Chapter 28 – Sydney
SYDNEY
Fourteen missed calls.
I wake up the morning after my disastrous date with Seamus to fourteen missed calls from Ashton. I half expect to open my door and find him camped out on the stairs in front of my apartment when I leave for work.
Thankfully, he isn’t.
I spend the day barely going through the motions, distracted and miserable. Seamus still hasn’t texted me back—not after my humiliating “Sorry I kissed another man on our date, can we still be friends?” message. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t text me back either.
It’s safe to assume we can effectively scratch Twin Pines off the list of bars I can show my face in ever again.
The sun is out today, one final beautiful summer's day before fall really sets in. It’s the type of weather that draws people to patios and parks, not to a bookstore.
The shop is quiet, just a few customers filtering in over the afternoon, and nothing to occupy my attention or distract me from my miserable thoughts.
Jade notices my mood, of course. And as always, she’s determined to cheer me up.
Sliding a cookie toward me across the counter, she clears her throat. “Would you rather—”
“Not this again,” Justin groans. “You’re still playing this stupid game?”
“Shush,” Jade scolds him. “It’s not stupid, and it’s not a game. It’s a cognitive exercise, and you play without complaint, or you’re fired, got it?”
He sighs, but doesn’t argue, and she turns her attention back to me. “Would you rather…” Jade hums in thought, trying to think of an acceptable scenario. “Be able to fly, or be able to turn invisible?”
Justin leans his back against the counter and taps a finger against his lips, giving the question far more consideration than it deserves. “Fly,” he says, finally. “Hands down. Who would want to be invisible anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, staring at the cookie Jade gave me, but making no move to eat it. Chocolate chip. My favorite. “I can see the appeal.”
Justin looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “The appeal? Of being invisible?” He shakes his head. “Flying is a superhero power. You could actually save people if you could fly! Being invisible is just creepy. What good could you possibly do with that?”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I drag it out, throat constricting when I see the screen.
Incoming call: Ashton.
“No one could hide things from you,” I reason, sending the call to voicemail and forcing my voice to be steady. “No secrets, no lies. Like I said, I can see the appeal.”
My phone buzzes again immediately.
Ashton: 911.
Ashton: Pick up. Emergency.
Justin shrugs. “Still creepy,” he says. “No offense, Syd.”
“None taken,” I mutter, staring down at my phone.
Another buzz.
Ashton: Please. Please pick up. I’m begging you.
“Hey, do you two mind watching the registers for a bit?” I ask. “I need to make a call.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Jade answers. “We’re dead today, anyway.” She turns her attention to Justin. “Okay, brat, would you rather…”
My phone buzzes incessantly as I make my way through the back of the store, but I manage to ignore it, gripping it tight in my fist until I’ve closed the stockroom door behind me and locked it.
The buzzing stops when I finally pick up. “Ash, this better be important. I’m in the middle of work and—”
“He’s not married.”
The words hit me so hard they knock the air out of my lungs. The phone slips in my grip, and I almost drop it. “What?”
Ashton swears. “I mean… Okay, he is married, technically, but—"
My temper snaps. “I’m hanging up.”
“No! Wait, Babygirl, listen—please.” His voice is frantic, edged in panic. “It’s not real. The marriage was never real!”
“What the hell does that mean, ‘not real’? I saw the certificate, Ash. Looked real enough to me.”
“Look, Annika’s dad… He’s not a good guy.
And he was going to marry her off to someone she didn’t know, send her away to another country, like Russia or something.
She was young and scared and…” He stops to take a breath.
“She came to Alec for help, to get her out of it. And he did. He married her on paper so she could stay. But they were never… Nothing ever happened. There was nothing between them, I swear it! She’s like our little sister. You have to believe me.”
My throat constricts. I remember the look on Sebastian’s face when I confronted him—the shock in his eyes, like he hadn’t even realized why I was angry.
It was never me.
On the other end of the phone, Ashton laughs, almost wild with relief. “So this was all just a huge misunderstanding! You have no idea what a weight off my chest this is. But it’s okay now. You know the truth. We can go back to the way it was. I’ll come over tonight and—”
“No.”
The silence on the other end of the line is long.
“No?” His voice cracks. “But Babygirl—”
“Let’s say I believe you,” I interrupt, anger filling my voice. “And I’m not saying I do believe you—”
“But it’s the truth!
“Even if it is true, Ash, you lied. You and Alec. Over and over again. About who you were, about her, about everything.” My voice wavers, but I bite it back, forcing the steel into my words. “And when I told you I needed space to figure it out, you refused to give it to me.”
“Sydney, I—”
“No.” I grip the phone tighter. “I’m talking now. And you’re going to listen. You haven’t given me a reason to trust you. Not you. Not Alec. Neither of you. So no, Ash. You don’t get to come over. You don’t get to pretend this is fine. We’re not fine.”
On the other end of the line, there’s only the sound of his breathing, jagged and uneven.
“Give me time,” I say. “Actually give me time to think about it. To figure things out, okay?”
A long pause. Then a broken, “Yeah. Okay.”
I take a shaky breath, trying to calm myself.
“Goodbye, Ash.”
I don’t wait to hear his answer before I hang up.
He’s lying. He has to be lying.
But…
I stare down at my phone and open my messages. Alec sent me a text, didn’t he? That night?
This time, I read it.
The Boss: Sydney, I should have told you about Annika.
I should never have lied to you. You’re right to hate me.
But I didn’t tell you for one simple reason.
We’re married in name only. Annika and I have never been anything romantic.
Please, darling, you have to believe me.
I’ll explain everything. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. I’ll always be here. You’re it for me.
The words blur in my vision.
I close the message and feel like my entire world has shifted.
I’m not sure how long I stay there, locked in the stockroom, Alec’s message echoing in my head.
I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know who to believe.
So I do the only thing I can think of. The only thing that's ever worked when I’m falling apart.
I run to Jade.
By the time I’ve dragged myself out of the stockroom and word-vomited every miserable detail of the call, I’m shaking, my head buzzing. Jade and Justin listen patiently while I regurgitate it all for them.
“So,” Jade says carefully, when I finish. She takes a bite of the cookie I’d left behind on the counter, chewing it thoughtfully. “Do we believe him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, wrapping my arms around myself. My voice is raw. “I want to. But wanting to doesn’t make it true.”
I reach out for the cookie, but Justin grabs it before I do and takes a huge bite, chewing like it’s helping him think.
“Okay, let me make sure I understand all of this.” The words are muffled around his mouthful of chocolate chip sugary goodness.
“You were dating this guy, right? But you found out he’s married. ”
“Correct.”
“So you end it. Totally fair. But then this other guy that you were dating calls you and tells you that the first guy…isn’t actually married? That it’s, what? Like a marriage of convenience?”
“Or something like it,” I say.
“And the text you showed us.” He nudges my phone where it sits on the counter, smearing chocolate on the screen. “Seems to confirm that the second guy is telling the truth about that.”
“There’s a third guy too,” Jade adds. “But we’re not supposed to talk about him. Or the fourth one, who kissed her in a club last night.”
Justin chokes on the cookie, raising his eyebrows at me. I shrug.
“That’s pretty much it,” I say.
“When you found out he was married, he didn’t try to explain any of this in person?” Justin asks.
“I wasn’t exactly listening to him,” I admit. “And I sort of ran out of the apartment…and… away.”
Justin’s lips twitch. “Uh-huh.”
The tiniest smile tugs at my mouth, despite everything. “Okay, yes, guilty as charged. I’m the girl in the movie who runs away before a single sentence could likely clear up the entire situation. Shut up.”
“At least you’re self-aware about it,” Justin consoles me.
The service bell for the back register rings, signaling we have a customer waiting.
“If you’re not going to be helpful, go cover the register,” Jade tells him, shoving his shoulder. He laughs and takes another bite of my cookie before leaving.
After he’s gone, Jade leans in close. Her voice softens. “So.”
“So,” I echo.
“Do we believe him?”
Do I?
I hadn’t given him a chance to explain that night. I hadn’t wanted to.
“I don’t know. If I’m being honest, it’s not even just whether or not he’s married.
It’s the lying. And what if this isn’t the only thing he’s lied about?
I don’t know anything about them, not really.
It feels I’m sitting on the outside of their little circle,” I admit.
“And he has no intention of letting me in.”
Jade reaches across the counter, squeezing my hand. “It’s okay to take time to figure out how you feel, Syd. You don’t have to figure everything out right this second.”
Her steady gaze holds mine until I nod, some of the pressure in my chest loosening.
I don’t have to figure it out this second. I can take my time, I can—
“Delivery!”
The front door swings open, and a man shuffles in, juggling a long, flat box. I recognize it instantly from the shape.