not just any random woman, but her best friend. How could they do this? How could they be so cruel to her?

She had done nothing but loved them dearly, trusted them with everything she had. How could they reciprocate with this kind of evil betrayal?

A tear finally escaped her eyes, and like a dam, flood of tears followed, suddenly the tears wouldn’t stop.

Audrey wanted to scream, she wanted to cry out her lungs, she wanted to throw and destroy things, but she couldn't. Only uncontrollable tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Then her body suddenly became restless, her breathing became uneven. She buried her fingers into her hair and grabbed it, pulling it violently as if to uproot them from the roots. 

It hurt badly but she needed it. She needed to feel that physical pain, or else she could die from the one in her chest.

This couldn't be real. This was a nightmare, a nightmare she wanted to wake up from, a nightmare she never imagined would be her reality. 

But it was.

The signs had always been there. God. The red flags had always fucking been there.

When Derek started acting like being her husband was a chore he despised. When she had to practically beg him for sex. When the sex reduced to once in two months. When he didn't come home for days because he was “busy”. The coldness in his eyes when he looked at her. 

And Regina—

Audrey’s stomach twisted violently.

Regina was always there by her side. Every fucking time.

Every tear she cried. Every insecurity. Every fight with Derek. Every lonely night.

Regina sat beside her and comforted her through all of it while secretly sleeping with her husband.

‘How do you still fuck that thing?’ Was that how they always mocked her? But Regina was supposed to be her best friend and confidante. Derek was supposed to be her husband. He was supposed to be the father of her unborn child. 

Instinctively, she rubbed her stomach with her hands and more tears spilled down her cheeks.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I'm so sorry, baby.”

Her voice cracked.

“I'm so sorry for giving you such a horrible father.”

She took a deep, slow breath to calm herself down, while still sitting sprawled on the floor. As she could finally breathe a little, so many questions flooded her mind endlessly. 

How long had they been sleeping together? How long had Derek and her best friend been making a fool of her?

Was she really that pathetic to them?

How could Derek throw away three whole years of marriage like that? How could Regina throw away ten solid years of friendship like that? Why did they decide to break her heart like this?

Her chest tightened again and she grabbed the cloth there painfully as more tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

The two people she loved with all her heart were the ones who took her heart and shattered it into pieces.

‘You’re the one I've always wanted.’ ‘If only that thing you call a wife wasn't so desperate to marry you, I would have had you all to myself.” 

Those words kept ringing in her ears, nonstop. She could still hear the mockery and disgust in their voices.

A bitter, broken laugh escaped her throat as realization dawned on her. Derek never wanted to marry her from the beginning, he had always wanted her best friend. 

All three years of marriage was a complete joke. All these while she felt she was doing something wrong, Derek’s heart belonged to her best friend, Regina. All her hope and efforts thinking she could make Derek look at her again was worthless, because he never wanted her in the first place.

Audrey grabbed her hair again and pulled it hard, until her scalp burned, it was either that or she lost her mind instantly. Derek was never going to want her or love her as his wife, no matter how much she tried to be a perfect wife, or how much of herself she gave him. Because the cold reality was Derek never loved her.

That reality felt like a bucket of ice was dumped on her head. Her husband of three years never loved loved her. 

A loud sob finally escaped her throat and Audrey wailed loudly in pain. She cried so hard that her whole body shook violently. She cried until her throat became sore and her entire body hurt.

She didn't know how long she cried bitterly for. An hour? Or three? But when her sobs finally reduced to quiet whimpers, while every part of her body hurt, especially her chest, she came to a solid resolve. Something else asides hurt began to form. Anger.

She was done.

She was completely done with everything. 

She was done being the doormat. She was done begging for love. She was done being the one who sacrificed herself for people who gave absolutely nothing back. She was done being the fool.

If Derek didn't want her– Fine.

If he didn't love her– Fine.

If he didn’t respect her– Fine.

Then he didn't deserve her either.

She was done staying where she wasn't wanted. Waiting for Derek Lockwood to become the husband he never intended to be.

With a firm decision settling inside her, Audrey wiped her tears slowly. 

Enough was enough of crying and feeling sorry for herself. It was time to choose the one person who mattered, which was herself. If not for anybody else, but for the sake of her unborn child. Her baby deserved better. And so did she.

Audrey inhaled deeply before pushing herself off the floor, pain shot through her left wrist immediately.

“Fuck…” she hissed softly. 

She straightened her hair and her clothes, she needed to get herself together, so as not to hurt her baby, she would deal with Derek when he got back. For now, she needed to breathe.

Feeling extremely hungry, she gobbled a bowl of the risotto she prepared for Derek, then drank a glass of water and dragged herself to the bedroom. 

She was so exhausted and beat down that the second she collapsed into the bed without changing her clothes, Audrey drifted into sleep. 

☆☆☆☆☆

Warm skin slowly brushed against her body, from her neck to her face to her lips.

Audrey frowned in her sleep and shifted, brushing off the interruption, but she felt it again. The warm skin grazed her jaw, her shoulder, her cheek.

Then the familiar scent of Regina's perfume filled her senses. And that was when she realized that the warm skin she was feeling were a pair of lips and they were dropping open kisses all over her body.

Immediately, the sleep cleared from Audrey's eyes, and her eyes snapped open instantly. She jerked up so quickly her head spun.

Her eyes landed on who it was.

Standing beside the bed, in front of her, was Derek, already undoing the buttons of his shirt.

Audrey stared at him in disbelief. For a moment, she genuinely thought she was hallucinating. “What the fuck— Derek?”

His expression remained cold and unreadable. “Take off your clothes.”

Audrey blinked slowly. “…What?”

Derek tossed his shirt carelessly on to the floor, then moved to his belt and started undoing it too. “Are you deaf? I said take off your clothes.”

As he said those words, the smell of alcohol hit her immediately.

He was drunk.

Audrey quickly threw her legs off the bed. She was not having a conversation with a drunk bastard.

She tried to push him out of the way but in a swift movement, Derek grabbed her arm violently and pushed her back to the bed.

Audrey gasped in shock and pain shot through her injured wrist. “Derek!”

Her wide, surprised eyes met his dark and emotionless ones, as he said coldly, “You have always begged me to fuck you, now I’m here to give it to you, whether you like it or not.”