“So…” Justin’s head nodded almost compulsively as he nervously drummed his fingertips together.

“So,” Stacey echoed.

“I, uhh, I’m amazed I’m not dead yet. If looks could kill…”

“Do you blame them?” She asked lightly.

“No. Really don’t.”

Entering the Pi Beta house had been the last thing Justin felt like doing. He had seriously hoped he and Stacey would be able to have this little chat at her dorm, but she had insisted it be here; he had a distinct feeling that was something to do with putting him in hostile territory and her at the advantage. In another situation he might complain, but right now he figured that he ought to let her have it.

The evil expressions that had been cast his way had dripped with loathing. There had been a few more neutral ones, but from what he could see the crowd this evening was made up of freshmen who would be close to Stacey and juniors who would be at prime Cara hating age. He had expected no less than absolute abhorrence. Stacey, to her credit, had shot them all a warning glance and then pulled him upstairs to one of the studies. She had even waited them out a few minutes and then pulled open the door, busting them in their attempt to eavesdrop.

Stacey herself had been eerily calm. He wasn't sure why, but he had expected some screaming or some yelling or maybe some tears. She had been so easily upset by their previous fights that he had expected to be dealing with the waterworks, but she looked remarkably unfazed. The only hint was in her ensemble – her blonde hair was hanging uncharacteristically loose and un-styled, and instead of her usual preppy uniform she was slouching in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans not entirely unlike the ones he was wearing.

“Stuart said he called you.”

“Yeah. Couple of times.”

“I apologise for whatever he said to you in my name. I did tell him to keep his big nose out.”

Justin had to bite his lip to hold back the smile he didn’t think was appropriate right now. He was having a hard time believing she had just apologised to him, particularly about words said in her defence which were not at all undeserved. He’d got into a fairly fiery argument with Stuart on the subject of whether or not it was his business to be interfering, but he couldn’t say he’d disagreed with the content of what he had said.

“It’s okay. He’s just worried about you.”

“I can take care of myself.” She folded her arms over her chest, leaning back against the desk.

“I’m noticing that.” He scratched the nape of his neck awkwardly, not entirely sure how to start this conversation off. “How do you want to do this? Like… you want me to talk, you wanna inquisition me… what?”

“I dunno. Can’t say I’ve ever had to grill a guy on why he’s cheated on me before. It’s a new experience for me. Thanks for that.”

It was her first bite of sarcasm for the evening, but somehow the long suffering expression on her face took the sting out of it. It was strange; she looked more weary than hurt. He’d been terrified of devastating her, but she merely looked resigned. He immediately banished the nasty thought in the back of his head which found that a kick to his ego.

“I’m guessing telling you I’m sorry is just gonna sound trite.”

“Depends. Are you? Sorry?”

Justin caught Stacey’s eyes, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “Course I’m fucking sorry. I’m a sorry ass who’s very sorry indeed.”

“Do you think you’re in a position to get snippy with me right now?” She glared at him.

“Sorry…” His hands rubbed fretfully over his shorn head. “I just… honestly, Stace, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I know I have, obviously, but…”

She sat on the desk now, swinging her feet beneath her. She was too short for her bare feet to quite reach the floor. Her hands dived into the pockets of her jeans, and her shoulders hunched a little.

“I’m having trouble, Justin…” Stacey paused, “with how you can say you didn’t mean to hurt me when obviously this is something you chose to do. It’s not like you can accidentally cheat on somebody, you have to choose to do it.”

“I just…” He took a deep breath and prepared to launch into the sorry tale. “First thing you have to understand is that this is not about you, okay? I mean, I know people say this bullshit ‘it’s not you it’s me’ line all the time, but it’s honestly true. You’ve been nothing but good to me and I don’t want you thinking you weren’t good enough or some shit.”

She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Which begs the question why you were hankering after her instead of me? Don’t deny it,” she held up a palm to silence him before he’d even got his mouth half open, “I know you were never half as interested in me as you were in her. I might be a little over optimistic but I’m not stupid.” She smiled wryly. “Think I probably knew from the first time I met her.”

Justin breathed out, using his feet to swivel himself back and forth in the office chair, staring at the carpet and his entwined fingers.

“I knew, Justin. You’re in love with her, and I was so frickin’ in awe of her like a star struck little idiot that I… I don’t even know. You made me feel like I had to be like her to get your attention, like I wasn’t good enough. Lord knows you’ve got pissed off with me over some ridiculous shit.”

He sighed deeply.

“I won’t lie and say there wasn't stuff that annoyed me about you, but that’s just normal shit, it doesn’t make a difference. I know shit about me annoyed you too. Stace, you have to understand, this thing with Cara… it’s about me being fucked up. And her, also, but in regards to you and me it’s about me being fucked up. I’m fucking ashamed of myself to say it, but every girl I’ve dated since I met her has had the same shit from me, it’s just this time… I know this has to sound like such a cop out, but this time the circumstances just kinda mixed up and made it worse and the result was this stupid fling with her. I don’t even know how, I just found myself doing this shit that I knew was wrong.”

Stacey rubbed a hand over her face before using it to push her hair back behind her ears, looking thoughtful. “But can you understand how this looks to me like you’d rather shit all over me who actually wanted to be with you for the sake of this girl who was dating somebody else and apparently had no intention of leaving him? I mean, she’s been pretty damn two faced with me so I dread to think what she’s managed to do to you in three years.”

“I understand how it looks, but I swear to God Stacey, you’re a great girl and you haven’t done anything wrong. I just… I’m fucked up!”

Justin couldn’t help thinking back over his entire college experience with Cara, his little chats with Tom of late, the three years of constant longing for a woman who never seemed to want him. His blue eyes became impossibly dark as his face set into a hard frown. The problem with trying to explain this to Stacey was that it forced him to think abut it himself, order his thoughts, and with examining his thoughts came a few nasty truths he’d prefer not to think about.

However, he owed the little blonde in the blue sweatshirt an explanation, so he guessed he had to press on.

“Cara is a bitch, alright? I’ve known that since I met her. She’s not a bitch on purpose, and when she manages to get over it for a second she’s a great girl. But she’s selfish and she’s self absorbed and she’s got so many frickin’ self image problems it makes her totally blind to those little people around her. Which is why I know it’s so damn stupid that I feel this way about her, and why you really shouldn’t envy her or whatever -your shit is way more together than hers, even if she does have this cool image or whatever.”

Stacey thought idly to herself that it pained her less than she had thought it would to hear that Justin had been in love with Cara all this time, not her. She guessed she really had always known it, even if she’d liked him enough to hope she could make him forget. A little part of her was gratified to hear him say she was more mature than the other woman, especially since she was younger than her.

“I just… I can’t explain it. I’ve been nuts about her since I met her. And I know she’s never going to feel that back even if by some miracle she actually notices I feel that way about her, but… it was a shitty thing to do, Stacey, and I’m so sorry, but she was looking for comfort or an ego boost or whatever the fuck it was and she’s had me so screwed up over her for three years I gave her what she wanted because I wanted her any way I could get her. And you have no idea how much I wanted to just forget her, stick with you and get over it, but… I’m sorry. I wish I could give you a better explanation for this but all I got is that I’m a bastard.”

“Wow. I’m so glad I asked for honesty.”

She was feeling just a little kicked in the gut. No matter how Justin was trying to play it off by saying he was the bad guy, Stacey still felt passed over and tossed aside. This guy had taken her virginity, been fairly inconsiderate of her even before they got to the part where she was being used as a failed distraction tactic or bed warmer, and he had cheated on her with somebody she thought it fairly obvious she had been afraid of him cheating with.

“Stacey…”

“No, Justin.” She interrupted him. “I mean, I respect you’re being honest with me, don’t get me wrong, but I think I’m allowed to be pretty pissed. You’re basically telling me that you date girls but you never bother trying because you’d rather pine after Cara who you admit is a bitch, you did the same to me except I’m the lucky one you actually cheated on… do not expect me to be all understanding and Little Miss Nice Girl. I think I already let you trample over me enough.”

He had the decency to look ashamed of himself as he responded. “I really did like you, Stacey. Please don’t think I didn’t. I really wish I could have felt differently.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Huh?” He was confused.

“Three years is plenty of time to get over a crush JT. Especially when you date a whole bunch of girls in between. You act like this thing you have for her is something you can’t control? Bullshit. You just don’t want to. You don’t want to let go of it just like you didn’t want to do the right thing and not cheat. Don’t act like somebody else is pulling your strings.”

“How do you figure?” Justin asked incredulously, astounded by what she had just said. In addition, her tone had taken him aback because he couldn’t recall her ever having sounded so forceful or so akin to a drill sergeant.

Stacey shrugged. “Maybe she’s a convenient excuse to not get close to anybody, maybe you just have issues and enjoy being emotionally abused, I don’t know. I’m a biology major, not a frickin’ therapist.”

“Emotionally abused?”

“Yep.” She picked at a nail that was threatening to break. “Emotionally abused. She’s used you to fluff up her ego or whatever just like you used me to get you off in the meantime. She’s strung you along and played off your feelings for her just like you strung me along knowing I was way more into you than you were into me. If fucking with people’s feelings like that isn’t emotional abuse I don’t know what is."

Justin looked horrified. “Stacey, I never meant to…”

“Well you did.”

What he found eerie was how matter of fact she was being. The tone was slightly biting and there was obvious anger in her eyes, but he had expected her to be far more hysterical. There was an insidious little voice in the back of his brain telling him that this was because she’d become desensitised to the notion – desensitised because she had known long before now that she was being treated as second choice.

“I… I’m sorry. I really am sorry, Stacey, I just don’t know what I can say to make it right.”

“Newsflash. The way to make it right was to have actually put some frickin’ effort into being with me. Or at least had the guts to dump me before you started sleeping with somebody else. Both those ships left the docks a while ago buddy.”

When Justin failed to respond, Stacey made her way to the door and opened it. She half expected to find more people outside it, but to her surprise there were none. One hand held the door open, the other rested on her jutting hip.

“I think you can leave now. I don’t think there’s much more you can do except repeat yourself and keep pissing me off.”

He couldn’t actually bring himself to get up. Instead his head flopped forward into his hands, shaking from side to side in condemnation: not of her, but himself.

“I really am sorry, Stacey. I know that probably means shit to you, but I honestly never meant to use you or whatever else you think I did. I just thought you were cool, wanted to get to know ya. I didn’t mean to be such a bastard or hurt you so much.”

Despite herself, she felt the icy wall in her chest melt just a little when she saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes. Naturally they weren’t going to fall, but it made her feel a little better knowing they wanted to. When all was said and done she didn’t think she was ever going to be able to hate him, but she now saw precisely how bad he had been for her. He had made her feel inadequate and unwanted. Justin had ignored her feelings and had taken what he wanted from her without giving a lot back - it had taken half the sorority to convince her that sex was only supposed to be bad the first few times you had it. He had shown a complete lack of regard for her in his actions and as much as she couldn’t quite think he was a bad person, he was a hideously bad boyfriend.

“Hey, I’ll live. Take more than your sorry ass to break me.”

Stacey almost thought she saw him smile.