The lobby of the Vivace Building doesn’t have its usual bustle at six a.m., just some security guards and a few frazzled assistants hurrying through the lobby and for once Charlotte isn’t one of them. She’s come in early of her own volition today, forgoing her usual dress and heels, opting instead for a pair of old jeans and sneakers that squeak against the polished tile floor.

Today Charlotte is quitting.

The decision had been easy, one of the only things that had been during the two days she’d lain in bed nursing what felt like a gaping hole in her chest. She’d been amazed at how much he could still hurt her, even though he was gone and had been gone for awhile. She’d shifted from crippling sadness to fiery anger and back again, finally giving in and calling her mother in tears. If she was disappointed in Charlotte she hadn’t let on, just listened to her while she cried and lamented about how stupid she’d been, offering the only words a mother can in a situation where their child’s heart has been broken beyond repair; “I’m so sorry honey.”

She’d written her resignation email last night – Dear Ms. Domineck, I regretfully inform you that I will be leaving my position as your assistant effective immediately due to personal issues. – and was fully prepared to never set foot in the office again but little things kept nagging at her. That photo of her family on the Fourth of July that she kept propped up against her computer monitor, the sweater Felicity had insisted she buy that she left hanging on the back of her chair, the handful of seashells she and Justin had collected on the beach in L.A.

She closes her eyes against the memory, saying this will be quick. No one will be in the office and she can just grab her shit and go. She lets herself into the dark outer office, frowning as her key turns too easily in the lock. Her brow creases as she steps inside, a thin shaft of light falling from the crack left in Amelia’s office door and her stomach falls realizing she should have known that Amelia would try and get some work in before her flight left for her honeymoon later in the morning.

She tiptoes quietly around her desk, blood pounding in her ears as she snatches the photograph and the sweater, pausing before easing her middle drawer open slowly and letting her fingers run over the shells before nudging it closed again. That’s when she hears it, a soft gurgling noise from behind the office door followed by a thump-- the sound of papers sliding to the floor. Her heart nearly stops when she hears the dull hum of a male voice.

A male voice that isn’t Justin’s.

***

It’s entirely too early for Justin to be awake much less huffing and puffing his way through Central Park but restlessness chased sleep away far too quickly this morning and moving felt like his only option besides insanity. His shoes barely make a sound on the pavement but his body feels heavy, like his every step shakes the earth, his arms leaden weights at his sides.

He’s been married two whole days now, that fact that this seems like some sort of accomplishment scaring him and the thought propels him faster, legs pumping, heart pumping and he tries to take in more air to alleviate the tightness in his chest. His mind keeps wandering back to that one moment, looking at Amelia as she lifted her dress to climb the few steps towards him, when it had hit him so suddenly that this wasn’t what he’d wanted. At the time he’d thought it’d been too late to stop it, trying to logic that he was just being silly and the feeling would pass once the whole wedding craziness was over. But since then the only thing that had passed was seventy-two hours and that moment still played naggingly over and over in his head.

That and Charlotte’s face when she’d told him she loved him.

He snaps his eyes shut, picking up his pace and darting around a couple college girls jogging lazily down the path. He can’t think about her now without his chest feeling like it’s caving into a gaping hole above his sternum. But thoughts of her can’t be avoided, her face, her hair, her scent driven into his brain and those last moments, her tearstained face and her begging eyes won’t leave him. He’d tried everything, packed for his honeymoon, made love to his wife, even organized the desk in the office but everything was tainted. A shirt he was folding into his suitcase is one that Charlotte had encouraged him to buy when they were in LA together, sex with Amelia was more a test in keeping focus than a search for pleasure, and while going through envelopes in the office he’d unearthed the photos from his birthday party, among them shots of he and Charlotte together. He wondered how he hadn’t seen it then, the way she looked at him, the smile stretched wide across his face when he looked back at her. He’d cared for her so deeply even then.

He knows he’s the worst kind of ass, the most selfish of bastards and even though he knows there’s no way to make it right, he longs to try. He wants nothing more than to grab her and hold her and whisper apologies into her hair, to pour out his regret and sadness and seek the comfort she always gave. He snorts. Even when he’s trying to make amends he still can’t keep from being selfish.

More than anything else he longs to see her again, look at her with new eyes that now understand what it is to lose her. It’s not a good idea, he thinks to himself as he chugs along, slowing slightly as a cramp curls in his side. He’s resigned to his new life as Amelia Domineck’s husband and everything that goes along with that title, letting go of everything that doesn’t, like music and humor and the girl who loves him and he refuses to admit that he loves back.

***

Charlotte doesn’t know what it is inside her that propels her forward, that has her fingertips pressing to the wood of Amelia’s office door and nudging it so it swings open slowly, the low creak that Amelia was always bitching about sounding in the silent office. Their heads flick towards Charlotte instantly, Amelia immediately tugging her blouse closed, and through her shock Charlotte manages to think this is the only time she’s ever seen Amelia flustered. The older man who had been standing between her legs steps back and Charlotte looks at the ground as he buttons his trousers and buckles his belt.

“What are you doing here?” Amelia asks, her voice not holding its usual edge but one of a different kind and Charlotte looks up to find her scrambling off the edge of her desk and straightening her skirt down her legs.

“I…I…” Charlotte stutters meekly, her mind still reeling, grasping for something to say.

“Get out,” Amelia says lowly, her blue eyes on fire with rage and that look should have Charlotte trembling but it has no effect on her now as the shock wanes and anger ignites inside her

“How could you do this to him?” Charlotte asks, her voice astonished and hurt almost as if she were the one Amelia had betrayed.

The older man shifts awkwardly, running a hand over his salt and pepper hair. “I’ll call you,” he says lowly, his hand brushing Amelia’s and sharing a look with her before he gives Charlotte a tense smile and nudges past her. “Charlotte.”

“Arthur,” Charlotte replies dumbly nodding as he nods at her, the casual politeness almost comical with the electricity in the air.

“How could you, Amelia,” Charlotte asks again once he’s gone, her brow creasing as she takes in Amelia’s defiant stare. “He… he fucking loves you. He gave up everything for you!”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Amelia says loftily, an icy edge to her tone that suggests the subject is closed as she rounds her desk. “Now if you would leave my office-”

“You don’t even love him do you?” Charlotte asks in amazement. “He’s just some… thing that you can control.”

Charlotte’s hands are shaking, knowing she’s not making much sense but Amelia’s complete lack of shame has her thrown. How could someone so undeserving have everything that Charlotte wants and not even want it herself? The unfairness of it is almost too much for Charlotte to bear.

“My relationship with Justin is none of your concern,” Amelia replies as she sifts through papers on her desk, her voice indifferent as if Charlotte had merely walked in on her reading the newspaper instead of cheating on her husband and something inside Charlotte snaps.

“You’re right Amelia it’s not my concern,” she spits, the sarcasm in her voice causing Amelia’s eyes to lift to hers. “It never fucking has been. Except every time you hurt him, every time you let him down, or pushed him to be something he didn’t want to be he would come to me. I was the person who was there for him, who picked him up when you fucking knocked him down.”

“Oh please Charlotte you were never anything more than someone he could whine to,” Amelia replies, her face screwing up in annoyance. “You told him what he wanted to hear when he wanted to hear it and patted him on the head when he didn’t get his way. You were the one that put up with all the things I wouldn’t deal with.”

“Maybe I was!” Charlotte exclaims tears stinging her eyes as the anger burns hot in her veins, hating Amelia for getting right down to the heart of her insecurities and just chipping away at everything she believed in. “Maybe I was just the girl who let him bitch and bend her over his desk but that doesn’t change the fact that-”

“What did you say?” Amelia asks the hint of laughter mixed with disbelief in her voice and it takes Charlotte a moment to realize what she’d said.

All the air sucks from her lungs as her stomach clenches painfully at the realization that her mouth has once again run away from her. Amelia’s ice-cold eyes are calculating, her body perfectly still as she turns to face her, a hand settling on her hip.

“I…I…”

“Please,” Amelia mocks, nodding at Charlotte to continue. “Tell me more about how my husband bent you over his desk.”

Charlotte is silent, shame and embarrassment heating her cheeks and she can’t look at Amelia. As often as she’d fantasized about telling Amelia about her and Justin, imagined the look of fury or hurt or regret on Amelia’s face she never thought she’d actually do it. Amelia’s reaction is none of what Charlotte thought it would be. She’s not hurt or angry or sad, if anything she’s smug, a reaction that instills nothing but dread in Charlotte.

“Tell me all about what you two did,” Amelia says her eyes alight with malice. “And remind yourself of how none of it was enough to make him choose you.” Charlotte gasps as the pain comes cold and sharp and she didn’t think it was possible to hate Amelia more than she already did, her fists balling at her sides to fight the tears that blur her vision. “You were nothing but something quick and dirty when he couldn’t deal with all of me.”

“He came to me because he needed someone to be there for him,” Charlotte finds herself insisting, cursing the warble in her voice, hating herself for saying anything at all.

Amelia snorts, her eyes mocking. “He came to you because you opened your legs.”

She turns to her desk then, dismissing Charlotte with not so much as a flick of a hand and Charlotte has never felt more ashamed or worthless, regret and anger bitter in her mouth as she shakes her head, turning slowly to the door and wishing she would have left when her instincts told her to. Instead she is slinking away with her tail between her legs one last time, the injustice of this setting her jaw and hardening her eyes as she stomps out of the office, the banging of the door behind her not nearly enough to covey her rage.

***

Justin stands on the sidewalk, blinking up at the early morning sunlight that blinks off the Vivace building. His feet had followed his wandering mind and it had led him here, where his wife was working forty floors up but he knew it wasn’t her that brought him here. He wasn’t usually one for wallowing. In the past he’d gather himself, write a song and let it go but this was new territory for him. The lines of what he should do and what is right are tangled and blurred causing him to edge around his emotions with extreme caution and nudge against the boundaries he’d carefully laid in his mind when he’d take his vows.

There was no way that Charlotte would be here now, of that he was fairly certain. It’s too early and he thinks he knows her well enough to discern that she wouldn’t come in until after he and Amelia had left for France. It’s this assuredness that makes the sight of her bursting out the front door nearly buckle his knees.

Even from fifty feet away he can see that she’s distraught, fingers tangling in the hair that had whipped against her cheek, pulling it from her mouth and hurrying away as if her feet couldn’t move fast enough. His sneakers feel as if they’re stuck to the pavement even though his legs are itching to run, towards her and away from everything else, pushing at the boundaries but not breaking through. He closes his eyes as she disappears around the corner, running off to wherever it is she’s going and forcing himself not to think about it anymore. He’d already pushed her away and now it was really time to let go.

He takes the elevator up to Amelia’s office, telling himself that had been his plan all along, that he’d wanted to see her, that the few hours they’d spent apart was too much, forcing himself to believe it.

He steps into the outer offices just in time to see a picture frame go flying across the space viewable through the doorway of Amelia’s office, the sound of glass breaking causing him to jump, taking hurried footsteps to the door way. He looks inside just in time to see a vase go flying, hitting the side table behind the couch and shattering as well.

“What the hell are you-?” Justin starts, looking at her in astonishment but his words are cut off when her eyes meet his.

Amelia’s chest heaves under her blouse, her hair tussled and unkempt as if she’d run her hands through it, pulling and tugging on it in frustration. Her face is red and blotchy, eyes on fire but dry and his stomach turns cold at the look of unhindered rage on her face.

“You… you…how dare you,” Amelia snarls, her hands grappling around on her desk for something to throw.

Her fingers close around a glass paperweight and she rears back, lobbing it at his head but he doesn’t even have to move, her aim off by a good two feet. He merely looks at the dent in the drywall dumbly before blinking back at her.

“Did you know she was going to show up here this morning?” Amelia demands anger storming in her ice blue eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Justin asks and she reaches for something else to throw, grunting as she hurls her stapler in his direction, coming close enough that Justin sidesteps the doorway, looking at her in astonishment.

“I’m talking about your girlfriend coming in here this morning and informing me that you bent her over your desk,” Amelia yells and Justin’s eyes widen, feeling his stomach turn cold.

“Charlotte?” he asks thinly and he watches Amelia scoff, her hands scrambling across the desk looking for something else to throw.

“HAVE THERE BEEN MORE?” Amelia screeches and Justin winces, her voice loud enough to break glass as she hurls a handful of pens at him. “After everything we’ve been through,” more pens fly in his direction, “all the years we’ve been together.” He curls, turning his body half away to shield himself from her assault. “How could you do this to me???”

“Amelia, I-” he starts, searching for the words, but is cut off as his phone vibrates in the pocket of his basketball shorts.

“Is that her?” Amelia asks, her eyes on fire and Justin shakes his head, not even reaching for the phone. “It is isn’t it?”

Justin huffs frustrated, shoving his hand in his pocket to rip out his phone, ready to show her proof. “Amelia, it’s not-” but the words turn to ash in his mouth as he sees CHARLIE flashing in green across his outer screen.

“Go ahead,” Amelia replies coldly, crossing her arms over her chest and he swallows hard as her eyes lacerate him. “Answer it.”

“No, I-” he starts, moving to slip his phone back into his pocket but Amelia’s eyes flare.

“Answer it!” she screeches, causing Justin’s entire body to tense, his thumb slipping between to flip his phone open.

***

Charlotte listens as the phone rings, her eyes closing as she leans against a store front, pedestrians rushing past her and everything inside her is telling her to hang up. She doesn’t owe him a damn thing, not after everything he’d put her through but there was still a part of her that hoped, that thought maybe if he knew he’d finally see. She wondered how almost every part of her knew it wouldn’t be the case but that little piece of her heart that still belonged to Justin won the judgment call every time.

“Charlotte now is the worst possible time-” he breathes quickly by way of greeting and she bites her bottom lip hard at the sound of his voice summoning every ounce of courage she has.

“She’s cheating on you.”

The line is silent, nothing but static and the city bustle around her, not even her breath which she holds trapped in her lungs awaiting his response. Which is an uneventful, albeit astonished sounding, “What?”

“She’s cheating on you,” Charlotte repeats, the warble in her voice evident and she curses it. “I went to get my stuff this morning and she was there with him. I walked in on them.” She pauses shifting uncomfortably. “Are… are you there?”

“Yeah,” is his only response, his voice low and without emotion.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” she sighs, letting her head hang back, bringing a hand up to run over her face. “God knows I don’t owe you a fucking thing but…” she hears him swallow hard before she sighs again. “you needed to know.”

She pauses waiting for Justin to say something but he doesn’t. She grits her teeth hard as her vision blurs over, letting her head fall back hard against the cement of the building, fingers curling hard around her phone.

“Justin-” she starts, her voice a warning, patience hanging by a thread but he cuts her off.

“Now’s not a good time,” he says evenly, his voice barely in control and her mouth pops open in shock.

“Right,” she replies, sniffing hard as she wipes away a stray tear angrily. “Sorry to bother you,” she adds bitterly and then because she can’t stop herself she adds, “you know you two fucking deserve each other. I hope you live happily ever after,” before snapping her phone shut angrily.

***

Justin listens to the sharp snap as the call is cut off, staring resolutely down at the floor. His limbs tingle as adrenaline races through his veins, his pounding heart feeling as if it’s battering his ribs and sternum, a sensation he’s familiar with but had hoped he’d never feel again. He inhales shakily and it’s as if the air is on fire, burning his lungs and scorching its way through his chest. When he looks up at Amelia the defiance in her expression dulls, mixing with apprehension as she shifts from one foot to the other.

Justin takes another shaking breath, realizing that he’s still holding the silent phone to his ear. He pulls it away slowly, looking down at it before curling his thumb around it and letting it close slowly. He blinks down at the floor, shaking his head as he breathes a disbelieving laugh while slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“You’re…” he starts, his voice a disbelieving rasp. He shakes his head again, clearing his throat. “You’re cheating on me.”

His own assuredness surprises him, the sentence leaving his lips with no hint of a question and that’s when the last several months come vividly into focus. The late dinners and early meetings, cocktails after work and long lunches. How could he have been so completely blind? Then again it wasn’t as if he’d hadn’t been doing the exact same thing.

“Well…” she says, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, tipping her chin up. “You’re cheating on me.”

“No I called it off with Charlotte months ago. Because I was trying to make us work,” Justin finds himself yelling, jabbing his thumb into his chest as the hurt burns away to anger. “Because I loved you and thought that you loved me too and now I find out this bullshit?”

“Of course I love you, Justin,” she says with a roll of her eyes as if he were stupid for even mentioning it.

“You’re up here with some guy two fucking days after our wedding!” he yells, the indecency of it all boiling inside him, the unfairness and all of the breath sucks from his lungs as he finally comes to realize that this isn’t a mistake he can force himself to live with. “Oh my god what have I done?” Justin breathes, his eyes moving back and forth across the floor but he sees nothing but Charlotte running from the room and him being too stupid to stop her.

“Justin,” Amelia says calmly, letting her arms fall to her sides, her voice holding a diplomatic air. “We’ve both… we’ve both done things that-”

“I can’t,” he breathes, shaking his head eyes wide in disbelief as he reaches for the back of the couch to keep his balance. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I did this.”

“It’s alright,” Amelia says crossing the room to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s done and we just need to forgive each other and move o-”

“It’s not alright,” Justin says, the fire in his eyes cutting off her words and she blinks back at him bewildered. “None of this is alright.”

“Okay well we can fix it,” Amelia says and he can tell she’s fighting the roll of her eyes, impatience causing the corners of her mouth to turn down.

“No this can’t be fixed,” Justin says before he can really even process what he’s saying but as soon as the words leave his lips it’s as if a giant weight has been lifted from his shoulders. It can’t be fixed; no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much distance he puts between himself and Charlotte – this isn’t about he and Charlotte – this, between he and Amelia, can’t be mended. He looks at her steadily, his eyes holding hers as he says the first honest thing to her in god knows how long. “We can’t fix this, Amelia.”

She’s visibly flustered, stuttering a little before anger smolders in her ice blue eyes. “What do you mean we can’t fix this.”

“It’s… it’s been over for awhile,” Justin says softly, heaving a sigh of defeat and her eyebrows race to her hairline, a disbelieving laugh sucking from her throat she looks as if she’s been sucker punched.

“Don’t… don’t be ridiculous,” she says, trying to keep the humor in her voice but Justin can hear the underlying panic. “You can’t mean tha-”

“Amelia,” Justin says with a sigh, his eyes boring into hers, saying a million things without speaking and he watches her face pucker, her neck turning red.

“What so you just want to… to…” she stutters, gesturing wildly between them. “We’ve been together for three years. We just got married.”

“I know,” Justin says, closing his eyes as if the thought physically pains him. “I know it’s bad timing-”

“Bad timing?” Amelia scoffs in disbelief and Justin winces at his poor choice of words. “I’m so sorry our marriage didn’t fit into your schedule.”

“That’s not what I meant-”

“After everything I’ve done for you,” Amelia goes on, her fists balling at her sides as her body tenses. “All the sacrifices I’ve made-”

“The sacrifices you’ve made?” Justin asks, his face screwing up as his anger gets the best of him. “What fucking sacrifices have you made?”

“Justin I have done nothing but try and make you and your label successful since we got together. I put you with people who normally wouldn’t have given you the time of day. I put my reputation on the line so that you could succeed and-”

“That’s it?” Justin asks with a disbelieving scoff and Amelia’s brow creases, her lips puckering showing that’d he’d wounded her but he goes on fueled by rage and all the things he’d left unsaid for too long. “I gave up my life for you Amelia. My music, my family, my friends and you think you sacrificed because you lost a little clout with the big boys in the suits? You don’t know what sacrifice is.”

“My reputation is all I have!” Amelia says, her voice breaking as it raises and his anger finally reaches its breaking point.

“No it isn’t you have me!” he yells back, throat constricting. “You had all of me Amelia. Every piece,” he releases a shaky sigh as his emotions well and he looks down, striving for composure. “I gave you everything,” he goes on, his voice low and uneven but when he looks at her it gains strength, “and you took it all and then asked for more and gave me nothing back.”

“Gave you nothing back?” she screeches, eyes flaring and he winces. “I gave you everything. I made you what you are!”

“A miserable coward? Yeah you did. Thanks for that.”

His bitterness shocks her, her mouth popping open and he grits his teeth letting his head tip back as he takes a slow calming breath before letting his eyes fall on her again. Her jaw is set now, eyes angry and confused, fists balled petulantly at her sides and he wants nothing more than to take the easy way out and draw her into his arms, tell her its alright and that they would talk about all of this later. But later is now and he’s been putting this conversation off for entirely too long.

“Amelia, we can’t do this anymore,” he says softly, reaching out to cup her bicep and she jumps at the contact, looking dumbly at his hand on her skin. “We’ve got to-”

“Look, I’m sorry about this morning,” she says hastily, panic lacing her words. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I forgive you for your indiscretion with Charlotte.” She moves to turn away from him but his grip on her arm is firm.

She looks back at him, trying to hide her hurt with frustration but a doleful look from him causes her to blink slow and press her lips together, letting out a slow resigning breath. She doesn’t look at him, just reaches for his other hand and threads her fingers through his, the coolness of his wedding band shocking her searing skin.

“What does this mean?” she questions softly, her fingers squeezing around his and he squeezes back, his chest ripping open.

“You know what it means,” he replies lowly and when she looks up at him her eyes are wet, tears brimming on her lower lids and it sucks the air right from his lungs.

They just stare at each other for a moment, speaking to each other in a look, Justin searching for any sign to turn back but for the first time he finds none. He can see her looking for a way to change his mind, words to say to get him to drop this, admit he’s being silly and that they can rectify this somehow. He gives a slight shake of his head, hating that it has to be this way, feeling as if his guts are being torn apart from inside.

She sniffles looking down at their joined hands. “I’ll have my lawyer contact yours.”

She drops his hand quickly, turning her back to him and quickly walking towards her desk, busying herself by shuffling papers across the surface. His brow creases, wishing there was something he could say, something he could do but he’d said it before and it was true. There was no fixing this.

“Amelia-”

“Just go,” is her broken and warbling reply and even though she can’t see him he nods, turning to leave and pauses at the door for one last glance over his shoulder, saying a silent goodbye to her and everything they’d shared.