by Helen Cooper
“Okay.” She was pretty sure that the baby talk was about to happen.
“Meet me for lunch?” He sounded distracted and Sophie wondered what was going on. And then she heard the woman’s voice say, “Maxwell, come. We have some unfinished business.” And then she laughed; a loud silky laugh and Sophie knew that it was Alexis.
“You’re with Alexis?” Sophie’s voice held disbelief. “You hurried out of my bed to go and see Alexis?”
“It’s not like that, Sophie.” His voice was urgent. “Please meet me for lunch.”
“You can fuck off, Maxwell.” She spoke angrily, the words tripping out of her mouth. “I don’t want to see you again.”
“Sophie.” His voice was strained. “Look, I have to go. I’ll pick you up in 3 hours.”
“Whatever.” Sophie hung up the phone and screamed. She threw the phone at the wall and looked around for other items to throw. She grabbed a brush and threw that and then went and banged her fists against the wall, tears streaming out of her eyes.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” She screamed and shouted as she banged her fists. “I hate you.” She collapsed onto the ground and sobbed, unable to keep in her frustration and sadness. A loud bang made her jump and she sat on the ground frozen in fear.
“Sophie?” Ella’s voice called out to her and Sophie heard her walk towards her room. “Sophie?” Ella peaked into the room and saw Sophie sitting there, wide-eyed and teary. “Omg Sophie, what happened?” She ran over to her friend in concern, “Are you okay?”
Sophie nodded, unable to talk. She stared at Ella as if she was a stranger she was seeing for the first time. She looked different. She had cut off her long blond hair and now her face was surrounded by a pixie cut. She looked older and sadder. But Sophie was too distraught to ask her what was wrong.
“Oh Sophie.” Ella sat down next to her and hugged her. “Are your aunt and uncle okay?”
Sophie nodded once again and cried into her friends shoulder. They sat there for a few minutes before Sophie’s phone started ringing. Ella reached over, grabbed it, and handed it to her. Sophie didn’t recognize it and so she answered it.
“Hello.” She spoke slowly so she could regulate her breathing.
“Hello, this is Mildred Hubble from The Gottesman Libraries at Teacher’s College, Columbia University.”
“Okay?” Sophie’s voice showed her confusion. “How can I help you?”
“You left a notepad at the desk yesterday. I thought you might need it. You seemed to be very caught up in your research.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Sophie didn’t really care anymore. She didn’t care about Maxwell’s past or at least she tried to tell herself that. What was the point?
“Also, you didn’t shut the computer down properly last night.” The old lady sounded miffed.
“Sorry.”
“Well, as I was shutting it down for you, I noticed that you had done the search incorrectly and had only accessed certain websites. If you can come in today before 5pm, I can show you how to access all the sites and government files.”
“Government files?” Sophie’s breath caught.
“Yes.” The lady sounded excited. “I can help you access files that people don’t even know exist.”
“Oh?”
“I think you should come in, Sophie.” The lady spoke with urgency. “I don’t know why you were looking up this Maxwell Van Harkel, but there is some information I think you should see.”
“Oh, ok.” Sophie’s heart started beating fast. “I’ll come in right away.”
“Good.” And with that, the lady hung up.
Sophie looked up and saw Ella staring at her in concern. “Are you okay, Sophie? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. I’ll tell you later, okay?” Sophie didn’t want Ella to know that it was her brother, Maxwell that had made her feel like this.
“It’s a guy, I’m guessing.” Ella laughed bitterly.
“Yes.” Sophie paused as she stood up. “Are you okay, Ella? When did you get back?”
“I got back last night.” Ella’s voice caught. “I went to see him. We spent the night in a seedy hotel. I thought things were going to change. That he would have missed me. But he is still the same.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I need to get over it.”
“You’re better than him, Ella.” Sophie spoke earnestly. “You don’t need a married man.”
“Who said he was married?” Ella answered her angrily.
“No one.” Sophie’s voice was soft. She couldn’t help her friend if she didn’t want to acknowledge the truth.
“He loves me,” Ella mumbled. “He told me I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.”
“Don’t they all?” Sophie mumbled back. Maxwell had made her feel like a million dollars with his wonderful words.
“He meant it,” Ella shot back. “He couldn’t have made love to me the way that he did without loving me.”
Sophie remained silent, not wanting to burst her friend’s bubble. She knew she had to leave soon but she couldn’t just walk out on her friend. Not in this moment.
“I let him take my cherry, Sophie.” It was Ella’s turn to cry.
“You were a virgin?” Sophie’s voice was shocked.
“No, silly.” Ella laughed through her tears. “My other cherry.”
Sophie looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”
“I let him do anal, Sophie.” Ella sighed with exasperation. “He fucked me from behind.”
“Oh.” Sophie tried not to look at her friend in shock.
“He said it would be a way to show him how much I loved him.”
“Oh Ella.” Sophie wanted to go and slap Joseph.
“He had to use lube there,” Ella kept talking, “a lot of lube.”
“Ok.” Sophie looked at her friend and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”
“It fucking hurt, Sophie.” Ella half cried and half laughed. “And it was gross.”
“Why?”
“I had an accident.” Ella made a face and burst out laughing hysterically.
“Oh?”
“You don’t wanna know.” Ella screwed her face up. “He told me they were separated, you know.”
“Joseph?” Sophie’s voice was soft.
Ella looked at her in dismay and sighed. “Yeah. I’m so ashamed, Sophie.”
“It’s okay, Ella.” Sophie stroked her friend’s hair. “He took advantage of you.”
“Yeah.” Ella looked at her with blazing eyes. “But I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She stood up and brushed her clothes. “Wanna grab lunch?”
“Can we do an early dinner?” Sophie asked. “I have an appointment now.”
“Sure.” Ella hugged her friend quickly and walked to the door. “I missed you, Sophie.”
“I missed you too, Ella.” Sophie smiled, her first genuine smile in days. She was happy her friend was back and was being honest. “I’ll call you about dinner.”
“Sounds good. Let me go shower now.” Ella ran out of the room and Sophie could hear her singing a Rihanna song. As Ella sang about liking the way it hurts, Sophie closed her eyes. She would never love this feeling. She prayed that when she opened her eyes, she would find herself in a different place, at a different time, and with this all being a dream. She counted to three and opened her eyes. Ella was singing about loving the way he lied and she sighed and walked out of the door.
Chapter 13
“I have to leave in an hour.” Mildred, the librarian looked at her sternly. “I called you hours ago.”
“Sorry,” Sophie apologized. “I was helping a friend.”
Mildred studied the young girl in front of her and decided to keep her comments to herself. She’d seen too many young girls get caught up by men in the city to not know what had caused the dark circles under this girl’s eyes. She normally wouldn’t care what the stupid girls got caught up in but this one seemed smart. The fact that she had come to the library to do some research showed
that. And she looked to be a naïve one. Too naïve to be caught up with someone like Maxwell Van Harkel. Mildred had spent the previous evening looking him up after she had shut down the library. Her bridge group hadn’t been able to meet and she hadn’t felt like going to the bookstore. Maxwell Van Harkel looked very rich, very handsome and way too old for someone like Sophie.
“Well, come and let me show you the databases you didn’t access yesterday.” Mildred hurried her over to the computer. She didn’t want to do all the work for the girl. “Look here.” She pointed to one of the tabs and walked back to her desk.
“Uh, thanks,” Sophie called back to the lady. Her phone rang and she grabbed it quickly. She’d forgotten to turn it off or put it on vibrate. She saw Max’s name on the screen and she quickly pressed end.
“Please put that phone on vibrate,” Mildred screeched at her.
“Sorry,” Sophie muttered back to the lady. She really did seem to fit the stereotype of an older sour librarian. She put the phone on vibrate and stuffed it back in her bag. She quickly got to searching the databases and a whole slew of new articles popped up. Mildred was right, she hadn’t seen anything yesterday. She looked at the clock and realized she didn’t have much time left and she decided to print out all the articles that had interesting titles.
“You have five minutes,” Mildred called over to her.
“I’m almost done.” Sophie quickly kept pressing print and hoped she had enough money on her print account. She jumped up quickly and went over to the computer to release the prints and waited for them to print out. She stood there with about 100 articles in her hand and quickly stuffed them into her bag before going back to turn off the computer properly this time. She saw Mildred staring at her as she shut it down and she smiled at her as she left the library.
“Thanks so much.”
“Hopefully you can concentrate on your studies now.” Mildred dismissed her and Sophie walked out of the library and tried to hold in her laughter. She knew that her situation was horrible but something about Mildred’s holier than thou attitude had her laughing. What a mess!
She grabbed her phone to call Ella and see where she wanted to go for dinner when she noticed a limo by the Subway entrance on 116th Street. That was strange; she didn’t really see many limos by the campus. But she supposed a lot of rich kids went to Columbia, maybe one of them had a date or something. She walked past the limo; deliberately not looking inside when she heard the door open and someone jumped out and touched her on the back.
She screamed and looked back. Maxwell was standing there, looking handsome and stern. She held back a smile and tried to stop the happy feeling in her stomach. I don’t like this man anymore. I don’t like him. I will not be happy to see him. She kept berating herself.
“Sophie.” He grabbed her by arm and she jumped back.
“Don’t touch me.” She glared at him but he didn’t remove his hand.
“You didn’t answer my calls.” He glared back at her. “I told you that I wanted to meet you for lunch.”
“I didn’t say yes,” she muttered.
“I tried calling you and sent you text messages.”
“I didn’t see any messages.”
“Your phone wasn’t off.”
“What are you? My stalker?” She glared at him. “How did you know I was here?”
“I had a feeling.” He paused. “What were you doing?”
“None of your business.” She pulled her arm away from him. “Anyway, I have a train to catch.”
“Come with me.” He looked at her with a frown.
“No.”
“Sophie, I swear to God, I will pick you up and put you in the car if I have to.”
Sophie swallowed and felt her face flush. “Whatever.” But she walked and got into the limo. The driver didn’t even turn around to look at her.
“Drive us around for a bit, Miles. I’ll let you know where we want to go in a bit.” Maxwell ordered the driver as he got into the car after her.
“Yes, Mr. Van Harkel.” With that, they were gone.
“Where are we going?” Sophie spoke to the window.
“I was hoping we could talk.” Maxwell reached over and gripped her face so that she turned towards him. He leaned down and kissed her staring into her eyes as he did so. “God, I’ve wanted to do that all day.”
“What?” She stared at him with wide eyes.
“Kiss you.” He smiled at her and kissed her again. Only this time the kiss was harder and deeper and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She found herself melting against him. He pulled away from her reluctantly and played with her hair, tucking it behind her ears. “You are so beautiful, Sophie.”
“No, I’m not.” She dismissed his words.
“Yes, you are.” He played with her ear. “Even your ear is perfect.”
“No, it’s not.” But she felt her body flushing as she spoke.
“Yes, Sophie, you are.” He kissed her ear and then her nose. “Sometimes I wonder if you know just how beautiful you are.”
“That’s what every guy says. You don’t have to lie, Max. We’ve already had sex.” She tried to pull away from him remembering that Joseph had said the same sort of flowery words to Ella.
Maxwell sighed and took her hands in his. “Your hands are cold.” He rubbed them in his and then stared into her eyes. Sophie tried to avert her gaze but she couldn’t. Something about the emotions reflected there made her hold her breath. “I love you, Sophie.” His words were low, as if he were trying them out for the first time.
“What?” She looked at him in amazement, unsure if she had heard him correctly.
“I love you, Sophie.” He paused. “I love every hair on your body, every single part of you and I cannot live without you.” He held a finger up to her mouth, as she was about to speak. “No, let me finish first. I’m sorry for my reaction last night. You see, I didn’t think you could love me as I love you. I know that some college guy broke your heart and I didn’t want to be second best. But I’m okay with that, Sophie. I just need to be with you. And maybe one day, you can grow to love me as I love you. Maybe one day, we’ll be the family that everyone wants. You, me and the baby. I think I love you enough to make it happen. I love you enough to be happy with whatever you can give me. But I can’t stay away. Not anymore. I’ve tried, by God, I’ve tried. But I can’t do it any longer. I don’t want to. I want you to marry me, Sophie. Please. I want you to be my wife.” He removed his finger and stared at her shocked face. “You can talk now.” He half laughed.
“You told me you didn’t want to get married,” she spoke the first words that came to her mouth.
“There was a reason for my saying that Sophie, not something I want to get into now. But I thought that it would be best if I stayed single.” He paused as she spoke again.
“But you were engaged to Alexis? And isn’t she the love of your life?” Sophie’s voice broke as she spoke. “You don’t have to marry me just because I got pregnant, Max.” She looked down to her lap.
“I don’t know how you know I was engaged to Alexis.” There was a frown in Max’s voice, “But that ended a long time ago. And no, she was never and will never be the love of my life.”
“I don’t understand.” Sophie looked up at him. “I thought you loved her.”
“Oh, Sophie.” Maxwell grabbed her into his arms. “I love you more than life itself, please know that. I’ve loved you for a long time.” He stared into her eyes. “It’s not something I’m proud of Sophie, but I’ve loved you far longer than you know.”
“Really?” Sophie’s heart was beating rapidly and she suddenly felt like electricity was running through her veins. “You really love me?” She sounded delirious and hopeful.
“Yes, Sophie. I love you.” He looked at her furtively. “And I hope that one day you will love me half as much as I love you.”
“But, I already told you yesterday that I love you, Max.”
“You’re still getting o
ver the guy you wrote the poems for, Sophie. I don’t know if what you are feeling is real or a rebound crush.” He sighed and looked dejected.
Sophie laughed and then caressed his face as he stared at her with pain in his eyes. “Oh my darling Max, you are the guy in my journal. It’s always been you. Only you.”
“What?” He looked at her in shock.
“I’ve loved you forever, Max. Maybe before I was even born.” She grinned at him.
“Are you joking?” He looked at her searchingly. “I’m the guy in the journal?”