Chapter 5.

"Baby, you know her?" the tiny girl asks, standing beside him and looking up at me with a disgusted expression.

I think I'm going to be sick.

"Wait for me outside," Tony tells her, gesturing in the direction of the exit. "I'll meet you there in five minutes." His eyes never leave mine and I glare at him back. We continue our little staring match until his tiny girlfriend is out of sight, then he breaks our silence.

"What are you doing here?"

"I-I- W-Who's she?" I don't know if it's anger or nervousness causing my stuttering but, whatever it is, I don't like it.

"I ask the questions here. That's how it has always been," he says, his voice dripping with arrogance and I can't help but notice exactly how much he sounds like a jerk. "I told you not to come to clubs, but here you are - in a body-hugging dress - with makeup on. Tell me, April, are you a prostitute now that you've lost your job?"

"You got the messages." I say slowly, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in my chest, "You got the messages I sent, when I told you I lost my job, yet you didn't reply. Am I a... a joke to you?"

"I got tired of you that's all," he spits out coldly, not even bothering to deny anything. "You're a mess when you have those panic-attacks. You're a nightmare. I knew you'd be crying for a week, if you got fired."

My anger rises. "What?" I snarl, "And so the best thing you could do was to stay away from the house the whole week? What were you doing in the meantime?"

"Like I said, " he sighs and says slowly, like I'm a dumb four-year-old, "I got tired of you and needed a break. Oh, and you know the bra you saw under the bed? Yeah, that belonged to the chick you just bumped into, so you could show some courtesy and give it back."

I choose to ignore this bit. "You've been coming to the house the whole time?" I'm losing it. I'm freaking losing it. "What else have you been doing behind my back? Sleeping with your secretary?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," he says and my hands fly up to my mouth in horror. For three whole years of my life, I've been living with a monster and, for the first time, I'm realizing it. The loud music comes on again and I can almost feel my head splitting.

"You cheated on me, but you won't even allow me to go to a club?" I yell over the music, my knuckles clenching and unclenching by my sides. "Well, two can play at this game. Since you've decided to be a dickwad, watch me make out with the next guy I bump into."

He throws his head back into hysterical laughter and it takes all the power in me not to punch his face in. "You're too much of a loser. Who would want to make out with a fat fuck like you?"

"What did you just say?" I narrow my eyes at him and pray I heard him wrong over the loud music.

"Go on. Make out with anyone you want. I dare you." He stresses the last part, knowing I wouldn't normally have the nerve to do such a thing. But he doesn't know that you should never dare a slightly-drunk April.

I watch him smirk before I turn on my heels and storm in the opposite direction, my big brown eyes roaming the club, in search of Jim to take me home so I can avoid the drama. I've had enough of this, tonight, and the only thing on my mind, right now, is to go home and cry until there are no tears left in my body.

I'll love you till the end of time.

You own me, sweetheart. I love you.

If I were to choose between dying and loving you, I would use my last breath to tell you how much you mean to me.

Lies! All those words... They were lies, all along.

I want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs. But I can't. Not here, anyway. I wipe my tears with the back of my hand and my mascara comes off with the tears.

Unfortunately for me, my shoulder bumps into someone else, a hard chest that makes me stumble.

Please don't be an ugly old man, I plead silently, knowing that what I'm about to do is reckless.

"Are you alright?" Somehow, the voice seems familiar, but everything is so fuzzy in my head that it's pointless to try and connect the voice with a face.

I glance over my shoulder to see Tony still standing there, smirking at me, waiting for me to embarrass myself.

I raise my eyes and look at the person in front of me.

It's not an old man. And he's definitely not ugly.

The club lights are making it hard for me to figure out the color of his eyes, but his hair looks brown and slightly tousled. His perfectly-carved nose is pointy and, under it, there's a set of full plum lips that are redder than my lipstick.

My eyes travel back to his, and a look of recognition flashes over his face as he tilts his head to the side and examines me.

Here goes nothing...

The recognition in his eyes is replaced with shock when I wrap my hands around his neck and bring him inches away from my face.

"Don't freak out." is the only thing I manage to say, before I do what I never thought I'd do, what I'd never have done in a thousand years.

I kiss a stranger.