Chapter Text
With his computer open on the desk at the end of his bed, Eren is sitting alone in his dorm room, currently on a Zoom call with his long-distance girlfriend, Petra. "So, are you coming this weekend? I miss you and you haven’t visited in a while," Eren says, going from leaning back into his chair to leaning forwards towards his computer.
"Yeah, I’m not busy, so, sure," Petra says, sounding so disinterested. She’s sitting on her bed, cross legged. Her laptop resting on her knees. Her eyes keep flicking between Eren and her phone, which lay right next to her. She’s obviously waiting for something. Eren wants to roll his eyes and just sigh in frustration. He wants to just break up with her then and there, but he has a plan.
“Floch will be visiting his parents for the weekend so we can have the dorm to ourselves,” Eren say, trying to be seductive. He wants to vomit after saying that. He knows it would be easier just to end their relationship right now. Just wash and hands and be done with it, but he needs to know if she’s cheating or not. If she isn’t then maybe they can talk it out and work towards repairing the relationship but if she IS,.... Then it’s: ‘See ya don’t let the door hit cha on the ass on the way out!’.
"Okay, cool," Petra says, just staring at her phone. Is this bitch serious? Eren is trying to flirt a little and be sexy, but his girlfriend obviously doesn’t give a shit. He just wants to get off of this call already. He’s got confirmation that Petra is gonna be visiting him for the weekend.
Petra and Eren have known each other since elementary school, but had officially been together as a couple for the past three years. It was a typical childhood romance. Petra and Eren were inseparable, and they didn’t realize they were in love with each other until they started high school. Their friends realized too and would always try to get them alone together, but they just left their tension fester instead of doing anything about it. Eren learning that Petra would be moving away for college is what made him finally confess his feelings. They were both hesitant, but after talking about it they decided they would try being long- distance when the time came for Petra to leave. They were doing great for the first year, but lately Petra started acting weird. They would talk almost daily and visit every weekend, but now she only visits one weekend a month, and they would FaceTime if Eren begged enough. It’s a miracle she’s talking to him now.
"So, how's that project going?" Eren asks. Petra has been working on a project for her lit class for a year now. Eren didn’t know a lot about it due to Petra never going into too much detail about it. Her project was her go-to excuse to avoid calling Eren or driving an hour to come visit on the weekends. What she doesn’t know is that Eren found out that she had finished that project months ago. So, he knows that she is lying and is probably spending that time with her other boyfriend. "It’s good. I’m finalizing everything now," Petra says, then her phone starts ringing.
Petra smiles and visibly brightens up, “I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Petra hangs up the call before Eren can say anything. Eren just sits there in shock. She didn’t even have the courtesy to say bye. No ‘let’s talk later,’ or ‘I love you, bye.’ She didn’t even look at him when she hung up! Eren is honestly glad to be done with the call. Now he can hit up his bestie and complain again about his relationship problems.
Eren slams his laptop shut and grabs his phone that was lying next to his laptop. He unlocks it before plopping down on his bed. He clicks on Armin’s contact and lets the FaceTime ring.
"She's cheating on me, Armin," Eren says as soon as Armin picks up. The blonde was sitting at his desk doing homework when Eren called. Armin props his phone up on his computer and continues typing. "Eren, you don't know that for sure. You two need to sit down face-to-face and talk about everything. You can’t just keep pretending everything is fine," Armin says, glancing at Eren every couple of seconds.
"She is, Armin. You know that project she has been working on?"
"Yeah?" Armin furrows his brows looking at Eren. His typing ceases. "Well, Jean goes to that same school, and is in that same class, and they've been done with that project for months now. Which means she's lying to me,” Eren went from laying on his stomach to his back.
"It doesn't mean she's cheating. She could be doing what you’re doing and avoiding the ‘relationship problems’.. Whatever they may be.”
“Really? First, she hasn't said I love you back to me in forever and I looked at her Instagram the other day and she's deleted photos of us together. Also, two seconds ago she flat out hung up on me when her phone rang. That was her side bitch, I know it."
"Okay, maybe she's cheating. Talk to her."
"Not yet, I need to be 100% sure. I have a plan."
"Eren, this doesn't involve anything illegal, right?"
"No, I learned my lesson the last time."
"Alright, so what's the plan?"
"No, no, no, I'm not telling you. Not yet anyway.”
Armin rolls his eyes at his bestie, "Alright, but if you end up in a jail cell, I will not come get you. You can call Mikasa.”
—
On the way to Petra’s place, Eren has to tap into some spiritual energy to not let his frustration take over. He wants to just come out the gate with accusations and questions, but he can’t. That wouldn't get him anywhere, plus she would probably try to spin it and make Eren seem like the bad guy. She could also start deleting evidence of her betrayal if there is proof. He needs to play his cards right. Tonight, he will find out the truth. He probably won’t see her for months after this weekend, so it was now or never.
Eren pulls up into Petra’s apartment complex’s parking lot. He texts the redhead that he was here. Minutes later, Eren spots Petra as she runs up to his car. She gets in after Eren unlocks the car and throws her bag into the backseat. “Hey,” Petra greets. Eren says hey back and asks about her day. She answers with a simple good then pulls out her phone and starts texting. Once she sends her text, she sets her phone down in her lap and starts fiddling with Eren’s radio.
“Who’re you texting?” Eren asks, he wasn’t gonna comment but he couldn’t help it.
Petra quickly grabs her phone and turns it off and looks at Eren, “My mom. I told her I was coming so she wants me to visit home at some point.”
Liar. If it was her mom then why the fuck did, she turn her phone off? Nothing good is on the radio so they just sit in silence the whole way. From time to time, Petra would be on her phone. She’s lucky that Eren has to pay attention to the road because his nosy ass definitely would’ve tried to read her texts over her shoulder.
"You can put your things over there," Eren said as they walked through the door, pointing at his desk chair. Petra dumps her bag where Eren said to put it and jumps on his bed. Eren leans on the wall next to his bed and folds his arms, "So are we staying in or do you want to go out?"
"Let's just stay in, it’s getting late. We can watch a movie. Tomorrow we can go out," Petra says. Eren nods his head and grabs his laptop off the nearby desk and joins Petra on the bed. They’re both leaning on the headboard and Eren has his laptop in his lap, opened on Netflix. "What do you wanna watch?" Eren asks, handing Petra one of his headphones that he pulled out of his nightstand.
"I don't care, but no horror movies."
"Fine," Eren says as he scrolls through Netflix. Petra is on her phone again, texting her probably side piece. Eren wants to sigh in frustration but holds it back. She could at least be present and talk to him. She obviously doesn’t want to be there with him.
Eren finally settles on a movie, it’s just some random action movie. "Alright how about this?" Eren asks, trying to get Petra's attention. Petra doesn't even look up from her phone, "Yeah, sure." Eren just rolls his eyes and presses play. The entire time Petra was laughing and texting on her phone. Eren was practically fighting with himself not to blow up at her. He had to breathe in and out a couple of times to calm himself down.
It was getting late by the time the movie was done, so they decided to change their clothes and go to bed. Eren lets Petra get under the covers first, facing the wall, while Eren turns off the lamp. He then also gets under the covers, facing away from her so they were back-to-back, with little space between them. Petra was still on her phone as was Eren. He’s just waiting until Petra falls asleep. Once she’s asleep, it’s go time.
—
After a couple hours, Eren looks over and confirms that Petra is asleep. He luckily isn’t boxed in like she is, so he’s able to easily sneak out of bed. Earlier, Petra gave Eren her phone to plug in and put on the nightstand. Eren picks her phone up and unplugs it. Her phone turns on showing her lockscreen. It used to be a picture of her and Eren together, but now it’s a picture of her and her best friend, Hitch. That just adds on to Eren’s list of reasons he suspects Petra is cheating. Eren swipes up on her phone, which shows the keypad where a password has to be typed in. Eren knew Petra’s password and was hoping that it hasn’t changed in the two years they were apart as he typed it in.
Wrong password…
Wrong password? Are you serious? This just strengthens Eren's suspicions. I mean who changes their password if they have nothing to hide, right? Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, the password isn’t the only way to get in. Eren turns around and gently grabs Petra's arm at her wrist. He goes slow and steady, trying so hard not to wake her as he gently closes her hand so that she is making a fist with her thumb poking out. He puts her thumb on her phone which unlocks. Eren thanks the lord and gently puts her arm back down.
The dorm room is small, and Eren didn't want to stay in there and look through her messages. Petra could wake up and catch him. Eren wasn’t risking it, so he quietly grabs his dorm key and leaves his dorm room. With light steps, he makes his way downstairs to the lobby. The university doesn’t have a curfew, so he’s allowed to be down there. Some students go down there to study so they wouldn’t wake up their roommates. Eren walks over to one of the two couches and sits down.
Eren scrolls through Petra’s contacts and sees a contact that is out of place. She has silly cute names for her friends. Eren is saved as Future Hubby with a red heart next to it. Well, was, now it’s just his name. Not even his last name is on there, it's just Eren. Past that there is a contact saved as L with a green heart next to it. Below the name is the most recent sent text, which was ‘Love You Too’.
This is it. This is Petra's side piece. Eren knew it. He clicks on the contact and scrolls back to the beginning. It went back to about a year ago. It doesn’t take long because there weren’t that many texts. According to the messages, Petra met this guy, who Eren learned is named Levi, a year ago when he and Petra were partners for her lit project. Eren scrolls through the short conversations. He reads through the most recent ones.
P: Hey wyd?
L: I just got back to my dorm. You?
P: I'm at my parent’s house watching a movie, missing you.
L: Oh yeah, what do you miss about me?
Eren is just getting more pissed. Not only is he pissed but he’s hurt. Tears rolled down his face. He just wants to chuck her phone against the wall and go upstairs and yell at her. But he didn’t. One, he isn’t gonna pay to have her phone fixed or replaced if he broke it; and two, he doesn’t want another noise complaint. The last one got him, and the rest of the floor, banned from playing Uno.
It seems like Levi doesn’t know about Eren. Eren wasn’t mentioned in their texts. So, he could just be as much of a victim as Eren is. It’s probably the reason why Petra deleted photos of them together and changed his contact and her lockscreen wallpaper. Eren needs to contact this guy and get his side, and tell him that Petra has a boyfriend, or she did.
Eren closes Petra’s messages and opens Instagram. He finds Levi’s Instagram through Petra’s. He notices that Levi doesn’t have that many posts, and none of them are of his face. Maybe his hand would be in it or his legs but never his face. This piqued Eren’s curiosity. Eren couldn’t wait to debrief with Armin about this. More specifically what this Levi guy was like?
Eren goes to grab his phone from his sweatpants pocket only to realize that it isn’t there. He feels for it in his other pocket, but it isn’t there either. Eren remembers that he left it in his dorm room. The brunette rolls his eyes and mutters a fuck under his breath. He gets up from the couch and quietly races his way back to his dorm.
Eren opens the door enough to peak his head in. Petra is, luckily, still sound asleep. He slides back in then slowly closes his door. He walks over to the nightstand and grabs his phone off the charger. He opens it up then goes to Instagram, pulls up Levi’s profile, and follows him. Once he does that, he puts his and Petra’s phones back on charge then back onto the nightstand. He gets back into his bed. It takes him a little bit, but eventually he falls asleep. Eren can’t wait until tomorrow. He will be meeting Petra’s other boyfriend, Levi. Oh, this was gonna be good!