"What are you saying right now?!"
Erika stood up so suddenly that for a brief second it felt as though her body had acted before her mind could even process what she'd heard.
Her breath came sharp and uneven, like something inside her had snapped all at once.
"He's been cheating on me with a guy!? What now? A guy is better than me?!"
Her voice rose higher with each word, disbelief layering over disbelief, shock turning rapidly into something ugly.
The thought itself felt humiliating, like her pride had been dragged through the dirt and stomped on.
"What are you so worked with? I mean, you've been cheating on him too." Aria's voice cut through the tension calmly, almost lazily.
She didn't move from where she stood, her posture relaxed, her expression unreadable. The contrast between Erika's spiraling emotions and Aria's composure only made Erika's anger spike harder.
