by Penny Reid
Less hysterical, he meant. She was saved from drumming up a reply when Jen bustled into the room with a mug in each hand. She speared her husband with a glare and ordered, “Out.”
Theo didn’t need to be told twice.
Once he was gone, Jen turned a determinedly bright smile on Aria. “Tea!” she said, thrusting a cup into Aria’s hand. Kind of like you’d thrust food at a wild animal before backing away slowly.
Aria stared glumly into the milky brown liquid. Now, the inquisition would begin.
“There,” Jen said primly, sitting down. “That’s better. No more tears, or your eyes will go all puffy.”
“You can’t appeal to my vanity right now,” Aria lied. “I am desolate and despondent. I wouldn’t care if my eyebrows fell off.”
“Well, of course you wouldn’t. You could microblade new ones for yourself.”
She huffed out a resentful chuckle. “Stop making me laugh when my chest hurts.”
“But that’s what I’m for,” Jen said softly. “Now. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
A fresh wave of despair hit Aria like a brick, completely without warning. Suddenly choking back yet more tears, she put down her tea and asked, “Why do you even bother with me? How many times have you had to sit around, listening to me cry over some guy like it’s the first time I’ve been fucked over?”
Jen frowned, rolling her lips inwards. “Honey. It doesn’t matter. You’re my best friend and I want to be here for you. Always. And no matter how many times you get hurt, you have the right to feel that pain as if it’s brand new. There’s no cap on feelings.” She put a hand on Aria’s shoulder. “Please tell me you know that.”
“Sure,” Aria sniffed. “I know that. Logically. I used to tell myself that all the time. Like, yes, this guy hurt me or that guy lied, and yes, I could’ve seen it coming, but I’m not to blame! They’re responsible for their actions and blah blah blah. But Jen, how many times can the same thing happen to me before I figure out the common denominator? I…” Her voice cracked, her vision blurring with tears. Christ, she must be so dehydrated by now. “I throw myself into relationships because I want someone to love, and I want someone to love me. But that’s not okay. Look what happened last time!”
Her final sentence, the words she’d been desperate to say all along, burst out almost violently. They were so loud, they seemed to echo around the room. Jen jerked back as if she’d been hit, her mouth forming a little ‘O’ for a moment. But then, as always, she rallied.
“Aria Granger. Please tell me you are not still freaking out over that thing with Simon.”
“Of course, I am, Jenny! I know I’m not allowed to feel guilty.” Shout out to Dr. Browne, therapist extraordinaire. “But I do know that if I didn’t need to be with someone, Simone wouldn’t have been able to use me. Because I wouldn’t have given him the time of day. What does it say about me, that I can fall for someone I don’t even like? Nothing good, no matter which way you spin it. I know that.
“So, I decided, if I can’t choose carefully, no more men! None at all! That makes sense, right? Only I fucked up. With Nik, I fucked up. Because I thought it was different, and I thought it was real, and that I wanted him—not just someone, him. So, I let myself try again. And I fell for someone’s bullshit, again. I probably wanted to fall for it. I’m on some twisted self-sabotage kick where I throw myself at manipulative dickheads—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jen said, holding up a hand. “Nik, the guy you were fake-dating? What happened?”
So, Aria told her. Aria told her everything. And at the end of the most disjointed, teary, self-pitying speech of her life, she looked up to find her best friend frowning at the wall like it held the secrets of the cosmos.
After a slight pause, Jen said, “There are a couple of things I need to say.”
“O…kay?”
“First of all, Nik is a dickhead.”
Aria laughed, and accidentally blew a snot bubble. A snot bubble. Would these indignities never end?
“Nice,” Jen said dryly.
“I told you to stop making me laugh.”
“My wit is too powerful to contain, unfortunately.”
Aria rolled her eyes and reached for the tissues.
“The second thing I want to say,” Jen went on, “is that I understand why you’re doubting yourself. Because you’ve definitely made some unhealthy relationship choices. I can’t lie, I was glad when you stopped wifing any guy with functioning private parts, but not because I think there’s something wrong with you. I think you’re amazing. You love so easily.”
Aria grimaced.
“That’s not a bad thing! That’s a gift. I’ve always been so jealous of you. It’s like you don’t have a well that can run dry, you don’t have a barrier or a limit. You just love and love and love, and it never runs out, and you’re never afraid. Sometimes people take advantage of you, but that is not your fault—no matter how many times it happens. I don’t care. It is not your fault. Everyone wants love, and you’ve got an ocean of it. The people who know they don’t deserve it will always be first in line, because they’re thirsty. And they know how to play you, because you’re too sweet to think the way they do. Like, you cannot comprehend their evil.” Aria winced as Jen tapped her on the forehead. “You have a mind of hearts and flowers.”
“No offence, but that is complete bullshit. I am not sweet.”
“You are. You’re like a loyal Alsatian. You will maul someone if necessary, but it’s always out of love. I just wish you’d protect yourself as much as you protect everyone else.” Jen paused. “Although, it sounds like you’ve started to. And, while I approve wholeheartedly, I do have one last point to make.”
Wariness settled over Aria. She picked up her mug of tea and took a fortifying sip. “What?”
“Like I said, Nik is a dick… but…”
“I don’t like that but, Jen.”
“But, you really like him. And he loves you.”
Aria shook her head jerkily. “No. He doesn’t. He—he lied to me—”
“I’m not saying you should trust him, but let’s just pretend—for argument’s sake—that everything he’s told you is true. If you look at it that way, the story goes something like this: raging man-slut with zero relationship experience falls in love at first sight, doesn’t know how to cope with his feelings, and cooks up a desperate plot to keep the object of his affections in his life. Gives her ridiculous amounts of money and takes her on a truly excellent holiday. Makes her happy, treats her well, bestows many orgasms, admits he loves her and comes clean about everything.” Jen paused. “I don’t know, Ari. Does he sound like a dick? Yes. Completely. Does he sound like an evil, manipulative scumbag? Not exactly.”
“So, the best-case scenario,” Aria said frostily, “is that he’s a non-evil, slightly manipulative dick.”
“Do you think he manipulated you into liking him?”
“Yes!”
“How?”
Aria stared at her friend. Jen was usually so smart, and yet, all of a sudden, she had become unbelievably ditsy. “He lied to me, so I’d spend a week pretending to be his girlfriend.”
“Okay. But if that whole fake-girlfriend thing had been legit, do you think you’d have fallen for him anyway?”
“I—yes? I don’t know. Probably? Well, fuck, yes, definitely. But it doesn’t matter, because it wasn’t legit.”
“Right. He manipulated you into being around him. The thing is, though, it doesn’t sound like he manipulated you into liking him. Unless you think he was fake the whole time—like, he put on some act to make you fall for him. Or he hid some fundamental part of himself that would’ve changed everything.”
Aria forced hot tea past her cold lips. It landed with a sickening slosh in her belly. “No. No. I don’t think he did that.”
“Okay,” Jen said softly. “So, however you feel about him, or felt, before he told you the truth… that’s real. And if you really did care about him,
maybe—maybe—you should consider giving him a chance to make it up to you.”
Aria thought about that for a second. She really, really did. But her mind threw up a single answer, undeniable as a brick wall. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
Jen gave her a sad smile. “Okay, honey. That’s okay. It was a rather big lie.”
But it wasn’t Nik’s lie that kept Aria awake that night, her stomach roiling and tears rolling down her cheeks. She barely thought about the lie at all.
Two images kept her up, flashing back and forth in her mind until they seemed to blur together. The look on Nik’s face, when she’d told him she was leaving—as if his heart had broken and his world had ended.
And the look on Simon’s, when he’d put a gun to her best friend’s head.
Chapter 19
“What the fuck did you do to Aria?”
The sound of that name, even in Keynes’s clipped tones, forced a flutter out of Nik’s miserable heart. Clearly, his heart didn’t quite understand the situation they were in. Everything is fucked. We are doomed. And Aria doesn’t care if you flutter for her. So chill the fuck out.
“I fell in love with her,” he said dully, staring up at the night sky. Nik should be with his friends on the last night out of the week—or at least in bed, getting ready to leave tomorrow. Instead, he’d brushed off Varo and Kieran’s concern, ignored G’s pointed questions, and spent the night alone in the garden, lying in the grass.
The bugs were eating him alive, but he didn’t really give a shit right now.
“You fell in love with her,” Keynes snorted. “Right. Okay. What country will you be in tomorrow?”
“I have no idea. Why?”
“I’d like to know your general location, so I can fly over and beat the shit out of you.”
“I’ll text you hourly updates.”
“Thanks.” Keynes sighed. “Nik, what the fuck? I never would’ve let you pull this weird fake girlfriend thing if I thought you’d hurt Aria. I told her you were an okay guy!”
“Well, you were wrong. I’m a piece of shit.”
“Will you stop talking bollocks and say something that actually makes sense? What the hell happened?”
Nik ran a hand over his face. He’d never been so fucking tired in his life.
And yet, he knew he wouldn’t sleep if he tried.
“That night at the hotel,” he said. “When I kissed her. I… fuck, Keynes, I don’t know what happened. I just knew I needed her. Forever. But then I found her the next morning, and she didn’t want anything to do with me.” He laughed. “I didn’t ask her out. It hadn’t occurred to her that I was going to. She thought I wanted her to get rid of people for me, like she did with Melissa. So, I went along with it.”
“You hired her,” Keynes said slowly. “To be your fake girlfriend. Because you wanted…”
“A chance. That’s all. I wanted us to get to know each other, but things just happened. And then we were actually together—”
“Aria doesn’t date anymore.”
“Yeah, I know. She said something about that. But I guess she changed her mind. So, I told her I love her.”
Keynes gave a derisive snort. “Nice one, Romeo. How’d that go?”
“It was fine. She was dealing with it. But then I told her the rest.”
There was a pause. Then Keynes said flatly, “You tricked her into faking a relationship with you, made that relationship real, told her you love her, then revealed that, surprise! The whole thing was built on your aforementioned machinations.”
Well, fuck. That sounded almost as bad as the way Aria had put it. “I know the whole thing was reckless and ridiculous and selfish—”
“Did you tell her that?”
Nik winced. “Not exactly. I froze. I knew she was going to leave me, and I froze.”
“Of course you did,” Keynes drawled. “You spoiled man-baby.”
Nik supposed he should protest that statement, only it felt pretty accurate.
“You know what? Don’t bother texting updates. I don’t need to hit you. Because if you’re actually in love with Aria, you’re going to be hurting for a very long time.”
Even though Nik had thought as much, those words turned his stomach to lead. “You don’t think she’ll forgive me?”
“No,” Keynes said grimly. “I don’t.”
The next few days didn’t go so well for Nik.
Actually, that was an outrageous understatement. The next few days were hell.
It took him precisely one night of wallowing to remember that he was Nikolas Christou and giving up was not in his vocabulary. There was no way—absolutely none—that he was letting the love of his life just walk away from him. Even if he was the one who’d pushed her.
Of course, after that invigorating realisation, he hit a wall. The problem was, Nik couldn’t see any way to reach out that wouldn’t make things a thousand times worse.
Aria had told him pretty fucking clearly that she didn’t want to be near him. She hadn’t even let him drive her to the airport. She’d almost seemed afraid of him. And he could see now, after looking at the situation from angles other than his own self-centred, lovesick perspective, that she’d be well within her rights to think of him as a manipulative creep.
Manipulative creeps generally did not endear themselves via further harassment.
Over the days that followed their separation, Nik went home—not back to La Christou, where his family would demand to know what the hell was wrong with him, but to his flat in England. There, he spent his time thinking about Aria, mooning over Aria, and fantasising about accidentally bumping into Aria in the local Tesco (which was impossible, since he knew she lived miles away). All he wanted was to speak to her, to see her, to get on his knees and tell her he’d do anything to regain her trust. But if he came within fifty feet of her without permission, she might just call the police. And Nik believed that would be counterproductive to his aim.
He was making breakfast on the third day—buttering a bagel because it somehow reminded him of her—when the idea struck. It was obvious, really, wasn’t it? He couldn’t go to her, but he could make it as easy as possible for her to come to him.
She’s not going to come to you. She hates you. She’ll never forgive you.
Nik flicked that voice away like the gnat it was. He hadn’t studied sports psychology for years just to let negative thoughts colonise his thinking and fuck up his game.
If he gave Aria everything she’d need to get in touch, and maybe apologised again—in a way that didn’t put any pressure on her—she’d have time to work through her feelings. She could decide if she wanted to see him. And if she did, she would. And if she didn’t…
Well, if she didn’t, he’d have to leave her the fuck alone, wouldn’t he? Even if the thought cast a film of grey over his life, his future, his everything. He couldn’t push her; he’d already pushed her enough. He’d pushed their entire relationship into being, as if she were some kind of doll and he was the puppet master. And that wasn’t how he wanted them to be. It wasn’t who he wanted to be.
So, he’d wait. He’d wait for her. Even if it took a fucking century. Even if she never came at all.
Abandoning his bagel, Nik found his phone and brought up Keynes’s number.
I need you to send this to Aria. Please send exactly this? Okay? Please. It’s important.
I’m sorry. I’d find you and tell you exactly how sorry I am, but I don’t think you’d want me to do that. I won’t contact you again—directly or indirectly—unless you ask me to. If you don’t want to now, but you do later, that’s cool. Even if ‘later’ winds up being 2067.
If you need to talk, or you just fancy sending me a bag of dog shit, here’s my address. Also, the hotel’s address, in case you want to tell my mother what a dick I am. That would be excellent revenge, because she would beat me with a spoon, and those things hurt. While we’re at it, here’s my number, my email (which you already have) and every socia
l media account I’ve ever made. I will check those every day, just in case. Even if it halves my productivity and makes me want to claw my eyes out simultaneously.
I know I fucked up. I know I lied. But everything else between us, from the first email I sent you to this message, is 100% real to me. I wasn’t trying to trick you into something you didn’t want to give. I didn’t expect things to happen the way they did. I just loved you. I love you now. I wanted to be around you and I was incredibly selfish about it. I’m sorry. I will never be sorry enough. But I am sorry.
Yours faithfully,
Nik.
A few moments later, his phone buzzed.
Keynes: Good luck mate.
Aria thought she’d finally gotten the tears out of her system when she woke up to a text message from Keynes. Or rather, from Nik. Whatever she called it, its effect was the same.
She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her phone and cried some more.
God, she was so bored of crying. But at least her outbursts remained varied and exciting, right? Over the past few days, she’d cried over betrayal; then bagels; then her tan lines, which reminded her of things best forgotten; and finally, her sox, which was forever ruined. And not just because she’d sat on it.
Now she was crying over Nik’s message. Because, as she read the words, she could hear his voice—all cockiness gone, his tone soft and hesitant, the way it got when he was nervous.
He’d been nervous, sometimes. With her.
And once she remembered that, she remembered a thousand other things too, all of them jostling for attention, desperate to be the main cause of today’s tears. Nik’s smile, sometimes sweet, sometimes wicked, always provoking. Nik’s constant humour, his warm, easy affection and his recklessness. She threw the phone onto the bed and slapped her hands over her eyes as if that would stop the memories, but of course it didn’t.
She loved him. She loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone. She didn’t know what to do with all this love. She was drowning in it, but the only thing that scared her about that was…