29. Brittle Metal
29
Brittle Metal
Sophie
The next three months pass in a disorienting blur.
Time distorts, hours spent hunched over my laptop, stacks of books, case files, legal briefs, empty coffee cups piling up around me in unsteady towers.
Weeks collapse into one another, late summer melts into autumn, then autumn into winter, the gold-spun leaves of Harvard Yard replaced by white flurries of snow.
In the flat, people come and go, life passing me by like a missed train.
Solana’s friends meet in the living room, laughter floating in through my closed door.
Elle’s musician brother stays for a few days in between, strumming his guitar and walking around shirtless, but I barely register his presence.
There’s a Halloween party I sleep through despite the thudding music, knocked out cold after pulling an all-nighter.
Both Elle and Solana go home for Thanksgiving, both invite me to come with them, but I stay in the flat, living off toast, coffee, packet ramen and white wine .
By November, my article is no longer just a document on my screen—it’s real, an incisive analysis of the weaponisation of NDAs in corporate misconduct cases.
The article enters peer review, and for the first time in months, I can breathe.
That’s when Elle and Sol stage their intervention.
It’s a Friday night, and I’m perched on the kitchen counter, eating last night’s deli salad straight from the container.
I’m still dressed for a clinic shift—black pencil skirt, ivory silk blouse, hair in a low bun—but my glasses are pushed to the top of my head, and I’ve kicked off my heels, which means I’m officially clocked out.
Elle walks into the kitchen in a short red dress and gold heels, her long blonde hair styled into loose, lush curls.
Sol follows in a black halter top and denim skirt, a leopard-print fur jacket bunched in her arms. She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me and shares a determined glance with Elle, who nods.
“Right,” Sol says, throwing down her fur coat on the dinner table and coming to stand in front of me with her arms crossed.
“I’ve had enough.”
I stop with a forkful of salad halfway to my mouth.
“What have I done?”
Elle, already well-trained in the ways of a lawyer, leans in with a winning smile.
“Why don’t you come out with us?”
This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation.
I shake my head with practised ruefulness .
“I’d love to, but I’ve got some articles I need to read, and Mr Park recommended this—”
“Thought you said you’d sent your article off for review,” Sol interrupts.
“I have, but there’s this assignment due after Christmas, I wanted to—”
Sol shakes her head.
“Do you have any deadlines left this term?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. Go put a damn dress on. We’re going dancing.”
The thought makes me flinch.
Not just at the effort of getting ready and going out into the brutal cold, but the thought of someone else’s hands on my waist, a stranger leaning in, a voice that isn’t his in my ear.
“Maybe next time,” I mutter into my salad.
Elle sighs and takes my food away like confiscated contraband.
“Soph, sweetheart. You’ve been saying this since you moved in. It’s been months .”
“I go out all the time.”
“You know what I mean.”
I sigh.
“But I’m not in the mood.”
“Look, you’re clearly not over your break-up,” Sol says.
“And I’m sure throwing yourself heart and soul into Harvard Law Review is a great distraction, but eventually, you’re going to submit your article, get published, and then what? What’s next?” She doesn’t wait for me to tell her about all my plans for 3L.
She continues. “You don’t need distractions, you need to move on. And you can’t do that alone in your bedroom.” I open my mouth and she raises her hand, silver nails gleaming like gunmetal.
“And don’t even bother bringing up Mr Park. Unless you’re fucking him on the side, then I don’t give a shit what he has to say.”
“Ew,” I breathe out.
“He’s not her type,” Elle says, tossing Sol a look.
“I’ve heard of her ex, trust me—Park’s not her type. We need to get her a hockey boy, or a Final Club guy.”
I glare at her.
“That’s not my type.”
“No?” Elle cocks an eyebrow.
“Big and blond and stupid rich isn’t your type? What is, then?”
An image forms in my mind.
An exact summer shade of blue.
A lazy, confident smirk, the slight drawl in his voice.
Strong hands that know exactly where to touch me, a laughing mouth that knows exactly how to wind me up.
My body knows the answer before my brain does.
I can tell from the way my stomach tightens, my knees weaken, and my fingers itch to touch something that isn’t there.
“I don’t have a type.”
“Then you’ll be open to different options.” Solana drags me off the counter by my waist. “Come on. Throw on a pretty dress while I order the taxi. You’re coming with us.”
The bar we start with is glossy and dark and infested with rich Harvard boys who think that chatting up a girl is a game where you defeat the enemy by shooting personal statistics at them.
The drinks are overpriced, the music is jarring.
Elle and Solana are in great spirits, laughing, dancing, tossing their hair under the dim lights.
They force me to do several rounds of shots before we leave the bar.
We leave for the club; it’s worse .
A dizzying assault of neon and heat and bass so loud it jars my bones.
The crowd is crushing, suffocating.
My skin is too tight beneath my dress, my breath too short in my constricted chest. My body aches for something, but I don’t know what.
Yes, I do. Evan .
No, I don’t.
Not him. Not anymore.
At the bar, I let some guy buy me a drink, and I let him put a hand on my back, then my hip, testing the boundaries, seeing how far he can go.
Isn’t that why Sol and Elle brought me here?
To get over my break-up?
To drown out the person I want with the meaningless cacophony of other people?
So I try, I really do.
I let him pull me in, smelling overpowering cologne and unfamiliar skin.
I let my head tilt back, looking up into a stranger’s eyes, a handsome, bland face.
But the hands are the wrong size, the fingers are too weak, too clammy.
The touch is too different, too eager, too uncertain.
He doesn’t realise that I’m a mean dark angry creature, that I need a giving mouth but a firm hand, a touch skilled enough to know how to bend the brittle metal of me without shattering it.
Even the smell is wrong, the sweat too sour, the aftershave too cloying, and suddenly I feel like I’m going to throw up.
I shove him. Hard.
He stumbles back, blinking in surprise.
Then his expression curdles with irritation.
“What’s your problem?”
“You’re wearing too much cologne,” I sneer.
My voice is raw. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“What?”
I lean to yell over the music.
“I. Don’t. Want. You!” I smile, showing my teeth.
“So fuck off.”
His eyes darken, lips twisting.
“Crazy bitch,” he spits before disappearing into the crowd .
I stand there, trembling, hating him, hating this stupid tacky club, hating myself most of all for letting this man even touch me.
I glare at the drink he bought me and knock it back in one go.
The bartender, a tall girl with a topknot and a micro-fringe, tattoos curling along her collarbones, gives me a long, searching look.
“You alright?” she asks over the pulsing music.
My entire body bristles.
I throw her a disdainful glare.
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“I’m great .”
“Right.”
The weight of her stare makes my skin itch.
I want to snap at her, tell her to mind her business, to tell her that there’s nothing wrong with me, that I’m over him, over Evan, that I don’t miss him.
Except that I do, a little bit, maybe even a lot, and I wish he were here.
I want him to buy me a drink, put his strong arm around my waist, press his mouth to my ear and murmur something sweet and dirty.
I want him to carry me out of here, his body shielding me against the crush of the dance floor, lift me up into his arms to take me home, drag me into his bed where he knows I belong, tuck me against his chest and never let go.
But he’s not here.
And I know exactly who took him from me.
I lean across the bar, gripping the counter, nails digging into the varnished wood.
“Someone stole something from me.”
The bartender frowns.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
And then I shove my way through the bodies, ignoring the protests and sharp elbows, pushing my way out of the hellscape of heat and noise and neon and laughter, and I get the fuck out of there.