Broken Ever After

by Natalie Graham

  “So this is the guy that you can’t leave alone for thirty seconds?” Megan sneered. Alex looked between her and me, with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I stood up looking around for a quiet corner but the restaurant was so busy.

  “Sure, this way.” Alex grabbed my hand, threading his fingers through mine and pulled me through the back into the office. “I never thought I’d see you again so soon.” He smiled down at me as I looked around nervously. “What did your friend mean?”

  “Oh God this is so complicated” I muttered to myself running my hands over my face. “I kind of told them last night that I was messaging you but I was messaging my boyfriend.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because they don’t know about him; they can’t know about him.” My voice started trailing off “He’s our teacher.” I said almost inaudible to even my own ears.

  “He’s your what? Olivia, really?” He laughed and I tried to shush him by placing my hands over his mouth.

  “You can’t tell them! My exams are next week and then I’m done with school and it won’t be a problem anymore, just please don’t say anything!” I begged him.

  “I promise, I won’t say a word.” He crossed his fingers over his heart. “If you agree to a date with me.”

  “Are you crazy? I have a boyfriend!” He tilted his head to the side, watching me with a wry smile. “Ok, fine! Look, I should get back to our table before they think I’ve shoved you in a cupboard somewhere to-” I shook that chain of thought from my head “No, never mind. It was erm… It was nice to see you again.”

  “It was nice to see you again too, let me walk you back to your table.” He opened up the door for me and walked me back and even seated me back in my chair earning more open mouthed stares from the girls. “It was nice to meet all of you lovely ladies, enjoy the rest of your lunch.” He left us with a bow of his head and a recommendation to try his grandmother’s lemon cake for dessert then retreated back towards the office.

  “Wow, he’s so hot! All those tattoos” Violet sighed. “How many does he have, Liv?” she giggled as she glanced back in the direction he’d walked off in. “Why did you not mention how gorgeous he is?” Because I seriously hadn’t thought about it? No, that wouldn’t make sense.

  “Because I knew you’d want to steal him.” I grinned over at her.

  “Oh he looks like sin” Lisa sighed. “If only I was fifteen years younger” she laughed.

  We took Alex up on his recommendation for dessert and all instantly fell in love with it, vowing that we needed to come back for more; we called our waiter over to pay our bill and pass on how lovely everything was.

  “Alexandros has already taken care of your bill; he hopes that everything was to your liking.”

  “Alexandros? Even his name drips sexiness” Lily muttered to Violet.

  “No, no he can’t do that, please let us pay.” I stood and tried to hand the waiter my card but he pushed it back.

  “He made it very clear that your meal was on him.”

  “Ok, well can I at least thank him?” The waiter went to fetch Alex for us while we gathered up our jackets and bags and left tips on the table.

  “I hear you’re causing trouble out here.” I whipped around to see Alex smiling at us.

  “Me? Never! I was just trying to pay for my meal like any other customer”

  “Nonsense” An older guy announced from behind Alex, they looked so alike, apart from the hair which was shorter, he lacked the tattoos that Alex had and his accent was thicker. “My Alexa said he had a friend here to visit so it’s my pleasure for you to have it.”

  “This is my Uncle, Demetrius Zaneakis, he was your chef today.” Alex told us all proudly.

  “I trust you found everything was ok?” Demetrius asked.

  “Everything was lovely, thank you so much. We’ll definitely have to come again won’t we girls?” Lisa pushed passed to shake the beautiful man’s hand. “We especially loved our dessert; Alex told us it was his grandmother’s recipe, it was so delicious.” Violet tightly pushed up against my shoulder to grip on to my arm as her mother went on and on about how nice the food and the restaurant were and how talented a chef he was.

  “Oh God, it was just salad and cake! Stop her before she embarrasses herself, I can’t watch this.” She cringed.

  “Erm… Lisa, we should be going, I’m sure Alex and his Uncle are very busy men.” Violet and I grabbed her arms to pull her backwards as we knew in roughly ten seconds she be flirting with him and we didn’t know the first thing about the poor guy.

  We managed to get her to the door with Alex following us out onto the pavement; I turned to him and gave him a small peck on the cheek. “Thank you so much for lunch and we really will come back soon.” I said. “But we promise to leave Lisa at home” I added in a whisper with a wink. “I’m so sorry about that.” But he just laughed and waved his hand dismissively.

  “I’m sure Demetri enjoyed it very much. It was really great to see you, Olivia. I hope it won’t be long before I see you again.” He grabbed my hand to place a chaste kiss on the back, leaving a piece of paper in my hand. I examined it as Alex retreated back into the restaurant; it was his phone number.

  ‘Call me when you’re free to arrange our date – Alex x’

  I pushed it down to the bottom of my handbag and ran to catch up with everyone.

  Resuming our wander down Bond Street, Lily found her dress next; she chose a floor length gown that glittered in the light when she moved and contrasted so beautifully with her red hair. Violet and I eventually found our dresses when we were ready for giving up our search; Violet picked a dark blue, strapless gown with matching blue stilettos. As soon as I saw my dress I fell in love with it.

  “OH MY GOD!” I thought Chanel was being raided as Lisa shrieked behind me. “Wow! It’s absolutely stunning, Liv!” It was a simple black, floor length dress with an empire waist and cap sleeves; I turned it around to see a little puddle train that flowed behind it. I was pushed into the changing room to try it on and fell even more in love with it. The high waist accentuated my curves perfectly; I ran my hands over my hips and sighed imagining Jamie’s hands there as we danced. I crashed back to earth as I realised I wouldn’t be able to be near him at all until the next day at least. Lisa, Violet and Lily gushed over how much older I looked in the dress, just the thing I wanted. “It’s perfect” Lisa sighed.

  “I know” I copied her sigh as she picked up the price tag.

  “Ouch! It’s a bit expensive; will your parents be ok with that?”

  I chuckled. “It’s fine honestly.”

  Lisa said she trusted me as the bank card had my name on and it would be declined if not and continued commenting on the dress and how she knew of some shoes that would go perfectly with my eye colour. Lily, Lisa and I went off to find some shoes while Violet and Megan headed off to a jewellery store close by to start picking out their accessories. Lily picked out some pink, stiletto sandals and Lisa showed me some emerald green platform courts that she even held up to my eyes to prove her point. I loved them so much for making me five inches taller that I bought the matching clutch bag to go with them and headed over to the jewellery store for Lily to find something.

  I’d asked my dad to remove my jewellery from the safe for me, so I hadn’t needed to buy any accessories. I had a white gold necklace with a simple pear shaped emerald surrounded by small diamonds around the edge. I had a ring that was exactly the same style with the small diamonds extending over the band and a pair of small, pear shaped, drop earrings to match that were given to me by my Grandpa when Grandma died.

  Grandpa had given them to my Grandma for their first anniversary; she’d worn them almost every day of her life since.

  He’d also given me the hair comb that she’d worn on their wedding day passed down from his mother and hers before her. It had inspired his anniversary gif
ts to her. The comb was from the early nineteenth century but still shined as though it was made yesterday with a large emerald in the middle, six smaller ones arranged to look like the petals of a flower and smaller leaf shaped emeralds around the edges. In the gaps were small diamonds arranged around the petals.

  Everyone said I was the double of her when she was younger; if it wasn’t for her I’d be sure I was adopted. We were the only two in our family with green eyes and chocolate coloured hair; everyone else was blonde like my mum or had very light sandy coloured hair like my dad and Uncle Austin. We both came in at a generous five-foot-four, so at family functions we both looked like the odd pair out to everyone else who graced five-foot-eight or higher.

  I was excited to piece all of my things together to see how they would look; I was even more excited to see how Jamie would react.

  Placing everything back in their boxes after inspecting them I smiled up at my dad.

  “She loved you more than anyone, you know that?” I wiped the stray tear from my cheek. “You don’t know how many times I asked for these to give to your mother. She said the only way she was parting with them was if I gave her a granddaughter with her eyes. She didn’t think it would happen, but it did.” He squeezed me tightly and landed a kiss on the top of my head. “She loved you so much that she cried every time she looked at you when you were born.”

  “Was that not because she thought you’d be robbing her jewels soon?” We laughed together wiping our sad but happy tears away.

  “Knowing that stubborn old girl, probably.”

  ***

  From Jamie: Good morning Angel x I’ll be thinking of you today and I hope your exams go well! I know you will do great! X -J

  To Jamie: Morning x thank you!!! I’m so nervous I think I’m about to have a panic attack or pass out! And what, no delivery today? That makes me sad Mr Matthews :P X -O

  From Jamie: You’ll be fine, stop worrying! I’m supervising your first exam so if you pass out I’ll be on hand to insist on performing CPR. Haha no, no deliveries today. Get through this week with zero panic attacks and I’ll think of something.

  To Jamie: Oh great! So if I don’t fail because I pass out and miss my exam, it’ll be because I’m not going to be able to concentrate, watching your sexy butt wandering up and down!

  From Jamie: Maybe I’ll just walk around backwards so you can’t look at it at all?!

  I shook my head laughing and left to meet Lily. I met her fifteen minutes early so we could get in and check out the seating plan before a huge crowd gathered. We waited by the door weighing up the pros and cons of just running and not bothering with exams. We had just formulated a plan to run away, build a boat and sail to the Caribbean when Jamie opened the door.

  “Good morning, ladies. Are you all set? You may go in when you’re ready.” He looked at me and gave me the smile I’d come to learn was my secret smile, he only ever gave it to me and it melted my heart a little more every time. I wanted to jump up in his arms and kiss him senseless. I’d not been able to kiss him since Thursday after school and I could feel all of my insides heating up in anticipation of feeling his lips again. I pulled my lip between my teeth as I stared at his mouth.

  Lily thankfully broke my chain of thought before I did something stupid. “Dammit! I guess the Caribbean will have to wait eh, Liv? Morning Mr M!” She gave him a mock salute and wrapped her arm around my shoulder and said “Come on, Cutie” pulling me into the hall. I gave Jamie a small smile and kept walking to my seat. I couldn’t sit still, I was bouncing my knees under my desk, I was so nervous I felt sick; the only thing keeping me sane right now was watching Jamie walking up and down the rows making sure everyone was ok and didn’t have any banned materials in with them. Mr Wright began talking us through how to fill out the front of our exam sheets; he set the timer and told us we could begin. I read through all of my questions relieved they didn’t seem too difficult, I looked up at Jamie and he gave me a small smile which I returned and stuck my head down to begin writing.

  I didn’t look up again until I had finished and checked my answers were correct. I checked the clock and I still had thirty minutes of the two hour exam left so I checked my answers were correct again before closing the paper and watching Jamie wander around. He walked by me and mouthed ‘You ok?’ to which I nodded. He turned his head and caught me looking at his sexy behind; immediately turning around he started walking backwards making me giggle which I had to disguise as a cough or risk being thrown out.

  Lily and Violet were still furiously writing which made me paranoid that I hadn’t written enough, but I couldn’t think of anything else to write. Lily finished ten minutes before the end and Violet finished five minutes later. We kept looking at each other with worried glances until Mr Wright announced that our time was up.

  That afternoon I practised my sketches for my art exam which began in the morning, it was so long that it was split over two days and I was dreading it. I made sure to charge my iPod and organised all my playlists including one that was filled with songs that reminded me of Jamie, with some of his favourites thrown in too. I had bought new art materials on our shopping trip on Saturday so I made sure to pack them in my bag, double and triple checking that I’d packed everything I needed. My exam plan was in the care of Mr Wilson, to be collected before the exam. I was happy to escape to my room after dinner so I could talk to Jamie.

  “Hey you!” I screeched as I bounded up the stairs two at a time.

  “Wow someone is happy tonight.”

  “I just feel like I’ve hardly spoken to you in forever, what with the weekend and I’ve been studying so much” I sighed as I leaned on my bedroom door to close it “I just miss you”

  “I miss you too, Angel.” The way he said it, he sounded so forlorn that it tugged on my heart strings and made me want to reach through the phone and pull him into my arms. “I know you needed to study so don’t worry about it. We have forever to talk and see each other, starting with Saturday.” Our first, actual date, I couldn’t wait to finally be able to be in the open with him.

  “What are we doing?” I flopped backwards on my bed against my pillows, pulling Jamie’s up to my chest to hug.

  “It’s a surprise.” Jamie teased.

  “Nooo! Jamie, I hate surprises, you can’t do that to me” I whined.

  “Well too bad, you need to wait and see”

  “Well if I don’t know what we are doing how do I know what to wear? You could be taking me hiking and I turn up in a dress and heels! Or going for dinner and I’m in jeans and my converse, or to the cinema and I’m in a ball gown or-”

  “Ok, ok I get it! Wait… Do you even own a ball gown?”

  “I might do…” I laughed nervously, slightly worried that I’d need to go and buy one. “Why? Is that what I need to wear?” I asked him nervously.

  “No, you can wear anything you want.”

  “Are we walking far? I need to know if I should wear flat shoes” he laughed at me.

  “I don’t know, maybe you should just bring some with you”

  “Do you even know what we are doing? Or are you just planning to lure me to your lair?”

  “I have a plan… of sorts… There was some amount of luring you to my lair that was involved I’ll admit but we can do whatever you want. What time will you get back from Violet’s house?” I smiled at the thought of going to Jamie’s house. I wanted to see where he lived, if he lived in an apartment or a house, if he was a typical guy and left everything around or a neat freak; I wanted to see the kinds of things he had in his home, his CD and DVD shelves to see how he stacked them and how similar our tastes were. I felt a flutter in my stomach as I wondered what his bedroom looked like, imagining him carrying me up the stairs in a moment filled with passion and throwing me down on to his bed. Taking his sweet time as he worked my body- “Olivia?”

  “Huh?” I said and realised he’d asked me a question. “Oh, whenever you want me I can be wherever; there is a party we
were invited to but I’d rather spend my time with you.”

  “Who’s having a party?”

  “There are actually a few planned over the weekend, the girls wanted to see how many we could get around; I don’t even know which one we’re going to on Friday. I’m not really interested in going to any. I was only going for Lily, but she has Scott to take her.” Jamie was quiet for a long moment before humming.

  “Oh I almost forgot to tell you, I’m supervising three hours of the second half of your art exam annnnnnnd… your maths exam”

  “No, you can’t! I thought my art piece was a sure winner! At least a B! Now I’m going to fail! I’ll probably forget what I’m doing and end up drawing you!” I sighed dramatically. “And maths is the one thing I need my brain totally in gear for and you’re going to be wandering around… Fantastic!”

  “You’ll be fine… And I promise not to distract you.”

  “Will you be in the room?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well then you’ll be distracting me!” he laughed at me.

  “I’ll keep an umbrella covering my arse for you if that helps?” He gave me a cheeky little laugh. “I have a surprise for you on Friday night… You are all leaving from Violet’s aren’t you?”

  “Yeah we’re getting ready at hers”

  “How are you getting to the prom?”

  “Violet’s mum said she’d take us.”

  “Someone may have organised for a car and a chauffeur for all of you.”

  “Who? Wait… Really?”

  “Yes, I just need to know where to send it. You can tell them you organised it. I just figured that as I can’t pick you up personally then at least I could get you there in style and everyone has a limo for prom.”

  “Aww I can’t believe you did that, that’s so sweet, Jamie. Thank you so much, if I could hug and kiss you right now I would!”

  ***

  Wednesday arrived and I was so nervous at the thought of sitting in a classroom for three hours in silence, in front of Jamie. I showered and threw my hair up in a messy bun and dressed in a double layer of clothes. I’d gotten completely covered in paint during the first half of my exam on Tuesday and had to walk home looking like an advert for a decorating firm. That was not happening again.