Chapter 6
Cornelia
Burgundy, black, navy blue, or maybe something more colourful like baby pink or yellow—I can’t decide what colour I want my nails to be. Normally, I’d have known a few days in advance, but the last few days, my mind seems to be a little scrambled. Thank TJ for that.
“What do you think about this colour?” Annabelle asks, pointing to a nail painted in a delicate baby yellow in the sample book.
I take the book from her and look at it a little more closely. “I like it.”
“What colour are you getting?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug.
She stares at me and frowns. “Who are you, and what have you done to my best friend?”
“Nothing, I’ve just been a little occupied,” I say, looking at the sample book. “I think I’ll go with a nude colour. You can’t go wrong with that.”
We are at The Mandarin Oriental Spa having a girls’ day because, according to Annabelle, I owed her some quality time as I’ve been really occupied since I got back.
When my schedule is really hectic, I get my nails and massages done at home, but there’s something special about taking your time and going to an actual spa, especially with your best friend.
“Is it really that you’ve been occupied, or is it TJ?”
“You saw the mountain of schoolwork I—” I look at her and decide there’s no point in lying to someone who knows me so well, someone who probably already knows I’m lying. “Maybe it’s a little bit about TJ.”
“I know what he did is unforgivable, but do you think you could ever forgive him?” Annabelle asks, her eyes flickering with guilt, as if she’s ashamed for even bringing it up.
And she doesn’t even know about my mother—she only knows he cheated on me.
But I can’t fault her for asking. Our breakup didn’t just affect us; it rattled the whole group dynamic.
And even though she acts mad at TJ, I know she loves him.
“No,” I lie. I’ve thought about it a lot, and there have been moments when I wanted to.
I wanted to forgive him. I wanted to be back with him.
How pathetic does that make me? But it doesn’t even matter, since for me to even consider forgiving him, he would have to apologise, and he has never done so.
“Can we talk about anything other than my love life?”
Annabelle props her elbow on the table, resting her head in her hand as strands of her long blonde hair cascade forward. She gives me a playful look. “But your love life is so interesting.”
“More like non-existent at the moment.”
The nail artists enter the room, and we tell them the colours we each want. I choose a nude shade, while Annabelle ends up changing her mind and picks a baby blue colour instead of the yellow one, and they immediately get to work.
“How about instead of talking about my love life, we talk about yours?” I lean in. “Are you ever going to tell Laurie you like him?”
Her brown eyes flick away from me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mhm.” I roll my eyes playfully. “You can fool yourself all you want, but you can’t fool me.”
She exhales, giving in. “Fine, I may like him a bit.”
More like a lot. Annabelle has been in love with Laurie ever since boarding school, but lately she seems a little bit more, and I know for a fact that Laurie has always found Annabelle extremely attractive.
“You should ask him out,” I suggest.
Annabelle looks at me as if I had suddenly grown three heads. “No,” she replies, horrified.
“You do know we’re living in the twenty-first century,” I say, looking around before leaning in closer. I cover half of my mouth with my hand, as if I’m about to share a state secret. “Women are now allowed to ask men out.” I fake gasp. “Shocking, I know.”
She rolls her eyes, tugging at her white robe identical to mine. “I know that, but why should I have to? He asked you out.”
“You know he won’t do it. And he asked me once, a long time ago, and that was before Camille.”
The name sits there like a heavy burden. Every friend group has at least one name—if not a few—that, when brought up, casts a shadow over the conversation and brings a tense atmosphere. For us, one of those names is Camille.
She was Laurie’s ex-girlfriend—the only person he had ever dated, and the only person he had ever been in love with. I know I shouldn’t say this, but she was a bitch. She cheated on him plenty of times, and like the angel he is, he forgave her every single time.
Until she died.
It happened nearly two years ago in a boating accident.
Apparently, the person driving the boat didn’t have a boating licence and thought they could just wing it, like it was some kind of math test they didn’t study for and not an actual, powerful machine.
Shockingly, he ended up killing 10 out of the 12 people on the boat.
The most fucked-up thing about the whole situation was that Camille died while cheating on Laurie. It was a mess. He couldn’t be mad because she was gone, but he couldn’t grieve properly because of how she died.
After that, Laurie changed. His eternal sunshine became somewhat cloudy, and he shifted from being a hopeless romantic to a cynic, but only when it concerned himself.
It was as if he believed he was cursed or something, like he didn’t deserve that sort of love.
He has stayed away from relationships and dates as if they were a plague.
It pains me that one of the most lovable people I know is so at odds with love.
He deserves to be in love and be loved the right way.
And who better than Annabelle, the best person I know?
Annabelle sweeps some of her hair back over her shoulder. “Either way, I’m not going to ask him out.”
“But you could.”
She looks at me, a little annoyed. “But I won’t.”
“But you could,” I repeat.
“Oui, mais je ne le ferai pas,” she says in French. Yes, but I won’t. While I love hearing the softness of the language, this is definitely not it—her voice is sharp, almost harsh. I understand her perfectly, as I speak French and Latin, though I am a bit rusty, and some Spanish.
“Okay, you won’t,” I concede, knowing she normally only switches to French when she’s irritated, when she doesn’t want someone to know what she’s saying, or when she wants to insult someone. “But I really think you should,” I add very softly.
“I have never asked anyone out, and I’m not planning on changing that,” she says firmly, but a lot less vigorously than when she spoke in French.
It’s true—she’s gorgeous and has never lacked suitors.
But I know the real reason she doesn’t want to change it isn’t vanity; it’s insecurity.
She’s deeply afraid of rejection. If you ever saw Annabelle on the street, you’d be stunned by her beauty, but she sadly doesn’t see herself that way. I hold her mother responsible for this.
Annabelle’s mum is a big-time designer with her own brand, Marie Pieret, and is also the current creative director of Chloe.
Annabelle grew up surrounded by models who mostly ate air for breakfast, which can really fuck up your mind.
Plus, it doesn’t help that her mother is always criticising her appearance.
In her mother’s eyes, Annabelle has always been the black sheep, while West has always been the golden child.
I believe her mother is just jealous. She’s a vain person and sees in Annabelle the one thing she can never get back: youth.
“Fine, but you might miss out on something amazing because of it,” I say, hoping my words will stay with her and maybe eventually encourage her.