Honesty is the best policy?

"Three, ok? Three people," I said, starting to get angry now. "I've fucked three other people since I started banging you. Happy?"

My anger vanished as soon as I saw the look on his face. Shit. "Jesus, I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I didn't -"

"Thanks for being honest," Liam said, cutting me off. He didn't sound very thankful. In fact, he sounded like Dad when something had really got to him, all quiet, as if he was in an emotional fetal position.

"Liam," I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. I barely made contact before, in a blur of motion, he batted my arm away, hard. Fuck, that hurt, I registered as he began walking away. "Hey, bro -"

"See you later, Emily," he said, quickly pulling on his shoes and opening the front door.

"For God's sakes," I muttered, chasing him out of the door. "Hey!"

"Just give me some fucking space, Emily! Go back to your girlfriend," he yelled over his shoulder. At this point, he was starting to pull away from me; without any shoes, the stones of the sidewalk were painful on my feet, and I was finding it hard to keep up.

Eventually, it sunk in that the damage was done, and I stopped running after him, instead watching him disappear down the road. He didn't even have his schoolbag, I noticed absentmindedly.

Returning to Chrissie's, I went back through the open front door - it seemed like no one had even noticed the row. I felt a soft wetness on my sock, and looked down to see that a couple of drops of water had dripped onto it. Goddammit, I'm crying again, aren't I? I thought distantly as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

Suddenly I glanced up to see Chrissie coming downstairs. "Hey - oh shit, what's up?" she asked, coming down and wrapping me up in a hug.