Chapter 3
Six months later Chris broke up with me.
That night he asked to see me, and I told him to come over. My parents were away as always. My dad worked from the N.Y.C. office a lot, and my mom was always with him. Luke was probably fucking his latest conquest. I was all alone.
He didn’t bother taking his coat off. He did it in our foyer, the door barely closed behind him. I pushed to the tips of my toes to give him a kiss, wrapped my arms around his neck, and he turned his head to the side. He grabbed my forearms gently and pulled them away from him.
What’s wrong? The panic in my voice was already clear.
We need to talk.
But there was no need to talk. It was short, told in a pragmatic way like Chris does when he separates his emotions from the situation.
Ella, I wish I’d been smarter and not let my feelings take over my brain, but this thing we’ve got going on…you were right. It can’t last.
Don’t. Every single day of my life I regret the reaction I had that night.
I should have been strong and pretended it didn’t affect me. Maybe it’s because I thought if I showed him my true feelings he wouldn’t leave. If I told him how much he was hurting me he would stop. Maybe I really couldn’t control my desperation.
You’re saying this because of Luke, but I can talk to him. Or we can keep it a secret. I don’t care. Please, just don’t end this. I need you, Chris. I’m in love with you…please.
I tried to grab his hand, but he pulled it away, making sure not to give me any hope.
Is it someone else? Are you doing the same thing they all do in your little group? Just fuck the girl and leave?
You know that’s not it. I respect you too much to ever do that to you.
My friendship with your brother means everything to me.
I can’t keep doing this to him. Going behind his back?
He loves you, Ella. He loves you with everything he has.
I’ve been…a horrible person. I’ve been taking advantage of you. I’m so sorry.
You’re not taking advantage of me. I’m my own person, I know what I’m doing!
You’re young. This is…wrong. I’m off to college in a few months. We don’t want to hurt each other. This needs to end.
You’re hurting me right now.
And you’ll thank me later for it. I’m really not looking forward to seeing you find the true love of your life, Sweets. But I know it’s not me, and the smartest, fairest thing to do is to let you go.
He didn’t hold me when I cried. He didn’t say he loved me back when I told him how my heart belonged to him and that he was the love of my life.
And he left when I begged him to stay.
Chris chose his friendship with Luke over his love for me. One was stronger than the other, and I didn’t win.
The pain and helplessness of watching him graduate and leave Stoneview to move on with his life while I was forced to stay here and finish high school is probably the worst feeling I have ever felt. My heart broke in a way I don’t think I will ever be able to fix.
It’s been over for years and I know I’m still not over it. I haven’t had another boyfriend, and all the sleeping around I’ve done never helped. Not that I’m going to stop anytime soon.
Sometimes, we see each other at Stoneview gatherings.
All the families here are close, and I was bound to bump into him at some point, especially since his friendship with Luke never took a hit.
As the sweet, perfect man everyone thinks he is, he’s always polite with me, kind.
He never mentions our past, always offers me a smile.
I hate small talk with him, and I prefer running away from him than facing him.
But the worst are the calls. Because Chris Murray is just a man. A fucking stupid man who can’t stand his ex might one day move on from him. So, every now and then, when he gets too drunk to control himself, he calls me.
And he tells me all about his pain as if I don’t have mine to deal with. He tells me that his biggest regret in life is letting me go. That he’s a coward for not talking to Luke. Then he begs me with all he has to not find someone else. Because no one will love me the way he does.
Fucking. Bastard.
Those calls never stopped him from finding a girlfriend the first year he started at Harvard. A trust-fund baby who would fit so well with the Stoneview bitches. Someone who couldn’t be more different from me. Mainly, someone who isn’t his best friend’s younger sister.
My heart jumps in my throat when my phone rings on my bedside table. My hands are shaking when I pick it up, my first thought going to Chris.
I chuckle to myself when I see my best friend’s name on the screen.
“Hey, Peach.”
“Parents have gone to bed, Santa is about to go around town…I think it’s time for drinks, don’t you?”
I smile into the phone. “What’s with everyone wanting to have drinks on Christmas Eve? Places are closed. Go to bed and wait for your presents in the morning.”
“Come on. I’m going to Wren’s. Come with me.”
“Hell no,” I snort. “I’m not going to third wheel you and Wren. Plus, I’m already in bed.”
“You’re boring as hell, El’s. And there’s no third wheeling me and Wren. We’re all friends.”
“I don’t want to choke on the sexual tension between you two.” I yawn into the phone. “Thanks for the invite. Night, baby.”
I hang up and stare at my phone. I could go on that kinky porn site I love. I could watch some of those videos that are the only things that have been satiating me for over four years.
Silently telling myself fuck it, I type in my favorite website. I love it for many reasons, including that it’s a kinky porn site run by women.
I type DDlg in the search bar and scroll past the videos I’ve already watched a million times.
I skip the ones that go too far into the role play for me.
I don’t want pigtails and pacifiers. I stop when I see the thumbnail of a girl tied to the bed on her back, a ball gag in her mouth, and with Daddy’s little slut scribbled with a marker on her chest.
My free hand is already slipping in my shorts when I click play on Bad girl gets punished by Daddy.
The title already made me wet. Or maybe it’s the trip down memory lane thinking of Chris and me.
I press the pad of my index finger against my clit, delicately rubbing as I feel the first sparks lighting up my body.
The man on the screen grabs her breasts roughly, and I accelerate as she moans in pain and pleasure. He uses both hands to pinch her nipples and she screams sorry, Daddy!
I startle when Peach’s name suddenly appears on my screen again. I press decline, but my frantic heart feels caught in the act, and the pleasure dies a sudden death.
I huff, pulling my hand away from myself and locking my phone before slamming it on my bedside table.
I hope Chris is miserable right now. And I hope the sex with his girlfriend, Megan, is as disappointing as my miserable attempt at masturbating.
I drag the covers over my face, hating the reality I’m living in when my phone vibrates again.
“Oh my God, Peach. What?” I snap at my friend.
“Merry Christmas, Sweets.”
I can’t breathe for a few seconds. My heart starts beating rapidly against my ribcage, pumping blood so harshly my ears are ringing.
“It’s been a while.” That’s how all his drunken calls start. He tries to act normal, but I can hear the slight slur in his voice.
And I stay silent.
So he justifies himself.
“I just had a few drinks with Luke and the twins.”
I knew that.
For him to call, it must have been way more than a few.
“Luke told me about your dad insisting on changing your major. I’m sorry to hear. I know dance is everything to you.”
He must hear me struggling to take a breath because he chuckles to himself. “Come on, say something. Just this once. No one will hold it against you.”
“Your girlfriend might.”
I have never, ever, said anything in return. I listen to his drunken tirades, but I don’t talk. And when I can’t hear any more, I hang up on him.
I don’t know what’s with me tonight. Maybe it’s because I’m having a miserable Christmas Eve, and I wish he was here to make it better. My life is being turned upside down, why don’t I just keep fucking it up? Maybe I just…miss him.
“Ah, fuck,” he whispers into the phone. “I missed your voice so fucking much, Sweets.”
He pauses, and I hear him take a sip of something. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What? Why?”
“Because now I want to see you.”
“You can’t see me.”
“I can do whatever I want. You know that.”
I huff into the phone, not knowing what to say to that. This is why I don’t usually talk. There’s no winning with him. “I don’t want to see you, Chris.”
He takes it in, staying silent for a few seconds.
“She’s gone, Ella. I broke up with her.”
I didn’t even know it was possible for my heart to beat any faster. I’m near having a heart attack when he talks again. “Luke is blacked-out drunk on my sofa. The twins have gone back to their respective fiancés.” A beat. “And you and I are awake.”
“Not for long. I’m going back to bed—”
“I know you had a terrible Christmas Eve. Let me make it better.” A desperate sigh leaves him. “Please, Sweets. You know I need to make sure things are good for you.”
I put up my defenses, reminding myself there’s a reason I’m miserable every single day. Him.
“I don’t need you to make anything better. I’ve moved on, Chris. You should too.”
I hang up on him like I always do. I thought I’d never have the strength to talk to him and still stay away.
Maybe I’m stronger than I thought. I haven’t moved on, but it’s good to know I’m capable of not running back to him the second he offers.
He broke up with her.
It doesn’t matter. From what I know, he’s been unhappy for four years.
He and Megan met during their freshman year at Harvard.
Chris just started law school at Yale, and she followed him there.
Luke told me every single time Chris manages to get away from her for the holidays, he tries to break up with her, but the second they get back to college she gets him back.
He's weak, and I’m not. I will stay away.
I notice a notification in my texts and open it. It’s hard to ignore the disappointment that it’s not Chris insisting on seeing me.
See, this is why you shouldn’t have engaged in the conversation.
I eye the message of my regular SFU fuckbuddy.
Matias: You up?
“Does no one just sleep on Christmas Eve anymore?” I mumble to myself.
Matias is from Stoneview too, like most of us at Silver Falls University. He doesn’t live too far from here. My thumb hovers over my screen, but I end up exiting the app and putting my phone back on my bedside table.
I never had typical Christmases. Traditionally they were.
The roast turkey, the decorations, the lights.
We even wear Christmas sweaters on the twenty-fifth while we silently open the expensive presents my mother carefully picked for us and paid for with my dad’s dirty money.
A car, diamonds, a freaking apartment in N.Y.C.
Those are the kind of ridiculous things we get.
But the magic of Christmas, the love, the family time. We never get that.
My parents leave before lunch on the twenty-fifth every year.
Off to their villa in Barbados. When Luke and I both lived here, we’d invite his friends over and watch Christmas movies in our media room.
We’d spend the day eating and watching one movie after the other.
When Luke graduated and moved to L.A., he started leaving on the twenty-fifth too.
He didn’t really think about it. He hates this house as much as I do, and he always has work to do in L.A.
The pressure my father puts on him is no joke.
I’ll be alone again by lunchtime tomorrow.
It’s on that thought that I fall asleep.