The next morning, I wake up in bed alone and Zack's side of the bed remains made. My eyes instinctively dart to the thin crack under the bathroom door, searching for the soft glow from the bathroom light but it’s missing. I frown, feeling a jolt in my gut – Zack didn’t come home last night. I sit up in bed and shake my head, just because he didn’t sleep in bed with me doesn’t mean he didn’t come home. After all, we did get into a fight and he knew I left that party upset, so maybe he just thought it would be best for him to sleep in the guest room or maybe he passed out on the couch watching television.

I crawl out of bed and begin to search the house. The guest room looks untouched – its bed made and pillow’s fluffed. Knowing Zack has never been the type to make a bed, I know he hasn’t slept in it. I frown, shutting the door and turning on my heel. I head back into Zack's bedroom and grab my phone from the bedside table, deciding to check it for messages before I head downstairs. There are no messages and I decide to call him instead, before I can find his name in my list of contacts, however, I hear a loud splash as if someone jumped in the pool outside. I furrow my brows and toss my phone to the bed. Perhaps Zack wasn’t in bed with me this morning because he hasn’t been to bed yet.

I turn the corner at the bottom of the staircase, glancing at the table beside the front door where Zack usually keeps his car keys. They’re not there, but I remind myself that he had been drinking – and doing cocaine – and would have probably just walked home from Matt’s before heading towards the living room.

“Zack?” I call out, passing the couch – it hasn’t been slept on, either.

The gentle California breeze blows the sheer curtains that conceal the entry path to the patio and pool. It’s warmer than usual, but not nearly warm enough to be in the pool. I walk through the open sliding door, expecting to see Zack passed out in the pool. Instead, the source of the splashing was someone else entirely.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

Gena lays in the pool on a floaty, completely naked. She raises her head when she hears my voice. Her face is hidden behind oversized sunglasses, but she doesn’t seem to show any hint of emotion at my arrival. She lays her head back down on the floaty. “Sheridan,” she says calmly, “send Zack out here to put tanning lotion on my back, please.”

I stand there completely puzzled for a moment, did I wake up in a second dimension? “Gena, what the fuck are you doing here? How did you get in the house?”

Gena scoffs, carefully propping herself up on her elbows. “My key?”

“You still have a key?” I ask her. Did she come here often? Did she enjoy the pool on a daily basis? Is the reason why she’s demanding me to go get Zack to rub lotion on her back because he usually does? Gena hasn’t answered me, but it doesn’t matter, the questions keep rolling off my tongue. “Aren’t you cold? It’s only like sixty degrees out here?”

“Jesus Christ, Sheridan,” Gena scoffs. She gets out of the pool and wraps a towel around her naked body. “If you’re going to live in my dream house, learn to appreciate it. It’s a heated pool.” Gena walks over to a chair off to the side where her clothes sit. She pulls out a pack of cigarettes and pops one between her lips.

“I’m not living here,” I told her. I still had so many questions. What is she doing here? Did she come here often? “Jesus, Gena, put some clothes on. Aren’t you scared people will see you?”

“No?” Gena shakes her head. “Privacy fence.”

“Okay, you know what? I really don’t care. You cannot come here and swim naked at my boyfriend’s house,” I tell her.

Gena smirks. “It’s not like he hasn’t seen it before.”

“I don’t have time for this,” I mumble. I still have no idea where Zack is and now his ex-fiancé is hanging out at his house naked. “What are you doing here, Gena? What do you want?”

She shrugs. “I was just trying to enjoy the pool until you came out here and started blabbing your mouth.”

“Fine, whatever, enjoy the pool. I’ve got other things to do,” I tell her, turning on my heel and heading back inside.

I head upstairs and back into Zack's bedroom. I grab my phone and call Zack. I inhale deeply listening to each ring before finally…

“Hey, you reached Zack. Leave a message and I might get back to you.”

I groan, fighting the urge to throw my phone across the room. There’s a beep and I sigh into the phone. “Zack, where the hell are you? You didn’t come home last night and now I’ve got your fucking naked ex-fiancé downstairs asking for you!”

I hang up and run my hand through my tangled hair. I need coffee and a cigarette, so I decide to head back downstairs. I fill the coffee pot up with water and coffee and turn it on before sitting down at the table across the room. My head is throbbing, but it has nothing to do with the party last night. I hear the sliding door in the living room shut and hope Gena is leaving. A moment later, she joins me in the kitchen, this time she’s fully dressed.

“Jesus, Gena. Go home. Zack isn’t here, okay?”

Gena laughs. “He isn’t? You didn’t leave him alone at that party, did you?”

I look up at her and am surprised to see her sitting directly beside me at the table. “Were you there?” I ask her.

“No,” she tells me. “Tabitha told me all about it though. I told her she shouldn’t have acted the way she did, but you can’t say you don’t deserve it.”

“I deserved it?” I ask. “Gena, I didn’t break you and Zack up!” Even as the words escape my lips, I don’t believe them.

Gena scoffs. “Please, you coming back to this town broke us up. The moment you landed on our doorstep, I knew it was over.”

“You can’t blame me for that,” I tell her. I don’t tell her that she could blame me for sleeping with him on Halloween, though.

“Maybe not,” she sighs. “It doesn’t matter, Zack isn’t the same person he was in high school, Sheridan and if you haven’t learned that by now you will soon. I’ve grown up with him while you were off doing God knows what. I loved him through his darkest days and…” her voice gets smaller and smaller until it eventually trails off.

“I was off trying to survive, Gena. You of all people should understand why.” I tell her. Suddenly I remembered what Tabitha had said and remembered the twisted story that Gena told Tabitha. “Is that why you told Tabitha that I willingly slept with Eli? When did Zack tell you about everything else Eli did to me, Gena? It was not his business to tell you and it’s not yours to be blabbing lies to everyone!”

Gena shrugs. “Well, then, I guess you should be mad at him for telling me. Not that it matters, seems like there’s already trouble in paradise since he didn’t come home last night. You know, Zack didn’t come home a lot when we were together. Or he would come home super late, with lipstick on his dick.”

I scoff and shake my head. I get up from the table and walk over to the coffee pot. “Zack wouldn’t cheat on me, Gena,” I tell her pouring coffee into a mug.

“Are you sure about that?” Gena asks. I hear her getting up from the table, but I don’t turn to face her. “I always thought he wouldn’t cheat on me either. The first time it happened, I was completely heartbroken. I told myself that he was having a hard time committing because he had a shitty ex-girlfriend. That was you, by the way. Then it happened again, and again until I was forced to accept it was a part of the lifestyle and I would just have to wait for him to grow out of it. You’ll have to do the same.”

I shake my head. “If Zack cheated on you, I’m sorry but…”

“If?” Gena laughs loudly. “Don’t fucking play dumb with me Sheridan. I know he fucked you before I left him. So, I know you know he has cheated on me at least once because you were the skank that he cheated with.”

“So, is that why you hang around here naked?” I ask her. “To get revenge? So, you can try to seduce Zack?”

“Oh, sweetie, I don’t have to try,” Gena smiles. “Zack will cheat on you, it may not be with me but it will happen.”

“Fuck you,” I tell her. “When I slept with Zack I didn’t realize he was with you, Gena.”

Gena’s hand is against my cheek before I can even react. The sting of her slap shocks me and I drop my coffee mug. It falls to the floor, shattering, and sending shards of glass and hot coffee on my legs and floor.

“And that was my favourite mug,” she tells me before storming out of the kitchen. I stand there, completely shocked until after I hear the front door slam shut and Gena’s car starting.
“What the fuck?” I ask myself. I look down at the coffee and glass covered floor and carefully step out of it.

I slowly start to clean up the mess and try to push the words Gena said out of my mind. After the mess is clean, I head back upstairs to check my phone for a message from Zack. I sit on the bed and look at the phone. No messages, no missed calls, nothing. I cradle my face in my hands and fight back the tears due to frustration. Was Gena telling the truth? Did Zack stay somewhere else last night because he was with someone else?

I grab my overnight bag and pull out a fresh pair of clothes. I grab my phone and dial a number for a cab company while pulling my shoes on.

“Huntington Beach Cab Company,” a polite woman answers on the second ring.

I clear my throat. “I need a cab to Los Angeles.”

“Okay, what’s the address?”

After I hang up with the cab company I head to the bathroom and grab my shampoo and other bathroom products. I grab my clothes and shove them into a bag with my bathroom things and pull my hair into a bun. I pull my bag across my shoulder and grab my phone and its charger, checking it for messages once again – still, nothing. I wipe my cheek and shove my phone in my pocket before heading downstairs. As I reach the last step, the front door opens and Zack walks in.

He immediately notices me on the stairs and sets his keys down on the table beside the door. “Hey,” he says softly.

Another tear falls onto my cheek and I quickly wipe it away. “Hey,” I say.

“Is that your cab outside?” Zack asks me, pointing behind him with his thumb. I nod. “Is this about last night?” I look away from him, feeling my throat tightening and eyes burning with tears. “Sheridan…”

“Where were you, Zack? You never came home, I tried calling you…” I ask him, my voice stronger than I expected it.

“I stayed at Matt’s,” Zack told me, taking a few steps towards me. He reaches for the strap of my bag and gently tugs it off my shoulder. He reaches for my hand but I yank it away.

“You couldn’t have called?” I ask.

Zack pulls his blackberry out of his pocket. “It died. I came home as soon as I woke up, babe.”

The cab driver honks his horn. “I have to go, Zack.”

Zack shakes his head. “Sheridan…please, let me explain.”

“You know Gena was here earlier? Completely fucking naked, does that happen often? If it did would you even tell me?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Zack asks me calmly.

I open my mouth to reply, but before I can the driver honks his horn. Zack looks thoroughly annoyed as he turns and flings the door open. He disappears and I grab my bag from the floor, preparing to follow him out the door but as I reach the door, he comes back in.

“Zack!” I exclaim as I hear the car speeding off. “What the fuck?”

“Look, just talk to me, okay? If you still want to leave, then I’ll take you. Do you know how much a cab would cost you?” He tells me.

“I don’t want to talk to you, okay? I just want to go home,” I tell him.

Zack ignores me. “What did Gena say to you to make you so pissed off?”

“It’s not just her, Zack. It’s everything – you lying about the party for no reason, disappearing to do cocaine, not coming home because you were doing whatever, and then having to deal with Gena! Why the fuck would you tell her about the things Eli did to me? Now she’s blabbing about it and making it seem like…like….”

“She’s what?” Zack asks, disgusted. “Fuck, Sheridan. I’m so sorry. I fucked up. It was right after you were supposed to meet me on the pier when you turned 18. I went home and got plastered…I don’t remember telling Gena, I don’t even remember her being there but the next morning…she was there and she knew. I made her swear not to tell anyone. I’m so sorry, I’ll talk to her, I promise.”

I shake my head, it didn’t matter, she would know my deepest darkest secret regardless. “And as for everything else?”

“I told you, the cocaine is just recreational. It’s literally nothing to worry about, Sheridan. Just something I like to do when I drink, everyone fucking does it. I didn’t come home because I literally couldn’t. I was drunk as fuck, okay? There’s no way I could have walked home, I could barely walk across the living room. And, again, I'm sorry about Gena, I have no idea why she was here or naked, I swear.”

I continue to tell Zack about everything Gena said and did. I stress my frustrations to him and he listens, apologizing and explaining along the way. Zack continues to reach for me but I yank away from him every time.

“And then she slapped me and stormed out of the house,” I tell him. “I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up for your crazy ex-girlfriend to come into your house while I’m sleeping, strip off her clothes and assault me.”

Zack laughs, and I shoot him a look. “I’m sorry,” he tells me, “but when you word it like that she really does sound like a maniac.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m just going to call a cab.”

“No,” Zack sighs. “Please just stay. Let me make it up to you.”

“Zack, I can’t be with someone that does drugs. You remember that’s how all of this started, right? My mom was addicted to drugs. She’s dead because of them. I don’t know why you thought I would be okay with you doing them – recreational or not.”

Zack grabs my hand, I try to pull away but he doesn’t let go. “Okay, I won’t do it anymore. It’s really not that big of a deal.” Zack begins to rub small circles on the back of my hand, waiting for me to reply. When I don’t, he speaks again. “Also, while I'm at it, I'm not cheating on you. You have nothing to worry about.”

My eyes search his face. His lips are lightly chapped, and his green eyes look exhausted. “Okay,” I tell him finally.

“So you’ll stay?” Zack asks, giving me a small grin and I nod. “Fantastic,” he tells me, “I would totally kiss you but I kind of threw up on the way here and haven’t got to brush my teeth yet.” He winks and a chuckle slightly as he gives my hands a squeeze before disappearing upstairs.

Notes

Title credit: Madina Lake “Morning Sadness”