Chapter 19. Ophelia
OPHELIA
Knowing Cain Green isn’t in Scotland would be relaxing if I didn’t know he was in New York. Alex must be tired of me texting him every five seconds for confirmation that he and his sisters are still alive.
His latest update comes in the form of his arm, covered in eyeshadow swatches while three different hands swipe varying shades of purple onto the remaining bits of space on his forearm.
Alex
Help. It’s 3am.
I grin, typing out a reply on my laptop from one of the Nightshade library’s dark, dusty corners, where I study opposite Divya.
Ophelia
Purple might be your color.
He sends back a zoomed in photo, and though it’s blurry, I know it’s a closely cropped photo of my hair.
Alex
This is my color.
Ophelia
Careful, Corbeau. Wouldn’t want to come on too strong.
Alex
This crush I have on you is getting out of control.
Alex
FaceTime me when you shower later.
My bottom lip almost bleeds from the effort of biting down on my smile. Over a man, no less. How far I have fallen.
I close the tab before I add failing all my exams to the list of things I’m doing over a man. Divya gives me a knowing look, teasing but smiling ear-to-ear as she sits with her headphones on, poring over a cardiology textbook.
I think she’s been sitting here for thirteen hours. Medical degrees aren’t for the weak.
It’s gloomy out, as it always is. The sky has a dark, rumbling underbelly that’s rolling its way over the unkempt pines.
A fine mist of rain obscures the spires of the castle, but inside, the fireplace beside the library bar is kicking out a steady warmth.
A cozy glow from the brass wall lamps casts the dusty shelves and creaky desks in a soft light.
It’s quiet in here, thanks to some party that went on way too late last night, so the sense of foreboding that looms over my shoulder while I write my notes on grief in childhood makes no sense to me.
I hate the distance. It feels like helplessness a lot of the time. Whenever Alex has a bad day, all I can do is text him.
I just hope it’s enough to get us through the next two years.
DIVYA IS ASLEEP on her laptop keyboard when I get back from swim practice, exactly where I left her.
I drape my jacket over her shoulders and leave her to rest.
I work in the library until the lines of my multimodal perception essay don’t seem to make any sense anymore, until I’ve stared at the word cognition for so long that it looks like a weird assembly of letters with no meaning.
It’s then that I notice the strange looks starting.
Actually, they’ve never really stopped. I can’t walk across this campus and not catch a few death glares, but they definitely seem to intensify.
The two girls on the brown chesterfield by the fireplace, dressed like they’re off horse riding and not sitting in a dusty castle in the Scottish Highlands, swivel where they sit.
One of them whispers something to the other, which isn’t uncommon.
Something about my outfit, usually, or my slightly wonky teeth, or my freckles.
I’d hoped to keep myself out of the spotlight this year, but getting back together with Alex has shattered that plan.
Everything I do now seems to be publicly debated, sorted into worthy of him and not worthy of him.
But this time, no one seems to be laughing. If anything, they seem … sympathetic? Worried? Angry? I’m not sure; I’m terrible at reading people.
When I glance around the sagging wood shelves and dusty vaulted ceilings of the room, a lot of people are staring at me. I open the camera app on my MacBook to see if I have leftover pasta sauce on my chin, but it’s got some dumb filter on it that makes me eyes bigger than the rest of my head.
In the photo gallery on the bottom left, photos of Alex and me in bed at my parents’ house with giant bug eyes and tears of laughter glistening on our cheeks stare back at me.
The ache in my chest is hollow and heavy all at once. Long distance is hard. Especially on afternoons like this one, when I can’t get hold of him and I’m left wondering if he’s in a million meetings or lying in bed, grappling for reasons to keep going.
Colette’s name appears in the top corner of my screen,
Colette
Hey, honey. Are you okay?
Ophelia
Have I put on a particularly pitiful outfit, or something?
Colette
You don’t know?
Alex. A sickening feeling hits me. A hundred images flit through my brain. Oh God. A call from Colette has my phone vibrating on the desk, but I hit decline and gather my things.
I can’t lose anyone else.
Ophelia
Text it.
I stumble my way out of the library and into the foyer. The walls are closing in on me, the decaying portraits laughing at my panic.
Colette sends a link to a news article.
Former Model and Wife to Missing Aviation Tycoon Elise Corbeau Believed to Be in Critical Condition After Collapsing Outside Her Manhattan Home.
No.
No, no, no.
“Ophelia, there you are.” Vincenzo jogs in from the rain, phone pressed to his ear.
He pulls it away again, hitting redial. “Come on, man. Pick up,” he whispers, a gentle hand wrapping round my arm as he pulls me toward the dark spiral staircase.
I have to run to keep up with him, a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
“He’s not answering,” Vincenzo tells me. “I’ve been trying him for the last twenty minutes.”
I don’t have to imagine what Alex is going through. I know it. I relive it every night, every time I’m bored, every time I see burgers, Scrabble tiles, helicopters, anything that reminds me of them.
I have to go to New York. I have to be with him.
“Bella.” Vincenzo’s voice cuts through the fog, phone on loudspeaker so he can text and talk as he guides us up the steps.
“Did you hear about Elise?” Belladonna’s voice is strained on the line.
“Yeah. I’m gonna fly back.”
“Your exams, Vincenzo.”
“I’ll retake them, do an extra semester if I need to. This is bigger than exams.”
“Have you heard from Alex?”
“No.” Panic lines the word.
“I’ll come back with you. Call you back in a minute.”
I call Alex while Vincenzo calls his father. I focus on the steady rhythm of his combat boots on the stone floor, trying to not think about what this means.
This means air travel, and even my terror for Alex and his mother isn’t enough to distract me from that.
I can hardly breathe.
My call to Alex goes to voicemail. I try not to crumble. Please, lord, let him be okay.
Ophelia
Tread water, Alex. Tread water until midnight, and we’ll figure it out from there.
We stop at the top of the stairs, and Vincenzo reaches out for the door, hand pausing above the handle like he’s forgotten to do something. He drags me into a rough hug. “You okay?”
I swallow thickly, force out a shrug. His presence is comforting, sure and confident as always. I’m grateful Alex has him, has always had him. “I’m worried about him.”
He pulls away, two giant hands settling on my shoulders like he’s trying to keep me together. “He’ll be okay. He has you. You two are the real deal.”
“He has me,” I repeat, with a nod. I need to show up for him. I’m not the girl who fell into despair for four years. I’m not the girl who runs away, who closes off her heart. I’ve grown. “Let’s go.”
VINCENZO HOVERS IN my doorway while I empty the bottomless pit of junk that is the top drawer of my bedside table onto the bed. My passport is there, stuck closed by a melted Haribo. It’ll do.
“I can’t bring liquids?” I ask, throwing an eclectic mix of clothes into a bag without really looking. The flight is the elephant in the room. I can tell that Vincenzo doesn’t believe there’s any universe in which I’ll actually set foot on a plane.
Neither do I, but I’m hoping I’ll just do it when the time comes.
“Yeah, you can.”
“What?”
“It’s a private jet. You can bring what you like.”
“I …” Oh no. A private jet. My hands shake violently as I try to get a hold of the zipper on my bag. “I … I can …”
“Worry about the whole plane thing later, Pheelz.”
“Yeah,” I choke out, finally zipping up my duffel. Vincenzo slings both my bags and both of his own over his shoulder, picking up another phone call as we walk.
He leads me out of the mansion and onto the shady path to the car park. I stop beside his distinctive Maserati, but he keeps walking, toward Belladonna’s Bronco. “She’s the faster driver.”
Belladonna arrives, together with Jack, one of Alex’s friends from the rugby team whose parents are part of Elise’s medical team.
I haven’t spoken to Belladonna since the night in the woods, though she often makes an appearance in my nightmares, an endless loop of Laura’s death and blood on my hands.
It’s tense between us. We’ve not spoken, save for the odd question she texts through from her men to confirm they’ve cleared up all traces of Laura’s existence and buried the final copy of the photo that started all this.
I have no right to be upset that she intervened, that she killed to protect herself, but I am.
She had every right to be angry that I put her in that position, and by the look she shoots my way, she still is.
Vincenzo tosses all of our bags into the back, and the four of us climb into the car. Belladonna makes Eike look slow. I have one hand pressed to the roof and the other braced on the window as she skids the car out of Sorrowsong’s long forested driveway.
On the plus side, it makes me slightly less apprehensive of the flight, because at this rate, none of us are making it to the airport alive.
They all make phone calls, Belladonna to her father, Vincenzo to his security guys, to his mother, to the airport. Jack to his mom, his girlfriend.
They all ring their people, but my person—my only person—is three thousand miles away, somewhere I can’t hold him or comfort him, like he does so well for me.
All I need to do is get on that plane. I can’t get off once it’s up. I just need to get into my seat and do the panicking afterward.