Chapter 25
Cornelia
Like every weekend before my birthday, I went to Jessica McCormack, Harry Winston, Cartier, Graff, Tiffany, Buccellati, Boucheron—the usual spots—to put some pieces on hold so my friends and family could easily pick out their gifts for me.
Most of the pieces are usually bought by Anthony.
He always goes over the top for my birthday, overcompensating for the fact that my parents barely remember it.
Annabelle accompanied me, and we left the stores on Bond Street for last so we could do some shopping afterwards, which is exactly where we are now.
“Are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?” I ask.
“There’s no room; we’re outdoors,” Annabelle muses, glancing at herself in the window reflection.
She knows exactly what I want to talk about, but she’s been avoiding it for the last few weeks.
Every time I got remotely close to the topic, she steered the conversation towards TJ, Nate, and me.
She was doing a really good job at it. But now that my romantic issues are somewhat resolved and I can finally focus on other things, she doesn’t have anything left to hide behind.
“We’re about to enter one,” I say as we walk into Ralph’s Coffee and get in line to order. “Come on, what’s going on between you and Laurie?”
She sticks her nose in the air. “Nothing is going on between Laurie and me.”
“I beg to differ. I may have been caught up in my own drama, but I wasn’t blind enough to miss you two sleeping together in my guest bedroom.
” Annabelle opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, I add, “Or that when we were at my grandmother’s house, and I slept in your room, you snuck out and returned early in the morning. ”
“You noticed?” Annabelle says, looking caught.
I chuckle a little. “You weren’t as sneaky as you thought.”
She sneaked in with her heels in hand, trying not to make much noise, but she dropped one, which woke me up. I acted like I was still asleep, though—because I know her, and I know there’s a time to pry and a time to hold back, and that was definitely a moment to hold back. Plus, I was tired.
“There may have been something going on between Laurie and me,” Annabelle concedes. “But if you had come out with us yesterday, you would have noticed that it’s over now.”
Yesterday, West, Laurie, TJ, and Annabelle went out to West’s club.
Annabelle tried to convince me to go, but after last time, I’ve been avoiding any place that has alcohol and either TJ or Nate in it.
She was really pushy, though—I was about to give in, but the sudden arrival of my grandmother derailed those plans.
I frown, concerned. “What happened?”
Our conversation pauses as we reach the front of the line, and the cashier asks for our order.
Annabelle gets a hot oat milk latte, while I opt for an iced chai latte with regular milk.
I’m kind of lactose intolerant—it gives me a stomach ache—but oat and soy milk don’t taste as good.
That’s a problem for future me; present me is going to enjoy her milk.
I pay for our drinks—it’s the least I can do after she spent the last hour with me at Harry Winston, looking at multiple diamonds with different specs, or as she put it, “stones that pretty much all look the same.” She doesn’t like jewellery as much as I do.
“So what happened?” I repeat when we reach the pickup counter.
“Weberly Johnson happened,” Annabelle answers, letting out an annoyed huff.
“What did she do?”
Annabelle’s face scrunches in disgust. “She was all over him—it was dégueulasse.” Disgusting.
Weberly Johnson is a socialite, influencer, and a former child actor around our age.
She runs in the same circles as us, but unlike us, she wasn’t born into them.
Despite what some articles and certain people might suggest, Annabelle and I don’t subscribe to mean girl behaviour, and we don’t care about her origins or how much money she has.
What we do care about is the fact that she got into our circles by dating guys with big trust funds.
She’s kind of a gold digger. I guess the residuals from her acting jobs don’t make enough money to maintain her lavish lifestyle, so she has to degrade herself by dating barely passable human beings to keep that life going instead of getting a real job.
At the very least, if she has her eye on Laurie, her standards are improving.
I shouldn’t be so mean; I kind of owe her.
Thanks to her recent breakup with her boyfriend and my grandmother’s PR stunt, the press has mostly stopped stalking me.
Also, I’m pretty sure someone on my family’s PR team paid the press to make her breakup story bigger so that people would forget about my drama.
But if you mess with my dream couple, you’re getting my wrath.
And honestly, my family’s PR team blowing up her story probably helped her too—after all, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
“Were they kissing?” I ask her.
“No,” she replies.
I give her a confused look because when someone says two people are “all over each other,” I assume they are making out.
“But she was stuck to his side all night, laughing at all his jokes and touching him,” Annabelle says, justifying her statement, her anger rising with each word.
The barista calls out our names, and we each grab our drinks and walk to the exit.
“But they didn’t kiss—that’s the important thing,” I tell her. “He’s probably not interested.”
“If he isn’t, then why did he let her spend all night with him?”
She’s getting a little irrational; spending time with someone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re interested in them.
But I know very well what jealousy can do to a person.
In high school, I was the queen of irrational jealousy for a while.
Annabelle brought me back to earth, and now it’s my turn to return the favour.
We step out onto the street and begin walking towards Prada. Annabelle wanted to check out a bag there.
I take a few sips of my chai, drinking almost half of it since I don’t know how to make a drink last. “You know Laurie is too kind. He was probably just being polite.”
“But she’s Weberly Johnson!” Annabelle exclaims.
What Annabelle actually means is that Weberly is pretty damn hot.
She kind of emanates this porn star energy some boys tend to fall for, but I would never say that to Annabelle aloud.
Plus, being hot isn’t everything, and I’ve never seen Laurie interested in a ginger.
Brunettes, yes. Blondes, definitely. But gingers?
No. And Annabelle is also extremely hot and gorgeous, just not in the same vulgar way Weberly is.
I stop walking, and so does Annabelle. I place a hand on her shoulder to make sure I have her full attention. “And you are Annabelle Pieret, and there’s no one hotter than my best friend.”
She smiles at me, but there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes. “Still, maybe Laurie and I weren’t meant to be. If we were, it should be easy… not this hard.”
I’ve always believed good things take hard work, but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe when it comes to love, if it’s easy, it means it’s right, and if it’s hard, it means it’s wrong. My relationship with TJ has been many things, but I wouldn't exactly call it easy.
I look straight ahead and see both Laurie and TJ walking towards us.
What the hell?
I feel like the fucking universe is sending me mixed signals.
Just when I start to think that maybe TJ and I were never meant to be, he appears right in front of me.
But as well, I’m standing beside Annabelle, and she was thinking the same thing about Laurie, so maybe this isn’t a signal for me—it’s for her.
I point straight ahead so that Annabelle notices them. “Speak of the devil, and he will appear,” I say with a smirk.
We continue walking straight ahead until we bump into them.
“Hey,” TJ says.
“Hi,” I respond.
He looks me up and down, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “No shopping bags, and your birthday is in a few days… I’m guessing you’re here putting some pieces on hold?”
“No shopping bags yet,” I clarify. I wasn’t planning on buying anything today, but if something cute crosses my path, I won’t discriminate. I flash him a smile. “But good guess.”
Both Annabelle and Laurie are uncharacteristically silent. They are just standing there, staring at each other, almost as if they are in a staring contest. You could cut the tension with a knife, and for once, it’s nice that TJ and I aren’t the ones causing it.
I hate seeing them like this, so I decide to do something for my two best friends to force them to talk it out.
I intentionally drop my cup, trying to make it look like an accident but also trying not to spill too much to avoid making a big mess. “Fuck,” I mutter.
I crouch down and pull some wipes out of my bag—I always carry them with me. I must really love Annabelle and Laurie because I’m about to touch the floor with my hands. As I’m about to clean the spilt chai latte, TJ crouches down too and takes the wipes from my hands.
“Let me,” he says, swiftly wiping up the spill. He picks up the cup and tosses the used wipes into it.
We both get up from the floor, and Laurie and Annabelle are exactly as they were before I dropped my chai—looking at each other, almost like statues. I’m not even sure if they noticed what I did.
“I’ll go and get another one,” I say, signalling the cup TJ is holding.
“I’ll accompany you,” Annabelle tells me, breaking out of her trance.
I don’t want her to come with me—that isn’t part of my plan. I want TJ to be the one to accompany me so Annabelle and Laurie are left alone to talk things out.
I glance at TJ, giving him a look that says, Help me out here, hoping we still have that unspoken understanding we used to share.
“Don’t worry about it,” TJ tells Annabelle. “I can go with Cornelia—I meant to grab a coffee anyway,” he adds, giving me a quick glance to let me know he understood me.
“Perfect,” I say quickly before either of them can protest. I turn to Annabelle. “You and Laurie can go to Prada, and TJ and I will meet you there.” I look at Laurie. “Of course, if Laurie doesn’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Laurie says, his tone neutral, but his eyes still on Annabelle.
“So it’s settled.” I clap my hands before turning away and beginning to walk back to Ralph’s Coffee, with TJ following close behind.