Free Betrayed by Kelly Harper

bi…”
    “Ethan,” a voice said, loudly. Trevor was standing at the table next to them, and clapped his brother on the back. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
    Ethan looked up at his brother, startled, then back at Dana. He saw nothing but red. He needed to get out of there before he said something he’d really regret.
    “No,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
    Ethan shoved away from the table and stood up. Dana was moving just as quickly.
    “I’m Dana,” she said. Her face softened instantly, and she leaned forward just a bit as she raised her hand to Trevor. Her eyes were big, and she grinned at him in a way that made an impression.
    “Trevor,” he said, awkwardly. He took her hand and shook it, dumbly.
    Ethan didn’t hang around. “We’re going,” he said again. He marched straight out of the small coffeehouse and straight toward his car.
    He couldn’t believe the nerve of her. He couldn’t believe that she was so spiteful - that she would ruin her friend’s chance at happiness just because she was upset with him.
    He shook his head, trying to clear the rage building there. The fact of the matter was that it didn’t matter what Dana said. It was his fault for keeping his previous relationship from Kayla. But he knew he could earn her trust again, he just needed to be given the chance to do so. He knew their relationship could overcome the setback. He just needed the chance.
    But Dana wasn’t going to give it to him. She wasn’t going to let him have that chance.
    Ethan sat in the car for a few minutes, fuming, before he realized that Trevor hadn’t followed him out. Another couple of minutes passed before he finally emerged from the coffeehouse and made it to the car.
    “What?” Trevor asked innocently when he was in the car. “She gave me her number.”
    Ethan eyed him hard.
    “Don’t,” he said.
    Trevor wore a shit-eating grin all the way back to the house.

    * * * * *

    Finals week passed without excitement. Somehow, I managed to keep my head down and focused on studying for the two finals I had to take. Ethan had called several times a day - every day. But I stuck to my guns and avoided his calls. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to his voicemails, either, and just deleted them before they played.
    I didn’t have time to deal with him. I didn’t trust myself to make it through a conversation. I wanted so desperately for things to be fixed between us. I wanted so desperately to have never found out about him and Dana. But nothing was going to change that. The only thing left to me was to keep my head down, and keep moving forward. First finals, then my business school application.
    All the while finals were going on, I also had to make sure my residents were ready to move out of the dorms. I had to be ready to move out of the dorms. It was only for a few weeks, but there was no coming back once I was gone.
    I packed a few suitcases of clothes, keeping most of it simple. It’s not like I was going to be living it up during vacation - I was going to be working. By the time Friday rolled around, and my last resident left for home, I was ready to bolt as far from the dorm as possible. I was ready for something new. I needed to isolate myself and get down to work.
    I threw my stuff in the back of my car and drove over to Dana’s apartment. It wasn’t far from campus, but it felt like a wholly different world. She wasn’t there when I arrived, but she’d already given me a key to let myself in. The apartment was palatial compared to my dorm room. I wondered what it would be like to not care for money. I wasn’t jealous, and Dana tried her hardest to not flaunt things in front of me, but we came from two different worlds.
    Her parents had made a lot of money in business. Her father was a graduate of Arizona’s business program - like I hoped to be in a few years - and he’d gone on to do great things. After earning an MBA degree from Harvard, he had gone on to