UGLY MEN ARE LESS LIKELY TO CHEAT

Maya

I unlocked the front door and pushed it open with my right elbow. I was balancing a brown paper takeout bag containing two plastic containers of spicy lamb noodles from the small Chinese joint three blocks down. It had cost me fifty dollars that I really needed for bus fare and groceries next week, but Trevor had been complaining about stress at work all morning, so I bought it anyway. I thought a hot meal would cheer him up.

"Trevor?" I called out, kicking my worn sneakers off onto the rubber mat by the entryway. "I brought dinner. I asked the guy for extra spicy sauce just how you like it."

Nobody answered. The living room was dark, the blinds drawn shut to block out the gray rain outside. The only sign of life was a thin strip of warm light spilling onto the floorboards from under the bedroom door at the end of the narrow hallway.

Then I heard a groan. It was followed immediately by a low, breathless gasp.

I panicked. My first instinct wasn't suspicion; it was fear. I thought someone had broken into our apartment or that Trevor had fallen and hurt himself. I dropped the takeout bag straight onto the floor. The plastic containers clattered together inside as hot, greasy broth immediately began soaking through the bottom of the brown paper.

I didn't care about the food. I ran down the narrow hallway, reached the end, and shoved the bedroom door wide open.

The room hit me with a wall of heavy scent-cheap vanilla perfume mixed with stale sweat. Trevor was on the bed, completely naked, his broad, tanned shoulders glistening under the bedside lamp. And lying beneath him, her fingers gripped tightly into his back, was my mother.

Colette.

I stopped dead in the doorway. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs before giving a sickening, hollow thud. My throat went bone-dry in a fraction of a second.

Trevor looked over his shoulder and panicked. He scrambled backward off the bed, his feet tangling violently in my clean floral sheets. He knocked the bedside lamp sideways, sending the shade crooked as he grabbed a throw pillow from the floor and jammed it over his waist.

"Maya," he stuttered, his face turning pale as paper. "It... it isn't what it looks like."

"You're in bed with my mother," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine. It was completely flat, devoid of anger, tearfulness, or emotion. It sounded like an announcement made by a stranger. "What else is it supposed to be?"

Colette didn't even try to hide herself right away. She lazily pulled the top sheet up over her breasts, using her manicured fingers to push her dyed blonde hair out of her face. She looked at me from the pillows like I was an annoying neighbor who had knocked on the door during an inconvenient moment.

"You came home early, Maya," Colette said, adjusting her position against the headboard. "You said on the phone this morning that you had practice at the dance studio until eight."

"You're sleeping with my boyfriend," I repeated, staring straight at her eyes. "In my apartment. On my bed."

"He was lonely," Colette said, her tone completely unbothered. She was thirty-six years old, but she had given birth to me when she was only fifteen, a fact she never let anyone forget. She spent most of her adult life dressing in clothes meant for women my age, desperate to be mistaken for my older sister. "You two have been distant lately anyway. A man has needs, Maya. You can't expect him to wait around while you work all night."

"I was working twelve-hour shifts at the diner to pay for this place!" I shouted, the flat tone finally cracking as a surge of hot rage burst through my chest. "I gave up my ballet scholarship so Trevor could focus on his business ideas! I paid the rent! I bought the groceries!"

"Maya, please," Trevor said, taking a cautious step toward me. He looked pathetic standing on the hardwood floor, clutching the small accent pillow against his stomach. "She tricked me. I was drunk from last night, and I came in here to sleep, and I thought-"

I stepped forward and slapped him across the jaw with every ounce of strength in my arm.

The sound of my palm hitting his skin rang through the small room like a whip cracking. Trevor's head snapped to the side, his hair flying across his forehead, and a bright red handprint began blooming across his cheek instantly.

"Don't touch me," I told him, my hand throbbing with a sharp, burning sting. "Don't you ever step near me again."

"Maya!" Colette snapped, sitting up straighter in the bed, her sheet slipping down an inch. "How dare you hit him in front of me!"

"This is my lease!" I turned on her, my hands shaking uncontrollably. "You've been sleeping on my living room couch for three months because your last boyfriend threw your bags into the street! You're a leech! Both of you!"

Trevor took another half-step toward the door, trying to reach for my arm while awkwardly attempting to pull a pair of sweatpants up with his free hand.

"Maya, baby, let's just sit down and talk," he begged, his voice cracking with desperation. "We can fix this. I love you, you know I do."

"Do not call me baby," I said, stepping back into the hallway out of his reach.

I turned around, picked up my phone from the kitchen counter where I had set my keys, and looked back at Trevor's handsome, ruined face one last time. He stood in the frame of the bedroom door, looking like a guilty child caught stealing.

I turned my back on him, walked out into the carpeted building hallway, and slammed the heavy apartment door behind me so hard the doorframe rattled.