Free Something to Talk About by Melanie Woods Schuster

numb to do anything else. I was in such a state of shock I couldn’t really react at that moment. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t think, and I was damned if I was going to cry in front of Adam; I just wasn’t going out like that. My brothers would have beaten the paste out of me if I’d ended up a sniveling mess; I had the Fuentes name to uphold. We don’t break down in front of anyone; no matter how much it hurts you never let them see you cry.
    “ We drank the wine, we sat there looking stupid for a while, and he left. I made up a bed on the couch and I eventually went to sleep. The wine was good for that at least,” she said ruefully.
    They were now sitting in the middle of the big bed and Roxy fell over on her side with a groan. “Alicia, quit dragging this out and get to the meat of the story. Did you or did you not do the deed with Adam? And if so, when? Don’t do this to me, woman, you know I have immediate gratification syndrome, I need to know now."
    “My goodness, you are impatient, aren’t you? Okay, sit up and listen. I was like an automaton for the next few weeks. I managed to get a new mattress, finish my exams, explain to my family that the engagement was off, and ignore the gossip on campus. I even survived the inevitable confrontation with Preston, who somehow had the shiny brass cojones to try to get back into my life and my bed by apologizing. Over and over again, I might add. He sent so many flowers my apartment looked like a funeral home, or it would have if I hadn’t given the flowers away to everyone in the building,” she said derisively.
    “I was miserable, but I made it through all of that mess until Yvette came to me and announced that she was pregnant and if I would just be so kind as to stop clinging to Preston, they could have a life together. That was just too much sugar for a dime, as my grandmother used to say. He didn’t want her and had the gall to use me as a reason for not marrying her,” Alicia said indignantly. “I went ziggety-boom on that heifer. I cussed her for old and new and told her to go hell. Don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars, just go straight to hell and take her Satan spawn with her. I swore for about ten minutes in Spanish and English until her eyes were popping out of her head and she looked like a troll doll. She was standing in my doorway like I was supposed to invite her in for tea or something .  I shoved her bony butt into the hallway and slammed the door.” Alicia’s eyes were blazing with remembered pain.
    “For some stupid reason, that’s what did it,” she admitted slowly. “That’s what made me go all gooey in the noggin and head straight to Adam’s apartment.”
    ***
    The scent of the spring rain coming in the open windows was a refreshing contrast to Adam’s current mood. The situation with Alicia was eating at him like a slow-acting poison. He knew he’d never forget the look on her face when she realized that the man she was prepared to spend her life with was rutting another woman in her bed like a boar servicing a breeding sow in heat. He’d cursed himself over and over again for pushing open that door, knowing what was on the other side, but he couldn’t undo what he’d done. And he certainly couldn’t take back the set of circumstances that had led Yvette and Preston to betray the people they supposedly cared about. It was ironic in a sick way; he’d been as devastated as Alicia over the incident but for an entirely different reason. He wanted to rage and rant and plant his foot deeply in Preston’s behind, but not because of Yvette, because of Alicia.
    He and Yvette had been dating, true, but she was like every other woman in his life, a temporary diversion, someone to spend time with. She was pretty and mildly amusing, but finding her in bed with another man affected him only because it almost destroyed Alicia. She was gaunt and pale and listl ess, and even though she was putting on a brave front, she was