Chapter 8
TJ
I’m kissing her neck, moving slowly up and down. I kiss the back of her ear like I know she likes it, and Cornelia lets out a soft moan. She flips me over on the bed, getting on top, and as she is about to lean down to kiss me, her face twists—becoming someone else. Vict…
I panic. Can’t breathe. Try to move to push her off. My arms feel heavy, useless. Pressure crushing. Darkness pressing in. Just movement. A harsh knock. Loud. Jolts me awake. My heart is pounding. Sweat is soaking me.
I bolt upright. Disoriented. My eyes dart around the room. Black headboard. Grey bedding. Brown hall panels above me. Low black platform bed I’m lying in. I’m in my room. Not hers. Not trapped. It was a bad dream.
I force myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
It was a dream.
It was a dream.
It was just that fucking dream again.
My chest heaves, but slowly the rhythm steadies. Bit by bit, my body unclenches.
A light kick in the leg reminds me I’m not alone.
On the other side of the bed lies a girl with light brown hair, sleeping on her stomach, but it isn’t Cornelia—just the best knockoff version I could find last night.
She was a big disappointment. They all are, to some degree.
After all, no one is like Cornelia. Being with Cornelia was like driving a Porsche, and being with other girls felt like being suddenly downgraded to a Toyota, but with this girl, it was like I was in a tractor.
Maybe it’s because I was Cornelia’s first, and every time I entered her, it felt like she was perfectly moulded to my body.
I like to think it was because we were always meant for each other, but I wonder if now that she has had sex with other people, she would still feel the same?
Also, there is this thing she does with her legs that drives me insane.
I keep hearing noises from behind my bedroom door. Fuck. I thought that was part of my dream. Begrudgingly, I drag myself out of bed to see what’s going on.
I open my door, and the first thing I see is Laurie and West standing there.
I step out and slam the door. First, to avoid the awkwardness of introducing the girl in my bed, especially since I don’t remember her name.
And second, while West already knows about my tendency to bring home girls who look like Cornelia, I’d rather not have Laurie find out and psychoanalyse me too.
I already know it’s messed up; I don’t need more people telling me.
But it was too late, as Laurie inclined his head and peeked inside as I closed the door.
Laurie frowns, confusion written all over his face. “Is that… Cornelia?”
For a moment, I feel insulted that he confused Cornelia with the girl in my bed, who doesn’t even hold a candle to her.
But Laurie hasn’t spent as much time memorising every corner of Cornelia’s body like I have.
And I can’t deny there’s a resemblance—after all, that was the only reason I had sex with her.
“No, but he wishes,” West answers.
Laurie laughs hysterically, and I glare at both of them.
Ugh. I need coffee to continue this interaction. I walk to the kitchen, and they both trail behind me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Laurie, flicking on the coffee machine.
“Brunch with Mum, Aunt Clarisse, and Nate? Does it ring a bell?”
Shit, is it Sunday already? I could have sworn it was Thursday, but I’ve spent most of the week drunk, so it’s entirely possible I lost track of time.
Mum has hosted brunch every Sunday since Laurie and I moved out, but I tend to miss most of them.
I had promised her I wouldn’t miss this one since I haven’t been to one in ages.
“You forgot,” Laurie answers his own question.
“I didn’t forget; I just forgot what day it is,” I mumble.
He rolls his eyes. “Same thing, but I knew this would happen, that’s why I’m here.” He points to my room. “So get dressed and let’s go.”
“Do I really have to go?” I ask as I finish making my coffee.
“Yes. You promised Mum.”
“But that was the old me, the one who didn’t know present me would be so hungover,” I reply, rubbing my eyes. “I’m not exactly good company right now.”
“I can testify to that,” West chimes in.
Laurie gives me an exasperated look.
“Fine, but he isn’t coming, right? Not like last time when he wasn’t supposed to be there but showed up anyway.”
“Dad is out of the country on business, so you have nothing to worry about,” Laurie tells me. I’ll believe him when I see it.
I turn to West, who’s very underdressed in just a pair of grey pyjama bottoms like me, unlike Laurie, who’s dressed in a navy-blue jumper and a pair of jeans. “Are you coming?”
He’s invited to almost every family function, including the Sunday brunch, which he attends more often than I do. My mother practically considers him her third son.
“I think I’m going to sit this one out. I’m also hungover, and I didn’t promise anything,” West answers, giving me a smug smile.
I sigh into my coffee cup. Lucky him.
Laurie taps his watch. “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”
“Give me ten minutes to jump in the shower and get dressed,” I tell him, heading back to my room.
“TJ,” West calls out, and I turn to look at him. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?” He points to my bedroom.
Fuck, I totally forgot about the girl.
“I take it back. Give me twenty minutes,” I say to Laurie. “Unless you could—” I start to ask West.
He interrupts me, “No, I’m not getting rid of her for you.”
I sigh. “Alright, I will do it.”
“Sweetie, is the food not to your liking? You’ve barely touched your plate,” my mum asks, eyeing my almost untouched meal.
We’re at Dovetail. My mother hosts brunch at home half the time, and the other half, we go to a restaurant to mix things up. Today is one of those days.
“I had a big dinner yesterday,” I lie. I’m not going to admit that if I eat more, I’ll probably end up throwing up.
She nods, her green eyes softening on me. My mother has Laurie’s eye colour but the same brown hair as me. With my father, it’s the opposite—I have his greyish eyes, and he has Laurie’s brown hair.
“More like a lot of alcohol,” Nate mutters under his breath, low enough so our mothers can’t hear, but loud enough for me to catch it as he sits beside me.
I don’t know what his problem is. He’s been unbearable since December—always passive-aggressive and judgmental.
I thought it was all due to his breakup with his ex-girlfriend, Amelie, who, according to him, broke up with him, but I saw Amelie’s best friend a few weeks ago at a pub, and she told me the exact opposite—along with some colourful words about Nate.
“How are your classes, Laurie? You’re almost a month in, right? You must have a feel for them by now,” Aunt Clarisse asks.
“I have one class where the professor is against technology and makes us take all notes by hand. But other than that, they’re all good,” Laurie answers her.
“Oh, I loved college so much,” my aunt replies, her voice full of longing, like every time she talks about it, and she places her hand gently on my mother’s.
My mum looks at her and smiles. “I know. It was such a fun experience.”
My mum and aunt went to St Andrews together; that’s how they met. They were roommates and became inseparable. Later, my aunt introduced her brother (my father) to my mother. They started dating almost immediately, and the rest is history.
My aunt is almost an exact physical copy of my father, just with her being female. They have the same hair colour, eye colour, and almost identical bone structure. They could pass as twins. They even dress in the same style of suit.
“Definitely, we had such great times. I’m so proud of Nate and everything he’s achieved,” Clarisse says, looking at Nate with an expression of pride I haven’t seen directed at me by my parents in ages.
“But sometimes I worry he’s missing out on the college experience by starting to work so early on. ”
“I may not be in college, but I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything,” Nate glances briefly at me. “And at least I’m doing something worthwhile.”
I suspect everyone caught the jab at me, but they ignore it.
My mum angles her body towards my aunt, and they start reminiscing about anecdotes from their college days, which they could go on for hours.
Sometimes I think these brunches are just an excuse for them to see each other more often than they already do.
“What’s your problem, mate?” I ask Nate in a low voice.
“Nothing,” he answers, then excuses himself to go to the loo.
I follow him. Normally, I would let this go, but he has already exhausted my patience.
“Seriously, what is your deal?” I ask him as he comes out of the toilets.
He looks annoyed. “Nothing, as I said.”
“Does this have to do with Amelie?” I ask. “I saw her friend, the one with the blue hair, and she told me Amelie said you broke up with her, not the other way around. So, did she lie, or did you?”
“It’s none of your business,” he says sharply.
“It is my business if this is why you have been so irritable lately.”
Nate hasn’t looked me in the eye the whole time, but now his brown eyes meet mine and he says, raising his voice, “I haven’t questioned you about how you fucked up your relationship with Cornelia, so afford me the same courtesy.”
Then he walks away, leaving me astonished. Nate is usually level-headed and rarely gets rattled, but something seems to have changed. I thought he’d return to the table, but as I go back, I find out he actually left the restaurant.