Chapter 2
TJ
Fuck, fuck, fuck, that fucking brunch was a fucking nightmare.
West tried to convince me to ditch it, but I couldn’t.
She’s like a fucking magnet especially designed for me.
It was easier when she was in Paris. If I wanted to see her, I had to pack, get my passport, and take a plane or a train, and eventually, in the process of all of that, the rational part of my brain kicked in and prevented me from doing it, although sometimes it has been very close to not doing so.
Now I can just go to her house if I want to.
A fifteen-minute walk from my place, tops.
I have timed it. Which is barely enough time to stop that impulse, and I dread the day I will no longer have enough self-control to do so.
It was maddening knowing she had had sex with other guys. The same girl who once said to me that while she didn’t believe in waiting until marriage, she did believe in waiting until you were in love. I used to know her better than I know myself.
Could she have changed that much in the past months?
Was she in love with the guys she slept with?
How many were there?
One? Two? Three? More?
All these questions plague my mind in a continuous loop.
There is something about her that infuriates me like no one else can.
I wanted to shut my mind up, so right after brunch I went to a pub, drank a lot, and found the girl who looked most like Cornelia and took her home. But the thing is, no one really looks like Cornelia. There’s something about her that’s unlike anything you have ever seen.
Maybe it’s the way her eyes shift from green to blue depending on what she’s wearing, or how her luscious hair is the most incredible shade of brown, with tints of gold and bronze when it catches the light.
Or maybe it’s her face, with those angelic features.
And the way she moves—with such grace and confidence—like a swan is hypnotising.
Yet sometimes, when she’s had a bit to drink, she gets clumsy, which is hilarious.
I could search for a thousand years and never find someone quite like her.
But with enough alcohol, any light brunette with shoulder-length hair and coloured eyes can help me pretend—for a while—that I am with her.
I know it’s messed up, that every time I have sex with someone, I imagine it’s Cornelia.
But if I can’t have her, this is the next best thing.
The girl from the pub was decent sex, but the best thing about her was that I didn’t have to throw her out in the morning.
She just got up and went away. I hate when they stick around, hoping I’ll take them for breakfast or something.
Can they learn to read the room? Me having sex with them has nothing to do with them; it hardly has anything to do with me, but everything to do with Cornelia.
I woke up with a killer hangover, and after staying in bed for a while hoping it would miraculously go away—and failing—I finally dragged myself to the kitchen in search of water and maybe something to eat.
I step into the living area and spot West at the kitchen counter, dressed in a crisp blue button-down and black trousers.
Coffee in hand, eyes glued to his phone.
We’ve lived together for three years, not counting the years we shared a dorm in Edelweiss, the boarding school we all went to.
As soon as we finished school, we bought this place and moved in.
I liked it, though I would have preferred it if the developers, when they made the flats, had kept more of the original construction, like the mouldings or pillars.
It’s a penthouse on Park Street in Mayfair with three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and an open-plan living area.
If you walk in from the hallway where the bedrooms are, you’d see three couches—the first, an L-shaped one facing the wall where the TV is, and the other two, crescent-shaped, facing each other.
All three are white. Behind them sits the dining table, and past that, the kitchen.
The front door opens directly into the living room.
The flat has two storeys: the first holds the living space, my bedroom, and another bedroom we use as a guest room.
The second floor has the rooftop terrace and West’s room—the biggest one—which he won in a card game.
“Rough night?” he asks, glancing up from his phone as I cross the kitchen and reach for a glass.
I nod, pouring myself some water. My head is pounding.
“I met your friend. She tried to be sneaky, but on her way out, she ended up smacking that plant by accident,” he says, gesturing towards the front door, where a flower pot lies broken.
Shame. That one, along with the matching one on the other side of the door, is one of the few decorations we have here.
The living area is minimally decorated, with nothing except the art on the walls, each piece lit from above by its own lamp.
West chose most of the furniture, and I’m pretty sure he kept things sparse on purpose, so the art would take centre stage. “I think she was a bit drunk,” he adds.
I rub my eyes. “I’ll clean it up later.”
“She sort of reminds me of someone,” West muses, eyes glittering. “I just can’t put my finger on it. Care to give me a hand with who it is?”
He’s baiting me. He knows exactly who she reminds him of. It’s the same person the last twenty girls I’ve brought home have reminded him of.
I glare at him. “Remind me why I agreed to live with you?”
West is my brother in every way except the least important one, biologically. I met him when I was ten years old, and we’ve been friends ever since. A decision that, in moments like this, I regret a bit.
“I keep you humble,” West says casually.
I growl at him.
“Given your choice of company last night, I assume you’re not as pleased as my sister that Cornelia is back… or maybe it’s the opposite,” he wonders.
I don’t answer him. Instead, I take a few sips of water.
My feelings about Cornelia being back are still a mystery to me.
Half of me feels finally complete, like when she went away, she took a part of my soul and now it is finally back, but the other half feels mad, ashamed, and many other feelings I don’t quite get.
She is a living reminder of the worst mistake I have ever made and the worst thing that has happened to me, but she is also the person I have loved the most in my life.
“What actually happened between you two?” West asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Yesterday was the first time West asked outright.
Which was surprising, to say the least—not that he asked, but that it was the first time.
After what happened with Cornelia and me, I retreated into myself for a few days, trying to make sense of it all.
And when I finally came out of it, West seemed to understand that this was something I really, really didn’t want to talk about.
Or maybe I just looked really shitty, and he was kind enough to respect that until now.
Now that Cornelia is back, it seems his grace period is over.
“Didn’t you get your answers at brunch yesterday?” I glare at him as I drop onto the barstool beside him. “By the way, thank you very much for that,” I add sarcastically.
“Really, TJ. What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?” I ask indignantly.
“Come on, it’s Cornelia, and as capable as she is, there’s no way she could have fucked up your relationship this badly—did you…” He pauses, as if weighing whether to say what’s on his mind. “Did you, like, get her pregnant or something?”
“What?” I respond, shocked. Is that what our friends think happened between us?
“She went away,” he justifies.
“For four months, not nine, idiot,” I say, almost shouting.
He frowns, undeterred. “She could have been hiding it for the first months or gone to France to get rid of it.” He sounds like he’s talking about a fucking conspiracy theory, not the girl he’s known for most of his life.
I’m boiling. “Didn’t you go to visit her?”
“Yes, but it was right after she arrived in Paris. Besides, I spent most of the trip doing business, and when I saw her, I think she was wearing loose-fitting clothes. She’s always been pretty skinny, so I don’t think she’d get a big baby bump.
She could hide it easily. And she left a few days after the Monroe-Nodrick anniversary gala, which she and Anthony missed, and no one really bought the story that they both skipped it because they got sick,” West rambles.
Fury coils in my chest, and I want to kick him right now. I get up from my chair, walking over to pour myself some more water, needing to put some distance between us.
“So your big theory is that we broke up because I got her pregnant, and I was such an arsehole that I didn’t take responsibility for it, so Cornelia had to go to France alone to either give it up for adoption or get an abortion?
” Saying this makes me livid, and my fucking headache is doing nothing to calm me down. I rub my forehead.
How could he think I’d do that to her? I would have done anything for her.
If she had ever told me she wanted to have kids, I would have asked her how many.
There were so many moments when I imagined what it would be like to have a house full of mini versions of Cornelia that I helped create.
They’d probably be as breathless as the original and little whirlwinds that, from time to time, would drive me insane, but I’d have adored them, no matter what.
“Maybe.” He sounds more unsure than when he first made his accusation. “I wouldn’t find fault with you if that were the case. It’s a really fucked-up situation to be in.”
“West, I’m twenty-one, not sixteen. If I get someone pregnant right now and don’t take responsibility, it’s not something to justify or call a mistake. It just means I’m a bastard.”
“But—”
“I didn’t get her pregnant!” I interrupt him, shouting.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I answer, growing tired of this conversation and already anticipating it won’t be the last time he asks. I decide to save myself the trouble and give in now. My voice tightens as I let the words out: “If you insist on knowing… I—I…” I swallow hard. “I had sex with someone else.”
The words leave a metallic taste in my mouth.
“What? With whom?” he asks, staring at me, shocked and in disbelief. Then he frowns, “Was it like the time with—”
“No,” I cut him off. “And with whom doesn’t matter. What matters is that it happened.”
Except it does matter. It’s what matters the most. If it had been with anyone else, I’m sure Cornelia and I could have found a way to move past it.
He blows air out of his mouth in frustration. “That was dumb,” he says, clearly annoyed with me.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my best mate, who is fine with me leaving my pregnant girlfriend without support, but he isn’t okay with me sleeping with someone else while I was with her.
I feel that, in his own weird way, he believes the first is a mistake brought on by immaturity, while the latter is a deliberate act.
“No joke,” I deadpan, staring at the ceiling and letting out a long sigh.
“How did it happen? Were you drunk?” West presses, clenching his jaw. He’s mad, even though he’s trying not to let it show. I don’t blame him. Cornelia is like a sister to him, and he’s known her longer than he’s known me.
“I–I…” I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say sharply. I can’t. I can’t. I hate thinking about that night. I hate thinking about what happened. Even if there’s not much to think about.
West rises from his seat. “I have to go to work,” he informs me. Unlike me, he does work.
He owns an art gallery and a nightclub in Mayfair.
Rather fun jobs. Maybe I should do something like that, but the only things I know about art aren’t enough to build a career on, and the only thing I know about nightclubs is how to party and get drunk in them.
Even though I know he tends to have meetings in the morning, a part of me feels like he is using it as an excuse to get away from me.
“Just don’t tell anyone,” I tell him as he’s about to leave the kitchen. “She doesn’t want anyone to know.” And neither do I.
He turns back to look at me. “Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because I know her,” I respond.
He nods, and there is a silent understanding between us. Even though we aren’t together anymore, he knows I know Cornelia better than anyone.