by Lee, Corri
And then, something happened that made my blood run cold. My phone began to ring, and it was that ringtone- the one that used to make my soul soar. I shook my head when everyone stared at me and left the music to die out on its own. "I'm not ready to talk to him" I muttered, flinging my hair over my face so my weakness couldn't be seen. I had heard a rumour that it takes half of the entire duration of a relationship to really recover from it. That was a lie- we stood at nearly double the duration and I was nowhere near obtaining a clear bill of health now that I was back in London.
"He's not ready to talk to you either," Bethany cut in, seating herself on the arm of the couch next to me, "he's been calling your phone at least once a day just to hear your voice on the voicemail greeting. I just usually get to it before you do. He doesn't know that you're back in the country."
"He's torturing himself" I muttered, refraining from questioning Bethany over how she knew that he still thought we were in the Bahamas. I knew that she was still having her secret conversations with him, but part of me wanted her to surrender the confession voluntarily.
They all hummed in agreement and made a series of quips about how stupid he was and how hard he'd sulked. "He'll just never understand anything from my point of view. There's a major flaw in that- the only reason he ever won me over was because he had all the clues he needed-..."I pulled the book up from the couch between me and Isaac, "... written in front of him to study and assess. I don't have another book that goes into the specifics of why I won't be controlled."
"Weren't you writing one?" Cornelia crossed her arms, pursing her lips, "The morning before you left my house," I couldn't believe that she called that gigantic manor a 'house', "you were writing up a storm in my sitting room." Bethany and Isaac looked at me inquisitively, clearly looking for details.
"It was the story of my life pre-N.G- pre-Nathanielgate," I explained to Isaac's frown, "starting from the day that I finished the novel and agreed to that first bloody date with Cole."
"Sounds like a pretty good way to show him how those three weeks made you feel." I raised an eyebrow and pulled myself up from the couch.
"I have no idea where what I wrote is- I haven't seen it since we arrived back in London after the GOSH event."
"So find it!" Isaac laughed, "Find it, write it, and when you've finished, you can send it to him and make him understand."
"That could take months."
"So? He's been wasting away on his balcony for five weeks, what's a few more going to matter?"
Their proposed concept was intriguing- I could write our story and put it to rest on paper. Perhaps I could see where it all went so wrong, find my way back to him through my words, or otherwise learn from my mistakes. And if it made no difference to my will to be away from him, it may at least provide him with closure and the knowledge of how to never make the same mistakes again with the next pyrotechnic with whom he found fireworks.
The thought of ever seeing him with someone else made me feel physically sick. "Alright, I'll do it."
"Excellent!" My company whooped and cheered. "But not now." Isaac pointed to the hollowed out pumpkins glowing through their poorly carved faces, "it's Halloween and I throw a hell of a party." I knew that wasn't a lie, I remembered Wonderland only too well. "Go and get dressed, I'll take you out to line your stomachs and we can pick you up a witches hat or something." I rolled my eyes in defeat and put my foot on the first stair. "Oh, wear something waterproof."
I wasn't even going to ask.
"So, you look a hell of a lot better since the last time I saw you." Isaac examined me with intense scrutiny while I nursed a large rum and coke at the bar of one of his other establishments. Bethany and Cornelia had vanished to partake in some some last minute costume shopping, which left me undoubtedly open to a fresh barrage of guilt.
"Anything has to be better than lying bleeding in an alley, having just been flattened by an ex-boyfriend." He spluttered into his lager and gaped at me, absolutely horrified. "Yes, I know, and no, I don't care. I appreciate the sentiment but please, kick them in the face next time. I came out looking like a car crash victim and he didn't have so much as a shiner."
"Deal," he chuckled, "but you're too skinny now, girl. You've lost weight."
I raised my glass to him and smiled, "why eat when this stuff is full of calories? I lost two stone in the Bahamas thanks to a liquid diet and 'vigorous exercise'." I smirked in memory of said exercise and stealthily checked my phone for any overseas picture messages from Tanned and Rampant. I didn't really care if he had a name, the guy made me feel good.
Isaac shook his head at me shamefully and poked at my prominent ribs. "Sure, and you say you're coping."
"Back off," I said darkly, dipping my fingertips into my drink to flick the drops in his face, "I'd be coping a hell of a lot better if you all just left me to stew."
"You've never really suffered after a break-up, have you?" I pursed my lips at him, daring him to continue. "What is really stopping you from going over to his loft and making his world right?"
"The fact that we never once made it twenty-four hours without it all going wrong." I emptied my glass and slammed it down on the table. "We're wrong for each other. I'm over it."
"The hell you are, Goldilocks. You've dealt with him changing you by changing yourself further. You think a box of bleach and a long holiday is going to take away the fact that you were going to marry him?"
"I got a new tattoo as well actually," I hissed sarcastically, waving a hand at the bartender for a top up, "I told you that I'd write the damn novel, what more do you want from me?"
His eyes glinted with mischief as he turned to face me and grabbed my hand. "Stop lying to yourself and admit that you miss him as much as he misses you. That I could do to you what I did in that church and it would still have the same effect as it did before because you know that I'm the closest you can get to him without all of the complication."
"Just try it," I snapped bitterly, "see how much better he feels when his twin ends up in bed with his ex-fiancée because she copes with misery with meaningless sex." I pulled my hand free and shuffled away from Isaac. "You want me to admit that I still love him? Fine, I do. But that doesn't change the fact that he thought he had the right to tell me who I could and couldn't socialise with. He should have trusted me." I sagged back and puffed my cheeks out in annoyance. It was the lack of trust that upset me more than anything, even though I could understand why he might have been concerned. "Me and Cole were over the moment he realised that I'd have died for Nathaniel. But I don't even know why I'm trying to justify myself to you."
"Because I'm the closest you can get to him without all of the complication." Isaac pulled his phone out of his pocket and slid it across the bar with an apologetic sigh. I glanced down at it and saw that it was currently engaged in an outgoing call to his brother. "And now he knows. Everything from 'rampant exercise'."
I switched it off and threw it back at him with a glare. "That was unfair."
"No, what's unfair is having to work my life around a rota that means somebody is always with him to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, and dragging his drunken ass to the couch every night because he won't sleep in the bed that you shared."
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I breathed through the burn of tears and pushed my new drink across the bar. I didn't want him to hurt as much as he did, I knew how it felt to feel so empty that there was nothing of myself left. "I'm still not ready to talk to him."
"I know. And Nelly and I won't let him come anywhere near you until you are." That was the first and only reassuring comment that Isaac would offer me from then on. "So, the girls are meeting us at the club. We'd better get a shift on." He nodded a head towards the Chrysler that sat outside and howled at my look of utter panic. "Relax, she's on loan."
"The car or Lobke?"
She stuck her tongue out at me as she pulled the door open and made an unwelcome grab at my ribs. "Where's the rest of you?"
"Hah, shut up. You're not going to tell me how I've ruined a man's life as well are you?" I climbed into the car and desperately swatted away the memories of being on my knees the last time I travelled in there.
Lobke tutted and slammed the door behind me, and twisted around in the driver's seat to smirk at me. "Of course not. I'd rather remind you about all the free porn you provided me with. I've had a miserable five weeks with no on board entertainment, Cici."
I curled my feet up underneath me and isolated myself to a determined stare through the tinted windows to avoid being drawn into another pre-N.G. based conversation. I was sure that I saw my face on every corner and my name in the window of every book shop.
'The Price of Success' by Cecelia Douglas - SOLD OUT
I must have seen that sign a thousand times during the twenty minute journey to The Duplicate. I knew that any other person would be excitedly jigging in their seat at knowing that they were ridiculously successful and had an insanely wild reputation to match. Everyone would know my name for years to come, because I had been that woman who had destroyed love for the man who notoriously coveted it.
My joy over my success was negated by the burden of knowing what it had cost. I had not sprung to attention quietly and gracefully, I'd had my greatness thrust upon me and had suffered so much through that transition. Transition- a word I was sick of. I was sick of changing to make everybody else happy. I missed my simple life of cheap wine and Friday night television after a lunchtime shift at the bar. I'd written about a woman who'd paid for her success with her life, having been left with nobody. But the true 'Price of Success'- the one that I lived- was having lost myself and everything pertaining to the modest philanthropist who my parents had encouraged me to be.
And by trying to hold onto that essential side of myself, I had lost my fireworks- the one thing I claimed to desire more than the money and fame I now owned in what would surely be copious amounts. 'Never compromise' was a catch twenty-two, because I would never grow and flourish by not making some concessions and bending a few of my own stringent rules. Why had I only realised this now, when both my identity and the man for whom I'd sacrificed it were gone? My life would never be the same because of him, and he had been the only thing that had really made that change worth it.
"Are you alright?" Isaac asked me, straightening his jacket in preparation to leave the car as we approached the club.
I answered with a nod and tugged at the creases in my pvc mini-dress. Well, he did say to wear something waterproof and it was Halloween. "I'll survive."
"Good, because there's something we haven't told you." I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously, praying that this wouldn't end up in humiliation. "This is actually a belated book launch party, so be a good girl and smile for the paparazzi."
Chapter Thirty-Four
I was instantly blinded by a torrent of flashes at the moment Lobke slid the Chrysler's door open. Taking a minute to steady myself on my stilettoed biker boots, I rushed towards Bethany and Cornelia's outstretched arms, and was forced into an embarrassing session of posing for cameras and brief one worded retorts to the shouts from the crowd. There was no mention of N.G., nor of the man himself, and I had to suspect that the Alexander's had somehow ordered for it to not be called into question.
"How long has it been on shelves?" I whispered to Cornelia, while she crowned me with two small devil horns on a headband and declared it my Halloween costume. She and Bethany wore horns of their own, and she confessed that they'd spent significantly more time cruising for men than they had done shopping, which explained the lack of imagination and variety.
"Four weeks," she laughed, waving a hand to the zoom-lensed vultures and dragging me into the safety of the club, "but we couldn't let you go without a celebration just because you were incommunicado. As soon as you touched down yesterday, Bethany called me and we jumped into action." I was starting to wonder just how many secret conversations Bethany had been having while we were away- everyone was strangely clued up on my travel arrangements and location. I deduced a Judas. Again.
The Duplicate was as grungy as ever and the perfect setting for a Halloween party. The spiral staircase and the upper balcony were heavily decorated with rope lights, orange paper lanterns and all manner of ghoulish cut outs. The drinks smoked as they had done in Wonderland and the floor misted with dry ice, while the usual aggressive rock music screamed from the speakers. Bruno shimmied up to me, dressed in a zombie cheerleader costume and wiggled his eyebrows towards the cherry in his hand.
"You must be joking, sweetheart," I chuckled, "I've only just gotten here! I'd like to remember my evening." He pouted disingenuously and promised to catch me later, when I was drunker and much more receptive. I didn't doubt for a moment that he would try, but I knew better than to 'take the cherry bomb from Bruno'. Bethany grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me up the staircase, thrusting me into the arms of three men. Lucky me.
Cole and Adam juggled me between them with varying degrees of scolding for abandoning them during N.G. but sincerest congratulations on my literary genius- how much money have I made, how could I neither know nor care, and suchlike. When they eventually released me from the muscular cage of their entwined arms, I approached Aiden with a dangerously sweet smile and made a grab for his groin at the first available opportunity, gripping and twisting.
I flashed him a malicious grin when he doubled over, his eyes protruding and face reddened as though I was cutting off his windpipe. When he finally caught his breath in the midst of the sympathetic laughter that surrounded him, he peered up at me cautiously and covered his aching nuts with his hands. "Was that because I rimmed you in 2007?" My face flushed crimson and I lashed out with a Chinese burn.
"That was for mentioning the rimming incident- the ball buster was for breaking my nose."
His head flopped down limply with shame. "Oh fuck, he told you."
"I guessed." I splayed my arms and legs out when he tried to duck past me to seek refuge outside and held him still with a palm on his forehead. "Don't be such a pussy and buy me a drink. I forgive you, idiot- thank you for sticking up for me."
With scores settled and forgiveness granted, the seven of us slowly drank ourselves into oblivion, raising hands and faking smiles for the photographers who prowled the club until they deemed the area too docile to provide any drama. We were all getting on far too well to provide any front page bust-ups, however Cole and Cornelia may well have taken the romantic limelight away from my failed engagement with their attachment to each other’s faces and numerous disappearances for impromptu quickies. I lied through my jealousy over how they couldn't keep their hands off each other and pretended that I didn't miss that honeymoon period of my own, even though it had been spoiled with conflict and flying egos. I did, however, assume full responsibility as Cupid.
I discarded my boots when the club began to empty around midnight and swayed against Aiden's shoulder in a manner I claimed to be 'dancing' when I was too drunk to even hold my own head up. I found a certain degree of comfort in his presence- knowing that the men I sent away found their way back- but wondered if he'd been as broken as Mr 'Master Of My Universe'.
"Why isn't he here doing something extravagant to make me go back to him, Ade?" He stepped back and held my head straight, nodding slowly.
"I knew she was in there somewhere." He rubbed at the thick black make-up around my eyes with his thumbs and smiled. "There she is. You told him not to follow you, Cici. Have you changed your mind?"
"Maybe," I stared down at his feet and steadied myself against the pounding bass of the music, "I'm wasted, so I probably shouldn't be held responsible for my actions or words." That simple disclaimer gave me free reign to do and say as I wished- that was an understanding which Ade and I had reached back in my university days. "Ya gets me?" That was the deal sealer.
"I gots ya, ball breaker. You look like you're about to fall asleep." He wasn't wrong. I was past the realms of the pleasant alcoholic buz
z and well into the stage of fall-down-drunk.
"Hmm. I think I've had enough. There's less of me now." My alcohol tolerance was lousy after losing so much weight on holiday. "Get me a taxi or something, I'm so done."
"Okay, sure." I couldn't help but feel like Aiden had given up a little too easily. He certainly hadn't made any hints about going home with me- to which I couldn't help but be a little disappointed- so something underhand had to be going on. However, with my common sense staggering around in my psyche wearing a party hat and drunkenly razzing on a noise-maker, I followed him without question.
He swept me up and carried me out into the street, calling to Isaac that I was leaving before he placed me down on pavement directly underneath the large white sign for The Duplicate. The last time I stood in that spot was the first time I was caught on camera. That seemed like a lifetime ago, not seven weeks.
"Wait here, I'll go and get your shoes." I murmured and flapped a hand in response, leaning back against the wall and verging on falling asleep while I was still standing. "Oh, Cici. You know how Isaac told you to wear something waterproof?" Aiden paced away quickly and pointed up to the roof. "Well, we suspected that you'd flake, so we planned in advance. Wake up and get your sweet peachy behind back in here."
I looked up in confusion and was immediately hit by an ice cold tidal wave of water from five hose pipes. I screamed and gargled through the assault, hurling a string of expletives skyward while my friends laughed in return. It took longer than logical for me to realise that I didn't have to stand under the jets and could instead find shelter inside the club and seek my route to the roof, and my revenge. What I found was another deluge of water and a host of gibes for not being smart enough to find cover before I stormed through the door.