28. Pig Out
28
Pig Out
Sophie
I’m so busy focusing on work and my HLR plans that I stop paying Maximilian attention.
He must take personal offence to this because he corners me outside a lecture hall one afternoon.
It’s late September, already dark outside.
Students are spilling out into the hallways, shrugging on coats and debating class topics when I feel an arm lace through mine.
I look up to see Max’s unpleasant smile, his grey-brown eyes fixed on me in a watery imitation of fondness.
“So I’ve heard your ex’s back in New York,” he says, pressing his shoulder into mine.
I don’t push him away, and I don’t smile.
We walk slowly down the corridor, the crowd parting around us.
“And?”
“And—” Max lowers his voice to a confidential tone.
“Looks like he had plenty of fun in France, didn’t he?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You don’t keep up with the gossip columns?” Max says.
“No, you’re too studious for that, aren’t you? Can’t be Mr Park’s perfect little pet by wasting your precious time on social media. I’ve had a look at your page, dead queen, it’s tragic.”
“I’d return the compliment,” I tell him.
“But it never occurred to me to look at yours.”
He gives a dry, irritated laugh.
“Too busy looking at Evan Knight’s? Or did you take one look at the gorgeous blonde he spent the summer with and immediately decide to block him?”
My heart lurches at his words.
Gorgeous blonde? Who?
Probably some perfect American heiress or a French supermodel.
And so what if it is?
I’ve got no reason to feel like I’m going to throw up, like I want to rip out of my own skin and run.
We’re not together. We broke up.
He can do whatever he likes, with whoever he likes.
But he’s yours , a tiny voice wails in my head.
No, he’s not. Not anymore.
I turn suddenly to face Max.
We’re in the middle of the lobby, which is almost empty now, lit in bronze lights reflecting in the glass doors shielding us from the night and rain.
Max raises his eyebrows expectantly, but his face drops ever so slightly when I smile and reach out to tap his nose.
“Poor Max,” I tell him.
“The fact that you care more about Evan’s love life than I do is so humiliating for you.”
Something flashes in his eyes.
He’s such a strange, horrible being that it’s impossible to tell whether he likes me being mean and condescending, or whether he hates it.
He does pull away, taking one step back—a small step, but still creating distance.
I smirk.
“What can I say?” he says.
“I like keeping tabs on my friends.”
“I wasn’t aware you had any.”
He crosses his arms, and I immediately notice this instinct of self-protection.
I drop my eyes to his arms, letting him notice me noticing him .
His arms fall back to his sides; he stuffs his hands into his pockets with a smile, but it reads awkward, thrown up hastily to cover up his discomfort.
“You’ve gone really mean since the summer.”
“I’ve always been mean,” I tell him.
“You’re just not a very good judge of character.”
He lets out a deep, rueful sigh.
“You know, if I’d known my silly little prank at the gala would cause so much heartache, I would’ve been more merciful.”
“Your silly little prank made the Knight family look like charitable archangels and secured me the KMG internship, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
His eyes narrow, his grin widens.
“And the heartache?”
The heartache?
Like having my chest ripped open.
Like having the one thing in my life that was completely, abjectly, unconditionally mine before having it tossed out into a black abyss.
Like my body and my soul and my heart are constantly starving.
It’s not just heartache, breaking up with Evan.
It’s realising everything I had, everything I’ve lost. It’s meeting men and knowing none of them can make my pulse quicken the way he can.
Like knowing I could bring someone to their knees but having no desire to do so because the only person I want kneeling at my feet has been taken from me.
Like being the sun in the centre of someone’s universe and then being cast out into a cold, solitary void.
Like I miss him, I miss him every day and every night, my bed colder because he’s not in it, my body hollow because he’s not holding it, my heart flinching every time my phone vibrates because I can’t help but hope it’s going to be him, because I miss him and it hurts more than I ever thought it could.
“What heartache?”
Max laughs.
“I don’t believe that. Harvard’s a real fuckfest, but all you do is work. You could have your pick of the boys—or the girls—if you fancied it. Instead, you’re like the virgin nun of the department.”
He leans forward, and I smell alcohol on his breath.
He probably needed liquid courage to hype himself up to confront me.
How pathetic. He smiles before delivering his attempt at a killing blow.
“While you’re rotting away in the library, he’s in New York fucking someone who actually wants him.” He tilts his head.
“Knight’s moved on—why haven’t you?”
Because I’m busy making sure you and your pitiful sycophants are going to regret ever taking him from me.
“When I’m hungry, I’ll eat.” I pull on my coat, scooping my hair out of the collar to fall over my shoulders.
“Some people pig out just because they can, but I happen to have more discerning taste.” I turn and wave at him.
“Enjoy your fuckfest, though.”
Back in the flat, I lock myself in my room and reach for my phone with cold hands.
My coat is still on, pearled with raindrops, and I’m breathless from the walk, but I don’t wait.
I can’t.
Hot with exertion and shame, restless and uncomfortable as someone trying to sleep with a pebble lodged under their rib, I scramble through my phone, pulling up Evan’s account.
It’s just to confirm, I tell myself, just to see.
But the truth is, I need to know.
I need to see it with my own eyes, need to see the blonde heiress sitting in his lap, her arms draped over his shoulders, her mouth pressed to his.
Because then, I could finally let go of my hopes and move on.
I just need to know the truth—no, to see the truth, to confront it head-on, and then it’ll be okay.
I’ll be okay. I’ll have no other choice but to be.
Shaking like I’ve got a fever, I scroll through colourful sun-splashed images: green vineyards, white sand beaches, a chateau of weathered stone with white shutters and blue slate roofs, decadent meals spread out under paper lanterns.
My finger slows to a stop when I reach a photo of Evan clinking wine glasses with a blonde girl.
With her pale shoulder-length hair and periwinkle blue eyes, I recognise her instantly: Theodora Dorokhova, former Spearcrest Head Girl.
I let out a shaky breath of laughter and scroll through the cluster of photos: Theodora and Evan clinking glasses, Evan grinning with his cheeks full of food, Theodora perched on the lap of her boyfriend, Zachary Blackwood, tucking a honeysuckle branch behind one of his ears.
There are more photos: Evan and his massive, monosyllabic Russian friend, Iakov Kavinski, playing video games in a grand living room lit by chandeliers.
Séverin Montcroix popping a bottle of champagne.
His fiancée, Ana?s Nishihara, standing on the edge of a pool in a violet bikini, throwing a pink heart-shaped floatie at him.
I lock my phone and drop onto my bed face-down.
Pure relief courses through me, but when I breathe out into my blanket, a pathetic little sob breaks out.
I’m weeping before I even know it, crying hard and silent, directly into my blanket.
Who knows why. Everything—all of it.
Relief that Evan spent his summer with his friends, that the only girls he was with were his friends’ girlfriends.
Sad that he didn’t spend the summer with me, like we’d said, sharing his flat, cooking in his kitchen, making out on his couch, falling asleep with my cheek pressed to his heartbeat.
And tears of anger, too.
At Maximilian, for bringing me low enough that I checked Evan’s social media when I’d sworn I wouldn’t.
Anger that it was so easy for him to shake me, even now.
Anger that he still thinks he’s won, that he’s making me want to rush my process when I know I have to be calm, composed, and methodical.
All things I’m not right now.
Because it’s not just relief and pain and anger I feel.
It’s fear. Fear of how much I want to hurt Max, how much I want to destroy him.
Fear of the person I’m becoming, fear that I’m not strong enough or ruthless enough to be this person.
Fear that I’ll never stop wanting Evan.
That he already stopped wanting me.
That one day, he’ll love someone else the way he loved me.
And that I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting ever letting him go.