Between the tears that flooded her viridescent eyes and the heavy words that sprang from Paloma's tongue with such determination and certainty, Ava found herself unable to speak. Her heart sank down into the deepest gallows of her belly, settling in with the meal she picked over during dinner.

She didn't dare face her girlfriend, still, she could practically feel Paloma's retinas searing into the back of her head. The Earth seemed to stand still for an insurmountable time and because of that, Ava nearly startled herself when she peeped out an uneasy "What?"

Paloma's reply was instantaneous and far grittier than ever before. "You heard me."

It was only then that Ava gathered the courage to sit up and take a peep at Paloma who reeked of repugnance and bewilderment. The top buttons of the brunette's baby blue blouse were unlatched and messy, the silk material now faintly stained in liquor. Paloma's forehead was damp with sweat that traced her widow's peak and ambled down the outskirts of her face.

Had Ava not been paying attention, she wouldn't have caught the way Paloma's head lightly swayed. She was so obviously fighting to keep up with the accelerated pace of the spinning room. Nevertheless, her cold expression was one of irrefutable sobriety. The sight alone induced a helpless sense of panic to arise in Ava's chests.

Lunging desperately, she made an impetuous move to take Paloma's hand into her own, hoping the gesture would be mighty enough to reach her. A feeble sigh ensued not a moment later once Paloma unapologetically pried herself from Ava for the second time that night. Paloma stumbled to her feet, the alcohol coursing through her veins forcing her to do so. But her eyes remained focused, frigid, and fierce.

"Well?" She hastily motioned towards the redhead before allowing her hands to coarsely collide with her thighs, producing a smack that was boisterous enough to make Ava recoil further into herself.

Ava didn't allow herself to succumb to her longing to retreat deeper into the confines of their bed, despite her instincts begging her to. Instead, she sprang from the mattress and imposed on Paloma's densely guarded stance by caressing the brunette's cheeks, her thumbs just grazing the space beneath her eyes where her eyeliner was starting to smudge.

"Sweetheart," Ava susurrated, "before you get angry, just listen, alright?"

It'd only taken a few weeks after their relationship had taken flight for Paloma to grow to adore Ava's innocent forms of affection. She'd always considered such acts to be astonishingly delicate and inexplicably intimate.

But now, between the myriad of drinks she threw back not half an hour earlier and Ava standing so close, her eyes filled with what could only be described as deceit, the feeling of the pads of Ava's thumbs against her skin made the brunette want to vomit.

She couldn't break free of Ava's hold fast enough. "I don't have to listen. You didn't deny it, you're still not...which means there's nothing to discuss. I've already got my answer, don't I?" Paloma's words started to slur again towards the end but they were incredibly clear at the same time.

Ava chewed her bottom lip so intensely that it was starting to swell. "You're drunk," she said quietly. "I know you're hurt and upset, you have every right to be, but this really isn't a conversation we should have when you've been drinking. I wish you came home before doing this to yourself. Can we please talk about this tomorrow when we both have a leveled head and can think clearly?"

Paloma straightened her posture and all but growled. "I don't need you, of all people, to validate my anger. Besides, I've never thought more clearly than I am right now."

Ava closed her eyes and sighed softly. "...Okay," she relented with a subtle shrug. "You wanna talk about it? We can. What did you hear...and from who?"

"Never mind that. That's not how this works." Her slur was fading by the second. "You have exactly zero cards and zero credibility. If you want me to listen for even another second, you better start talking—fast. I want the truth, now, Ava."

"Wait, just—" Ava blinked rapidly, willing away the dampness in her eyes. She swallowed hard and rubbed her hands together feverishly. "Promise me you won't get mad."

"Ava," Paloma warned.

Ava knew that tone all too well. "Okay, okay." The chilled air that nipped away at her exposed skin the lingerie failed to conceal suddenly didn't matter. "As you know, Sandra and I, we dated, we were dating, before you and I started back up and—" Ava hadn't realized she'd been heaving until she found that it was physically impossible to get the words out. "I don't wanna say," she whined.

Though Ava thought it not possible, Paloma's glare hardened. "Okay, then...I will. She moved in with you, correct? For months?" She spat the words out like they were poison. "Despite your insistence otherwise, despite you looking me in the eye, promising that it wasn't serious between you two! Does that sound about right?"

Ava met the question with a single, impotent nod. She had played it over in her head a thousand times—coming clean to Paloma. Each time, she flirted with different possibilities, the ways she could go about telling her. However, in none of the scenarios had her chest gotten so tight nor had her voice come out so brittle and frail.

"So, that's what the whole apartment thing was about, why you had it for so long? You extended your lease? For her?"

"...Yeah."

Paloma gritted her teeth then nodded. "And what story did you cook up for her when you stopped coming home at night?"

"I told her I had to move in to help a friend that got hurt in an accident—which was true."

"Well, now we're getting somewhere, right?" Paloma's laughter was undeniably grim. "That makes me wonder—what else were you lying about?"

"Nothing else!" Ava exclaimed. "That's it, I swear!"

"Don't feed me that bullshit! You had another woman staying at your place before and during the time you moved into this house and hid it from me, yet you want me to believe that nothing else went on between you two?"

"No...that's not—" Ava frantically shook her head. "It wasn't like that."

"Ava, up until now, I considered you the most honest person I'd ever met. I know you, and if it wasn't like that, you wouldn't have hidden it from me."

Ava knew she had no right to be angry but it was the only reaction she felt could remotely combat the undeniable disappointment present in Paloma's tone.

"Would it really have made that much of a difference if I'd told you before I did it? Would you really had thought better of me?"

"Yes!" Paloma screeched. "Because at least then you would've asked and acted like you remotely gave a shit about what I thought!"

"I do! Of course, I do, you know I do! It's pretty much all I care about...but this was different."

Paloma's frown was so heavy that she could feel a migraine coming on. "Because you knew what I'd think. You knew exactly how I'd feel about it...and you did it anyway."

Ava's silence lit a fire under Paloma like no other.

"You always get so pissy and jealous when you think there's even a remote possibility that someone else is interested in me and I constantly have to reassure you that no one's gonna come along and take your place. You're like a child. You're so insecure it's sickening and I can finally see why. I guess it was always in the back of your mind, that I could pull the exact same shit on you that you've been doing to me!"

"Yeah?" Sarcastic grin beaming, Ava crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, you'll be glad to know that I'm only 'sickeningly insecure' when it comes to you because I can't shut down that voice in my head that reminds me that you've never dated anyone for longer than a couple of months! You're like a ticking time bomb! Yet you call me the child."

The brief moment of silence that followed was time enough for regret to set in for Ava. But, before she could conjure up a worthy enough apology, Paloma beat her to the punch.

"Maybe that's because I found that I always get screwed in relationships like this." Paloma's jaw locked as she scrutinized Ava using nothing more than her eyes. "You had the audacity to bring up getting married, having children, knowing that you were playing house with someone else? I've heard of people going to great lengths to trap someone but, really, Ava, I gotta say, that takes the cake!"

Ava's heart sank so low that she could've reached down into the fiery pits of Hell and still wouldn't have been able to reach it. "How could you say that? How could think that? Baby, that's not it at all."

"That's exactly it! But I don't know why I'm surprised. This is what you do. You make the demands and I'm expected follow."

Ava's whisper was thick with exhaust, "Why do you always say that? That's not true."

"You wanted to move in—"

"Because I love you! Don't make it out like that's not something we both wanted!"

"— so I made it happen. I even let you make decisions about Quinn."

"Because you know I want what's best for her, same as you!"

"You wanted me to cut back on the drinking—"

"Because you don't know how to handle it!" Ava cried. "You always let it control you!"

"—so I even did that." Paloma pressed on, "Do you think I would've done any that shit for anyone else but you? I wasn't aware that I was the only one making sacrifices."

"You weren't," Ava whined. "Look, I know you and Sandra weren't exactly besties but, she was my friend."

"Your 'friend'?" came Paloma's breathless titter.

"I know I should've said something but she needed me. I cared about her so I felt inclined to help."

"Don't you get it? We were both supposed to give up the 'I's for 'us'! You don't make those kinds of decisions without asking me first!"

Although Ava stood a good inch and a half taller than Paloma, the brunette's stance was intimidating enough for Ava to refute that fact wholeheartedly.

"I lied, I know I did, and for that, I am so, indescribably sorry." She locked her eyes on Paloma's. "But I didn't have sex with her or anyone else or do anything even remotely close to that, okay?"

Paloma's words were simple, "I don't believe you."

The redhead's shoulders slacked as she hastily threw her head back in exasperation. "You're not listening to me! Sandra lost her job, okay? She needed my help so I gave her that but that's it."

"You think it's a coincidence that shortly after she found out I was your ex she asked for your help, wanted to move in? She hated me, got territorial, and wanted to keep an eye on you and you fell right into that pity trap. It was the best way for her to scream a hearty 'screw you' and, I'm not gonna lie, it worked pretty well."

The mattress groaned softly as Ava slumped down onto the bed and threw her face into her palms. She whispered a muffled, "I know I screwed up—bigtime." When she finally looked back up at Paloma, the exhaust on her face was ever-present. "But I was going to tell you."

"'Screwed up'? That's a hell of an understatement," Paloma snarled. "And the fact that you were 'supposedly' gonna let me in on everything you've been blatantly lying to me about for months on end doesn't mean shit. It doesn't change what you did."

That wasn't news to Ava but it didn't make Paloma's words any less painful. "What was I supposed to do?" Frustration boiling, Ava lept from the bed and ventured towards Paloma. "What exactly was the right answer in that situation? She lost her job, she had no one else."

"Well, let's see!" Paloma clasped her hands together and looked up at the ceiling in a dramatic fashion. "Maybe she could've moved back in with her parents, got help from a friend, or set up camp under a fucking bridge, I don't give a shit! I don't know what the 'right' answer was in that situation but you know what wasn't? Putting a roof over the head of another woman and lying to your girlfriend about it! How many times do I have to say it? Just because you fuck someone, doesn't make them your responsibility!"

Paloma's words packed a punch like no other but, even if that didn't do Ava in, her tumultuous volume would have. Paloma couldn't think of a time when seeing Ava cry didn't make her want her to do the same but that night, it seemed, was one of many firsts.

She didn't give Ava's emotional state an opportunity to make her falter. "Your sole responsibility was here, with your family." Ava met this with a faint "I'm sorry" but Paloma was far too preoccupied with her tirade, "You threw that away for Sandra, of all people? I thought you were done choosing her over me!"

Paloma's throat was painfully tight and her voice hoarse from the strain her bellows exerted upon it. Her emotions must've sensed this because she suddenly felt that she no longer had the capacity for such ferocity.

"I don't understand. How could do that? And...to me."

That was enough for Ava to speak past her own anguish, "I didn't."

Paloma ignored the assurance. "Assuming that you actually broke up with her, when was that?"

"I—"

"Let me rephrase that," the brunette decided. "So, there's absolutely no confusion. If you were seeing me and Sandra at the same time if there was ever any overlap then you need to tell me right now."

Ava sucked in a breath and bit the bullet. "I broke things off with her right after you and I started back up. But it was just a few days, okay?"

Paloma's digits sought refuge on her temples. She gave them a delicate massage and exhaled in exasperation. "Oh, my God, Ava."

Ava's pledge was in a hasty fashion, "It's not what you think. I know it's hard to believe since she was crashing at my place but I've been here with you. Sandra and I didn't do anything."

"Everything that's come out of your mouth these past few months has been a lie. Why would anyone in their right mind believe that?" She weaved her fingers through the thick strands of her mane then set free a rowdy laugh. "You know what? I don't even know why I asked because none of that matters now."

"What should I have done?" the mahogany-haired woman bellowed. "I knew there wasn't a chance in hell you'd wanna be with me if you knew that I'd let Sandra move in!"

"Of course I wouldn't! Because that's trashy and disgusting and I refuse to play second best to another woman!"

"You weren't," Ava whimpered, "you're not."

"...I just don't get why you care about her so much," Paloma grumbled.

"I don't! She only moved in because she needed my help, not because I was in love with her. I'm in love with you. Things between her and I went on for longer than it should've, I know that, but that's only the case because she was in a really shitty place. I couldn't just dump her right after she'd lost her job, her apartment. She was in a downward spiral and I had to help."

"The fact that you believe that, that you were more than willing to put everything you supposedly care about on the line just to make some other woman happy makes is monumentally clear that Quinn and I don't mean as nearly as much to you as you made us think. And, you know, that's completely fine with me."

"You're not hearing me!" Ava shouted. "Can you just listen for a second?"

"No!" Paloma hurled back. "I'm done listening."

Ava squeezed her eyes shut so tight she thought her lids might split open. "I'm the world's biggest idiot, I don't doubt that. Baby, I know that I was wrong, that I shouldn't have kept that—or anything—from you, that I probably shouldn't have dated Sandra in the first place. But the only thing I can do now is confess and say 'I love you more than anything, and I'm sorry'."

"It's not exactly 'confessing' when you're caught, now it is?"

Willing away her headache, Ava rested her eyes and smashed her lips together. The conversation seemed to last an eternity but it was getting them nowhere at all.

"It wasn't gonna be like this," she croaked. "I was gonna tell you myself, not let you hear it from someone else."

"I can assure you, no matter how much you tried to sugar coat it, downplay what you've done, it still would've ended the exact same." Paloma's reddened nose flared ferociously but she didn't skip a beat. "With you packing every ounce of your shit and getting the hell out of this house. Hey, if you're lucky, maybe Sandra will let you crash with her! Either way, for your sake, be gone by morning, preferably before I wake up."

Ava could hardly process the demand before Paloma stormed out of the bedroom and barreled down the staircase. And for the first time that night, Ava was left with absolutely nothing to say.

Quinn hadn't been home long but Charlie had brought her back just in time for her to get the gist of the driving force behind Paloma and Ava's passionate shrieks. Both herself and Siberia had been listening behind the confines of her bedroom door, staying quieter than church mice.

Once she was certain that the heated debate had subsided, Quinn creaked her door open as soundlessly as she could, being careful not to show herself before her sister descended the stairs completely. When she felt the aftershock of Paloma slamming the guest bedroom's door, she knew it was safe.

Ava had just finished throwing on a pair of faded jeans and a worn-out sweatshirt when Quinn entered the bedroom. The teenager grimaced. Even with the darkness of the night and Ava's tousled hair, both working to shield her flushed face, she could see the tears that stained her cheeks.

"You told her, huh?" Quinn murmured. "I thought you were waiting until tomorrow."

Ava briefly glanced at the girl then tossed a sizable suitcase onto the bed. "She found out."

Quinn's frown deepened. "How?"

"I don't know."

Ava tucked a particularly unkempt lock of hair behind her ear then got to work casting her belongings into the suitcase. It was only then that Quinn had noticed. She toyed with her fingers and studied the woman intently.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving," Ava surmised. "She said I could wait until morning but I'm not gonna be able to sleep anyway, so—"

"What?" Quinn entreated. "You can't leave."

"I don't have a choice." She reached around the teenager and yanked the dresser drawers open, starting from the bottom, collecting every article of her clothing.

"Yes, you do," Quinn protested. "You live here, too. Look, I know my sister. She's mad therefore she's overreacting. It's her thing, you know that."

The closet let out a soft cry once Ava pulled it open. She gathered her dresses, pantsuits, and a handful of blouses that Paloma had neatly ironed just the way Ava liked it no more than a few days ago. Its wrinkles returned ten-fold once she stuffed the blouses into the suitcase along with everything else.

Quinn picked up the pace, this time speaking as frantically as Ava moved. "But that doesn't mean you have to leave."

"Yeah," Ava whispered, "it does."

The certainty in Ava's tone made Quinn falter but only for a moment. "Well, just let things blow over a little, okay? Paloma's angry, understandably, but she loves you and, no matter what she says, she doesn't want you to leave. Not really."

"Don't be so sure."

The woman crammed as many of her belongings as she could fit in the suitcase then zipped it up in its entirety. What would typically be an hour-long ordeal, she'd completed in minutes—whatever necessary to get the furthest from Paloma's vicinity.

Quinn stayed at Ava's heels, even when the woman hastened down the staircase, lugging her suitcase at her side in a frenzy.

"It goes without saying but I also love you," Quinn blurted. "Despite popular belief, you don't just belong to Paloma."

That was enough to get Ava to shelve her determination and extend her attention to Quinn.

"I know I was being an asshole before and I know my sister claims she doesn't want you around but I do. Don't go. We can figure it out. Paloma will come around, she will."

The corners of Ava's lips arced into a benevolent smile. She loosened her snug hold on the suitcase's leather handle and propped the bag up against the doorframe. Ava gripped Quinn's shoulders and gave her a long-winded once-over, soaking the teenager in wholeheartedly. Quinn met this with curiosity, but her eyes maintained their pleading essence.

"Be good, kid."

Whatever hope Quinn held out for making the woman stay disintegrated when Ava gave the top of her head a delicate kiss and hurriedly regained custody of her bag. Quinn could hardly blink before Ava made herself scarce, leaving behind nothing more than her memory.