The deadly silence ended the second the door shut behind him. The bomb that had been ticking in me the entire drive finally exploded.

“How could you just tell her?” I exploded, tearing my coat from my body in anger. “What were you thinking?!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know you hadn’t told you mom, Cassie? You could have filled me in.”

“I was going to ease her into it. She DIDN’T need to hear about it from YOU.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She doesn’t like you! And you know that! You should have known I wouldn’t have told her yet!”

His face hardened and he ran his hand back and forth the top of his shaved head and stared at the wall behind me. When his eyes finally met mine, they were narrowed. “It’s not right that you can’t tell your own mother that you’re moving in with your boyfriend who you have been seeing for over a damn year,” he stated in a monotone voice.

“She doesn’t like you, Justin,” I insisted.

“That’s not my problem anymore, Cassie. Your mom’s a bitch.”

My eyes widened when the word exited his mouth. “Don’t call her that!”

A frustrated noise left him. “You call her that all the time!”

“She’s MY mother. I’m allowed to call her whatever I want. You aren’t!”

He shook his head. “Bottom line, you should have told her before we went over there today. It’s been a week since we decided to move in together. You should have told her before today.”

“I was going to tell her when the time was right.”

“What, when she came over here and you weren’t living her anymore?”

He was being sarcastic and it was pissing me off even more. I struggled to keep my voice at a normal level. “No, but not today. Not how you did. Did you see her face? If she didn’t hate you before, she sure as hell does now.”

Now he was mad. He was clenching his fists and his jaw was clamped. Good. “I’m well aware that she doesn’t like me. You telling me that over and over doesn’t help anything.”

“For someone who’s so well aware of it, you sure don’t use any discretion when talking to her,” I said.

His hands flexed a few times before relaxing out of the fists and hanging by his side. I watched him swallow and tried to read the expression on his face but found it impossible. I stood there defensively, waiting for his response but after a minute of silence, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well?” I demanded.

“You know, the real issue here isn’t that I told your mom about us moving in together,” he said, his voice calm and I instantly knew he had decided in his mind that this fight was not going to end anytime soon. “You’re pissed off because I told her and you weren’t planning on her finding out for a long time. You weren’t planning on telling her today or ANYTIME in the near future that we’re moving in together.”

“I was-”

He talked over me, raising his voice so mine would be drowned out. “In fact, you weren’t even going to have to tell her because it was never going to happen, right, Cassie?”

My eyes narrowed at him. “What?”

“I ask you to move in and you say yes. But it’s never going to actually happen, is it? That’s just too much of a commitment for you. It doesn’t matter that you hardly ever spend any time over here, it’s too much of a security blanket for you to give up.”

I began to shake my head and opened my mouth to respond but I couldn’t get that far.

“Telling your mom wasn’t ever going to happen because moving out was never going to happen,” he repeated, like he always does when he’s trying to make a point. Like it somehow makes him more right or something.

I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. “Why would I agree to move in with you if I wasn’t actually going to?”

“I don’t know the reasoning in your warped brain but I would think probably to appease me. You think that maybe if you agree to move in than I’ll stop bugging you about moving this relationship forward.”

“You’re being really stupid right now.”

“Am I? Then enlighten me.”

I took a step towards him and began to list off things on my palm. “For starters, this IS about you telling my mom because it was NOT your place to do so. Second, I don’t appease people by telling them I’ll move in with them. And third, you know what, you ARE constantly nagging me about moving this relationship forward and it’s really irritating.” His earlier words came back to me. “And I DON’T have a warped brain.”

He laughed, actually laughed, not only at my last comment, but at me. “Just admit it, Cassie. You don’t want to move in with me.”

The words left me before I could water them down. “FINE! I don’t! Are you happy?”

In his mind he must have believed that but maybe he was hoping I was going to deny it. The look on his face told me that I had actually surprised him with my words. “Yeah, I’m thrilled, Cassie. Thanks for the heads up.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do, huh, Justin?” I demanded. “You won’t lay off about our relationship and you always want more. If I hadn’t said yes you never would have given up on it.”

Just looking at him was pissing me off further and I turned to go to the kitchen just to get out of this situation. He wasn’t going to let it end at that and his voice stopped me mid stride.

“I guess I should have known better than to try and get you to commit to anything. The girl who couldn’t even commit to a first date for a month.”

I stopped and whipped around to face him. “Are you kidding me? Grow up, Justin. That was a year ago. Are you seriously that low on ammunition that you have to bring that up?”

“It sure applies to this. You can’t commit to a first date, you can’t commit to anything. You can’t commit to anything but work.”

“If you-”

“Oh, and of course, Kyle.”

My mouth dropped and my heart started thumping against my chest as my anger raised a hundred notches. “What?” I bit out.

“You heard me.”

Maybe if this was the first time Kyle Pitman had been brought into one of our fights I would be able to brush it off. But it’s like anytime we fight, even if it’s about something petty, Justin always has to bring Kyle into it. It’s like second nature to him.

“You know what, Justin? I’m not going to have this same fight with you over and over.” I turned to go to the kitchen, fully prepared to just leave it at that and let the unresolved fight be buried until the next time we go at it. But Justin wouldn’t let it go and he was hot on my heels.

“Don’t walk away just because you don’t have any good defense.”

“I don’t need a good defense!” I snapped, yanking open the cupboard and pulling out a glass. “You bring Kyle into every single thing and it’s old. GROW UP.”

“Kyle-”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m committed to Kyle? Well, newsflash, Justin! I work with him every single day so I kind of have to be. If you could get your head out of your ass, you might be able to just accept that.”

“Don’t even tell me all that you and him have is business.”

“We’re friends. And that is not a problem.” I slammed my glass on the counter but made no move to put anything in it. “This isn’t about Kyle. You can’t continue to bring him into every single little fight we ever have.”

“Everything always somehow comes back to him.”

“No, you MAKE everything come back to him. You know, I wouldn’t have ever gotten into this relationship if I knew what an insecure prick you can be.”

He laughed at me again. “You’re telling me to grow up and here you are calling me names? Take your own stupid advice.”

I had been fully prepared to have an adult fight. I really had. When we got home, I was going to get him to realize how dumb he had been to tell my mom about us moving in and that was going to be the end of it. But then, just like every single fight we had had the past few weeks, it had to turn into a fight about a million other things. And it was like he tried to get me fired up just so I’d blow up. When did our relationship turn into this?

“Just shut up! You know you’re wrong about telling my mom and so you have to bring all this other shit into this. For once, how about you just accept that you’re wrong.”

“This isn’t just about your mom. Fights with you are never just about one thing. And this is about how you can’t ever commit to anything.” He gave me a mocking look. “Except your business partner.”

I was too mad to take any kind of high road. “It’s pretty rich how you’re constantly coming down on me about Kyle when you’re the one with a million girls all over you in your videos and at every single public appearance.”

He snorted. “Oh yeah, Cassie. Go there. Yeah, real mature.”

I hit my hand on the counter. “It’s the same damn thing!”

“It’s different and you know it. Save your breath cause you’re just making yourself look stupid by talking this shit.”

A few angry tears fell from my eyes and I wiped them away quickly. He wasn’t going to win this by making me cry. “You’re such an asshole.”

He rolled his eyes and stalked out of the kitchen. I followed behind him and watched as he grabbed his jacket from where he had thrown it on the bench in the front hallway.

“You can’t just leave!”

He turned around. “Why the hell not? What’s the point in staying here while you deny anything wrong that you do and call me names. Every single fight we have is like this!”

“That’s not my fault!”

He laughed and shook his head as he put on his jacket.

“Stop laughing at me!” I cried, my voice raising into a yell. I wiped my eyes again.

“Then stop acting like a child.”

I fought to stop my chin from trembling as we stared at each other. I hate when he makes me feel like this. Nothing seems right in the world and he’s the cause of it. I know we used to have such good times together but it’s like those are such distant memories that I can’t even bring them to mind. “When did you become this person?” I whispered, not having the energy to yell anymore.

We're going down
And you can see it too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room

“You’re the one who’s changed,” he replied, his arms crossing over his chest. “You’re a completely different person than you used to be. All you want to do is nitpick at every little thing I do.”

I shook my head to try and stop his words but he continued.

“I can’t even breathe around you anymore without you jumping down my throat! Do you realize how exhausting it is to be around you?!”

I drew in a few shallow breaths. “If I’m so exhausting to be around, why did you ask me to move in with you?”

“I don’t know anymore. Maybe it was a last ditch effort to try and make things better between us. But obviously it’s the last thing you want.”

“You’re moving too fast. You always move too fast. I can’t handle it anymore! And I can’t keep having this same fight over and over!”

“Well what do you suggest then, Cassie? How do we fix this?”

More tears fell but this time I didn’t wipe them away. Instead I just hugged my arms around myself and stared at him.

He let out a long suffering sigh and shook his head. Only the sound of my broken breathing was heard in the room for a minute before he spoke, his voice laced with resignation. “Maybe we just need to finally admit that we can’t do this anymore.”

“This?”

“This. Us. You’re not happy. I’m sure as hell not happy. We’re just staying together because it’s comfortable and neither of us wants to admit there’s a problem. But I can’t take this anymore. We can’t do this anymore.”

His words sunk in and formed a heavy block in my stomach. “So that’s it then.”

“What else is there?”

Bits of anger flared up again that he was doing this to me. After all this time, he was just going to end it like this. “Then get out! Get out of my house!”

“Why would I stay?” he mumbled, taking the few steps to the door.

“I hate you!” I yelled, emotions taking over my brain. I just wanted to hurt him as much as he was hurting me. “GET OUT!”

“I’M LEAVING!” he yelled back and those were the last words he said before the door slammed behind him, rattling the pictures on the wall.

An angry scream escaped me and I whipped a throw pillow at the door but the squeal of tires on my driveway let me know that my target was gone and out of my life.

My dear, we’re slow dancing in a burning room