Cayla Cherry POV:
Griffith' s face, already pale, drained of all color. He spun around, his hand raised. "Kallie! What are you saying?! That's a lie!" His voice was a guttural roar, filled with a desperate denial.
But Kallie, emboldened by her supposed trump card, ignored him. Her eyes, still filled with spite, met mine. "It's not a lie! Remember that night, Griffith, a few weeks ago? When Cayla was sick with the flu? You told her you had a 'client emergency' and spent the night at my place. You said you needed comforting. You said I was your everything!" She smirked, a cruel glint in her eyes. "We didn't just comfort each other, did we, Griffith? We made a baby!"
The air left my lungs in a painful gasp. That night. I had been burning with fever, alone in our San Francisco apartment, texting him for comfort. He' d promised to call back, then went silent. He was with her. He was with her, making a baby, while I lay sick and alone, missing him. The irony was a bitter, suffocating cloak.
"You sick, twisted, pathetic excuse for a human being!" I shrieked, my voice raw with a fury that burned away all reason. "Both of you! You deserve each other! Go to hell!" I turned on my heel, pushing through the stunned crowd, blindly heading for the exit.
"Cayla! Wait! It's not true!" Griffith's desperate voice followed me, his footsteps thudding behind me. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
I reacted instinctively. My hand shot out, a stinging slap across his face. The sound was sharp, definitive. "Don't you dare touch me! Don't you dare try to explain anything to me! Your explanations are as worthless as your promises, Griffith!"
My eyes, red-rimmed and burning, focused on his face. "Do you remember, Griffith? Do you remember when I had that terrible flu? I was alone, miles away, begging for a call, for some comfort. You told me you had a 'client emergency.' Now I know your emergency was Kallie. Your 'comfort' was her bed."
I leaned in, my voice a venomous whisper. "Do you even remember my favorite color anymore? Do you remember the day we met? Do you remember anything about me that doesn't involve your convenience or your guilt?"
He stood there, silent, his gaze fixed on my face, devoid of any answers. His silence was the loudest confession.
With a final, trembling hand, I pulled the engagement ring, the one he' d finally given me after ten years, off my finger. It felt cold and foreign. I brought my arm back and hurled it with all my might onto the polished marble floor. It skittered, bounced, and landed with a pathetic clatter, a tiny, glittering symbol of our shattered future.
"I will never forgive you, Griffith Cooper," I said, my voice hollow. "Never. Get your life together. Or don't. I don't care." I straightened my shoulders, feeling a strange clarity. "This decade of my life, this ten years with you, was a colossal waste. A painful, humiliating, utterly pointless waste."
I looked at him one last time, a stranger with a familiar face, then turned and walked away, not looking back.
