As Darcy rapidly approaches her boyfriend's house in thunderous swift, she feels a sense of melodramatic heroinism. This noblewoman is coming to reclaim here pride and dignity!
Even though walking the road to his house on feet takes longer than expected, and walking on heels is a pain in the ass, Darcy feels not discouraged or footworn at all!
In the distance Darcy can see his house, just three hundred meters and she will be at her target! The house Jake resides in is a sleek, two-story detached and stand-alone glass box house with large floor-to-ceiling glass walls, flat roofline, with a combination of natural wood, steel, and concrete finishes.
All with all very modern and chic, even the house Darcy lives in is not that well-rounded and exquisite. Although her house is also in neoteric fashion, it cannot match the house she is approaching now, even the location is better: It stands alone in a hilly area full of low, mown gras just outside of the city that is notorious for being a refuge for - the really - rich and wealthy people, like Jake's mother, a successful lawyer. One can wonder how such a calm and sly woman can have such a birdbrained miscreant of a son....
Darcy was now at hundred-meter distance. Each step thudded heavier than the last, not from the weight of the sky, but from the knot twisting in her chest. She rehearsed the venomous words she had prepared in her head, again and again. At his doorstep she would spit them all out, each like a sharp dagger thrust; he must feel her wrath, her anger!
It's time for him to feel how I feel! How it feels to be toyed with, how it feels to be cast aside, like an used toy! How dare he neglect me?! Insolent licentile!
Jake's house was just ahead - familiar, too familiar. She had laughed under that porch light, kissed him beneath those maple trees, even danced in the summer rain on this very sidewalk. But today, something was different. Very different! Darcy is smiling and laughing no more!
She stopped at the gate, watching into the living room window. His silhouette moved inside - casual, unbothered. He definitely didn't expect her. Certainly didn't think she'd come.
It is five over ten in the morning, and Darcy cannot recall visiting him unannounced in the morning is something she did before.
Yesterday was the shock and the humiliation, today there will be justice and victory!
Jake certainly won't be expecting her, the advantage of surprise lies with her, and she will make good use of it. She must take good use of it, because Jake is very strong verbally, she must not give him the initiative, that would be dangerous!
Darcy took a breath. Then another. Then she moved.
She walked up the path, climbed the two steps, and knocked on the door of his house.
A beat. Then another.
The door opened. As expected, it is Jake himself who is opening - his mother is working, and his little brothers are too young to take the initiative of opening the front door to receive guests or picking up packages.
As often is the case, her easy-going and inornate-spartan Adonis is dressed in a casual blue-white tracksuit, the kind that blends comfort with modern streetwear style. His hooded sweatshirt is of soft cotton, slightly oversized, with the hood resting loosely against his back. The matching jogger pants taper down to his ankles, cuffed snugly just above a pair of clean, white sneakers - minimalist in design but clearly well-kept. Beneath the hoodie, a basic white T-shirt peeks out at the collar and hem, untucked and comfortably loose. On his wrist, a simple smartwatch adds a touch of utility without drawing too much attention. His refined silked-thin hair is tousled wild and ferocious, sticking out in all directions.
His whole outfit speaks of ease, movement, and low-key style - a guy dressed to go anywhere without needing to change a thing, so typically Jake.... She could draw him from scratch in that outfit, using only her memory, so characteristically it was for him to wear streatwear. That casual easy-going style was his watermark.
"Darcy? Hey, I didn't know you were—"
"We need to talk," she said, her voice steady but quiet. She doesn't want to attack him full-on in a cannonade of words yet. Like a seemingly calm snake she was to make sure to attack him at the right time....
Jake blinked. "Okay... sure. Come in."
"No. Here."
A silence stretched between them, tense as a bowstring. Darcy looked at him - really looked at him - and saw it. Not guilt. Not confusion. Just avoidance.
She felt the urge to burst out in anger now, however that look of confusion on his pensive, tornfell face showed he was in dire entanglement; he was in dismay, slowly but steady he started to realize the situation, why she was now standing so angrily in front of him, with so much haughtiness in her attitude and bravado in her style of dress, on this unusual hour of the day.
That face painted in colours of dismay and bewilderment was so satisfying, it was like he was in full-blown daze. He was stupefied, at loss of words! That Jake! That confident, verbally strong mastermind that is always so arrogant and boastful! He has lost it completely! How beautiful.
Now it seemed like he tried to desperately avoid touching that painful subject. But that was impossible, he cannot deny his cheating. There are photos, and he knows photos were taken, and that those photos are posted. What he did yesterday was wrong. It is insolent to kiss another girl while being in a relationship. He knows that damn well. This is not the first time him and her are fighting over an affair and right now he is desperately thinking of getting himself as quick as possible out of this mess off situation he brought himself in again.
He was probably just about to leave for the gym, but that won't happen, Darcy won't let that happen. He is going to tell her. Tell her what causes his insolent behaviour. His neglect of her.
Let this moment lof silence last for a little while longer, that expression on his face is priceless....
''Darcy—''
"I saw the photos Jake," Darcy interrupted him mercilessly. "From Elys, from the study group account." She went silent again and watched him thoroughly.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. The wind whispered through the trees, filling the silence he didn't dare to break now that she had exposed the reason why she is standing on his porch right now. He was stunned.
Darcy was baffled by his silence, that was unusual. Maybe he wasn't fully awake yet, but.... Darcy began to fell a strange sense of ominousness; the atmosphere became leisurely baleful; normally when they have a fight, it quickly becomes theatrical exaggerated, like a screenplay full of predictable drama, easy to foresee. But now her Adonis looks like he is seriously calculating his words, and his options. Gone is the familiar drama; Jake wasn't playing along anymore. The once hot-brained and overconfident thugboy has been tamed; how could that happen so fast? Was it seriously, that after that accident and trouble he had four months earlier, he now truly is in all earnestly reforming his life, like.... Seriously?! Jake changing his bad habits.... Impossible! Would he dare to ditch her away? Is that serious a possibility now?
No, that can't be, I am too important for him!
Darcy felt that she was giving away the momentum, eventually he will take initiative again, she cannot let that happen, that was not the plan! She had to get her things together; even if there will be a breakup and if in the course of conversation that is to become, it truly turns out to be inevitable, she must be the one to ditch him! Her pride doesn't allow otherwise.
Don't be distracted, focus.... Tell the thing you prepared to tell! She encouraged herself, trying to foster her will and decisiveness.
Darcy began with: "You told me there was nothing going on between you two. That she was just a friend. Well, the photos I saw with you and her told me everything I need to know, it is clear that once again you have completely lost your way, and I demand that you abstain from her, because she is distracting you from the duties you are bound to wield. Duties of honesty, loyalty and respect to your partner! Me! Only I deserve your attention! Are you even aware of how humiliating it is from my perspective that everyone on social media can see you and her on those photo's being lovey-dovey and sticky? And do you understand how much of an asshole you really are?! Do you seriously have no shame? What I am I even to you? A useful lust object, something you can bang your thirst on an than simply cast aside when the heat settles down?! Tell me, Jake, does there still reside any sense of dignity, or even a little bit of respect in that hollow head of yours? Or are you just a hopeless whoreman, a shameless hookerboy blinded by thirst for the flesh?! Tell me!" She blasted out in a rage of Spanish fury.
Jake sighed very deeply. Now, all the swagger that clung to him had peeled away. His shoulders slumped; he placed his right hand on his messy, abundant hair and rubbed it in one slow, but strong waltz to the right where he then brought his hand slowly over his cheek to his lips where he rested his fingers. He now looked small, shrunken in his branded hoodie and too-clean sneakers, like a boy who had dressed for admiration but got disgrace instead.
Just moments before he was probably preparing himself to go to the gym, like he almost always does when he has a day off or when he has free time in the morning, Darcy had therefore especially chosen this moment to go confront him; to totally get him of guard, by waylaying him at the moment he was busy preparing stuff like preparing a smoothy, organize his looks (his hair was definitely still not done) and so forth, so that she could completely root him point-blank.
Jake's placed his left foot diagonally back of his right food, then he lifted his foot a little and tapped the floor very lightly. His broke eye contact with her and darted his eyes to the ground, unable to meet with her intense gaze full of judgement.
For seconds he was in deep thought, sorting her angry chain of words, that fuming dialogue full of resentful accusation and harsh judgement out in his mind. He then said: ''Come inside, let's continue our conversation there, please, Darcy.''
Darcy was preparing to spit a new dosage of newly boiled-up poison at him, when he said, 'come in', but she kept her cool, because the tone of his voice sounded sincerely; for the first time in like four or five months he talked to her without impatience, slight disdain or underlying irritation, now it finally seemed he wanted to have a real conversation with her, fair talk without underlying motives, like trying to waive her away subtly, shun her for whatever small thing or seduce her in an act of swift flesh-bonding - mostly when they are both at a party and he is drunk; apparently, nowadays he is only fond of her after drinking a lot of bottles of beer, only then shadows of his old demeanor and conduct, his old true self, like how he always behaved from birth on so to say, seem to reappear.
No, right now, Jake was finally being fair, he granted her an official audience, how long has it been since they were both sober and talking seriously one-on-one with nobody else in a sphere of hundred meter?! Just the two of them together in one room.
Could this be the beginning of a new renaissance, a new positive impulse upwards? Darcy really wanted to believe it, she still felt the strong gravity towards his persona, the persona of a bad boy, a strong man that could stave off and divert every treat, a man that made her feel powerful, that enhanced her status, and made people respect her, fear her.
As the both of them came into the living room and walked themselves towards the sitting area with three sofas and two chairs around a beautiful decorated open hearth, Darcy saw that the way he walked and, and the way his body language formulated itself, that Jake was trying to be like a normal person, a grown-up, good-functioning adult of society, like his mother the lawyer or any other higher educated snobs that think of themselves has higher beings....
It pissed Darcy off. How could Jake change so much in such a short time span, it didn't add up! That incident four months ago where he was kicked out of that football camp for talents - his mother finally gave him a change to grow in the football scene after he was kicked out of school because of bad behaviour - must have had a big impact on his psyche, and him being admitted to an university - Jake passed the entrance exam easily after his mother had vehemently forced him to study by supervising him like a prison guard (and of course Jake himself can be surprisingly smart and astute at times) - must also have pushed him in the wrong direction, away from Darcy and his old life.
Jake rubbed the back of his neck, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and glanced hastily at his phone. Darcy sat herself on the white sofa and still observed him accurately, constantly keeping him in her sight.
She could see that some old habits of him still had not died out, like the way he walked broad with overly wide steps, and like how he put his right hand on his crotch subtly touching the place of his manly flesh, the bulge in is sweatpants. His pants were also slightly sagged; they hung just low enough on his hips to show the waistband and a small part of his boxershorts.
Luckily, his old swagger and drip still had not completely vanished. He still wears a tracksuit and even though he is going to the gym now, on the photos of the study group party he also wore a tracksuit and sweatpants, and on all other occasion last month's Darcy saw him wearing a tracksuit or something else of jogging material, mostly cotton.
''Do you want something to drink?'' Jake asked her.
''No, let's get over this as soon as possible, I want the answers I deserve,'' Darcy responded presumptuous.
''Well, okey,'' Jake said, and he moved himself to the chair next to the open hearth where he sat himself comfortably; straight back, shoulders squared, posture firm but relaxed, as if the chair moulded to him, not the other way around. His legs were spread broad apart, grounded and solid, taking up space without apology. One arm rested over an armrest, the other rested loosely on his upper leg.
His attitude composed a calm and collected air, like he had made up his mind. He continued: ''You see Darcy, as you probably already know, my life just months ago had been a wild roller coaster ride, I have always kept silence around that period when I was kicked out of the scouting facility for my stupid behaviour, that is because I am really embarrassed about the things I have done there, the incident that happened there was completely my fault. What happened there is really horrible and.... I don't want to go further on that subject, what is important is that after that, for the first time in my life I started to really, to seriously think about my behaviour, and the way I did things in my life thus far.... Like getting kicked out of school, well you know that incident, it was, like again, something very stupid, a so-called funny action of the me from then, and.... Well, you know Darcy.... I have to grow up, I am eighteen years old now, I can't be a good-for-nothing gangster forever, sacking classrooms and polluting places out of sheer attention seeking and to prove myself as the strongest gorilla in the pack. That time is over, I want to move on, so I have decided to change my life for the better, being a useful member of society, you know? So... It's over, I can't life like that anymore. Thats why we don't frequently see ech other anymore and why I have distanced myself from toxic friends, like Jared and Rudolf. Maybe you already noticed I avoided certain parties and events because of that decision. It's the reason why I rejected so much offers from you, when you asked me to come along and why I ignored you so often. Of course, we also don't see each other as much because I am going to university now and you are still at high school, so last time things have been hazy between us, and the gap between us has widened....''
He stopped his prolonged speech and fell into thought and now stared at his hands. He rubbed them uneasily and fiddled with his fingers.
Darcy thought in dissatisfaction: What a pile of shit. Seriously?! He is going to be better his life? You got to be kidding me! Darcy felt fury steadily welling up inside her; she placed the fingers of both her hands on her eyebrows and covered her eyes partly with the palm of her hand. Oh my god, what a bullshit.
Darcy was in shock. Really in shock. This was dangerous. But foremostly it was abnormal. Perhaps the shock she feels now is so heavy because for so long she has denied the fact that Jake was completely reformed, she had still lingered hope in her that it was just a partly chance of behavior. That it was not a big deal. That he would come back to his senses eventually.
But no, now it's confirmed: He wants to say goodbye to his old life, his old self. And he is seriously working on it. No mere change in the subconscious, he has in all earnestly pledged a vow, a promise to himself (and probably his mother....) to have nothing more to do with the gangster world, the world of the cool kids.
Darcy was at loss of words, eventually she sputtered venomously: ''Whoreman.''
Jake looked up in surprise. ''What?'' He growled perplexedly.
''Whoreman.''
Jake had a swift chuckle, shortly after that is face curted wry, he looked her densely and repeated: ''Whoreman?''
''That's what you are. What you really are.'' She did not care to further elaborate her abrupt statement. She wanted him to feel distorted and confused.
She now sprawled across the sofa like it was a throne, one arm draped over the backrest, the other setting her hair straight, her legs stretched out in full swagger. It looked like she could slide off the couch at any moment, like a superficial slime, so listless and sluggish she sat.
She was so done.... That one dialogue full of becoming good-boy stuff was so tiring to listen to. As if he can become a good person!
''Nice said and all, but I want to talk seriously, Darcy,'' Jake said with a grave voice. ''I don't want to waste my time talking trash, you know. That in not healthy.''
''The one talking trash is you.'' Darcy said lax with a slacking voice. She now pointed rudely at him: ''You are wasting your time, like seriously? Chancing your life? Bullshit. You will never unlearn your bad habits and bad behaviour; this is just temporary bullshit of you. Like, does your mother threaten you or something? Is she going to kick you out of the house if you not comply and reform yourself? Jake, you are scum. Did you not again cheat on me? What about that?''
Well come on, Jakey, give me one of your lame excuses and beg me for forgiveness! Be the good boy you try to pretend to be.
Jake sighed deep, he was about to get real, no more beating around the bush, no more save-talking. He said plainly: ''I am done with it Darcy.''
He doesn't even respond to my comment?!
Darcy felt an electric shudder going through her spine, her forced demeanour of cooled-off swagger and slimy posture flipped into an active demeanor, alert and trembling. Did he seriously just said he is done with it?
Jake continued bluntly: ''Me and Layla indeed had sex last night.''
What the fuck?! He just straight-up admits it?! Without any emotion? As if he is announcing a news item? As if he is a diplomate who delivers a message? No way, I am not going to accept such impudence!
Darcy sat herself vigilant on the couch, she said in a ghastly voice: ''How dare you.... How dare you ditching me like that! You miscreant manwhore! Miserable scoundrel! No, no.... You can't break up with me like that, who the fuck do you think you are?!''
I should have been the one dumping him!
''Darcy, I know I had my wrongdoings, but you had them you. Don't bullshit me by calling me a manwhore, you also cheated on me, you also went with other boys! Have I ever called you a whore for it?! Have a bit of respect!''
''Respect! You got to be kidding me! I am the one with respect, not you! Don't you dare put the blame on me!''
''Darcy, I want to talk to you on a civil manner, if that is not possible, please leave. I have things to do, and you are obstructing my planning for today with your badmouthing and bullshitting. It is done between us, we never fitted together anyway, so let's call it quit and go each our own way.''
Darcy jumped of the couch and took one step closer to the chair where he still sat widely and broad, looking vexingly with a dark gaze at her. She took off her tailored coat of deep green and threw it roughly on the ground.
She was like a mad bull right now and those deep blue eyes of him staring her on with a flare of toplofty hauteur where like a red lap to her. Does he really think so highly of himself? What is he sitting like that? Like he is so intelligent and mature! For fuck's sake....
''Jake, you are seriously going to dump me?!''
''No Darcy, I am breaking up with you, something I should have done earlier, but unfortunately had not the possibility to.''
''Dumping, breaking, ditching.... who cares about the verb?! Is 'dumping' a word people in the world of university don't use? A word only used by peasants?! And seriously, you did not possess the possibility to break up with me before? Now, when I come to your house on foot the time is right?! Oh my god, Jake.... You peace of shit! You peace shit!''
Darcy angrily kicked the round saloon table of fine oak wood in front her; Jake reacted to that action of outbursting fury by saying in a grave forbidding tone: ''Stop throwing a tantrum. I am not having this kind of drama from you anymore. Leave.''
''No, I am not going to leave, who do you think you are?!''
Darcy went ballistic in uncontrollable anger and dashed at him at lighting speed and she busted her wrath on him....