by Ivy Fox
“I have to feel you, baby,” he repeats more erratic now, his deft fingers reaching my wet core, finding my sensitive nub with his thumb. My eyes close and my head falls back, as I rock my pussy on his cock, growing wilder with the pressure he adds to my clit.
Maddened with lust and crazed with grief, I place my hand on his cock, stroking it until it aligns perfectly with my entrance. Without hesitation, I take all of him in, filling my emptiness with everything he has to offer.
I hear him hiss again, his hands grasping onto my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh, as I begin to lift and fall at a delirious tempo of our making. I feel full and whole, for the first time in months since the last time Ollie, Ash and I were together—looking up at the stars from our private beach, uttering words of love and devotion. From the corner of my eye, a single tear escapes me, as I mourn what could have been.
What we could have been.
But right now, Ollie is giving me an escape from my sadness, reminding me that even broken, tarnished things can be fixed—can be loved.
“Snow.” I hear him moan, almost as if my name is a prayer that needs to make its way to the heavens, just so it can be heard. The love and tenderness in that one word begin to blind me with visions of white light, blooming behind my eyelids.
I place my hands on his almost bare chest, pushing me to that piece of paradise that awaits us. And as I feel his hardened cock swell, pushing itself to fill the empty corners of my being, I become light—beaming brightly, casting every shadow away. I let out a blessed cry as I feel Ollie’s release within my tight walls.
I slump my limp, boneless body on top of his, letting the lingering incandescent warmth travel its way through me. I press my lips under his jaw, making my way to his full mouth until mine covers it completely. His soft lips are pliant as they enclose over mine, while his hard body continues to offer me a steady, firm anchor I can hold on to.
“Ollie,” I sigh into his mouth as I begin to deepen our kiss, but before my tongue meets his, I’m thrown onto my back, each of his arms outstretched beside my head. With a quick flick of my bedside lamp, artificial light casts its ugly glow, revealing yet another odious sight.
Ollie’s face looks ashen and horrified.
Before I have time to question what’s wrong, he jumps off the bed, fixing up his clothes at rapid speed.
“Shit! I’m sorry! Fuck! I’m so sorry,” he repeats in a panicked loop.
My mouth is agape, looking at how disgusted he is with himself. I pull my knees under my chin, using the bed sheet to cover me and my shame.
“Oh, my God! What did I do?! Shit!” He keeps mumbling, pacing back and forth, rubbing his neck while biting his fist.
“Stop saying that! It was sex. Just sex, Oliver! You didn’t kill anyone!” I yell, and the anger bubbling inside me is so lethal, I feel like I’ll shatter everything in my sight at any moment.
“Shit! What have I done?” he continues to ask, picking up his glasses from my bedside table.
He then suddenly stops, his face turning from mortified to downright pissed. He drops to the floor, and then pushes himself up onto his knees, lifting the bedsheet over his head. My confusion only doubles when I watch him push his hand down his pants, cupping his crotch, only to bring it back up again, looking even more furious than he was a minute ago.
“Where’s the condom, Snow?” he asks accusingly, making me shrink for the first time since he began his erratic tirade.
“We didn’t use one.”
“Fuck!” he belts, punching his fists onto the bed, my body lifting a few inches with the force.
“I’m on the pill,” I tell him, bunching my hands into the sheets, curling them into a small vise.
I began taking the pill just before summer started, preparing myself then for what we were only able to do now. Tears that I didn’t expect to spill tonight, fall on their own accord, realizing what for me was a wondrous miracle amongst such a horrid existence, for Ollie was nothing but a mistake—one he regretted the minute he was done with me.
His livid scowl diminishes with each tear that falls, and the Ollie that I once knew—the one who made me believe he loved me—begins to resurface back onto the crestfallen face of the boy who’s still on his knees. But it’s a trick. My Ollie would never look at me the way he just did. The boy I had given my heart to would never feel such horror for giving himself to me. It’s a trick, and I’ve been made a fool long enough.
“Snow,” he begins to whisper, sensing my turmoil, but I shake my head, raising my hand up to halt him from saying another hurtful word.
I’m done.
We’re done.
“Snow?”
“No, Ollie. I think you better leave.”
“Wait. Wait. Just wait a second,” he starts, placing his hands over my clenched fists. “I can’t leave you like this. Let’s talk about it, Snow,” he pleas, and it reminds me of how, not ten minutes ago, he said my name like it was the only word that held any meaning to him. Any worth.
A trick.
A cruel trick to blind an already defective heart.
“Just go, Ollie.”
“Snow, wait.”
“I said GET OUT!” I scream from the top of my lungs, the shout slapping him in the face.
The look of shock, confusion, and sorrow mingle together, making him nothing but a blur to me. One I can no longer make out, with the hot tears that keep pouring their way out of me.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I mumble to myself, rocking back and forth when he closes the door behind him.
Tonight he may have gotten these shameful tears, but they will dry out.
Just as my heart has.
The next day all my classes pass by in a haze. I can’t concentrate. I can’t find the will to even want to. So when the day is finished, and Elle tells me we can’t leave until we sign up for something back at Pembroke House, I just numbly nod my consent, not paying attention to her, either.
I trudge along, a few steps behind Elle and Chad as they yammer excitedly about some fundraising event that will occur at the end of the year. We step into a room with a few dozen kids in line, also giddy about whatever they are here to sign up for. I hear words like fundraiser, Christmas, and scholarships, but I’m too detached to care enough to make sense of any of it. When Elle finally gets her turn, I’m just happy we can go home afterward.
“Well, that’s it. Ink to paper. Can’t back down now,” she beams as we push the door open and exit the office. I didn’t even notice how many more kids had arrived while we waited for Elle. “You sure you’re still okay being my model, right?” she asks me, and again I nod, not even feigning a smile for my dear friend.
I watch her brows pull together, her frown tarnishing her striking face, and I turn my back away from her before she uses the moment to ask me any questions. My mind is troubled enough replaying last night’s events in my head—how such a beautiful moment could turn so cruel.
Having to describe what took place between Ollie and me, and hash out with Elle each awkward and painful moment, is not really high on my priority list right now. Maybe in a few days, but not today. Not when the wound is still bleeding. They say some scars are easy to mend, but I doubt the ones I’ve been inflicted with can ever scab over and heal. No, they’ll just cling to me until I can’t recall a single day without them. That’s how my soul feels in regards to Ollie’s rejection—a scarred-up, useless thing, itching for its next wound so it can finally morph into a dense black hole.
I’m about to turn the corner with Elle and Chad silently at my heel when I hear familiar grunts, followed by a loud banging sound that must have been provoked by a large body being thrown against a locker.
For the first time today, I’m no longer numb, no longer going through the motions. And if my heart isn’t playing another cruel joke on me, it sounds like it might have started to beat again. Only it’s not the usual even thumps of offering life, but the beatin
g drum of an execution, waiting to see whose death I’ll witness next—theirs or mine.
“The hell is going on with you two?!” I hear Elle shout out from behind me, as she takes in the scene before us.
Ollie and Ash are going at it in the middle of the hall like two strangers who never held any love for each other. Throwing punch after punch, jab after jab, neither letting up on the other. I keep a safe distance, not wanting to become one of their casualties, yet again. But inside, I’m screaming. Screaming at how wrong this is. Both so hell-bent on lashing out, causing suffering, they’ve forgotten they need each other to fit—to be whole.
Chad and Elle pull them apart, both twins panting profusely, their shirts and hair in disarray, telling a story of their struggle.
When Ash sees me rooted a few feet away, his contempt switches from the brother he loves to the girl he’s grown to despise. Like a madman, he throws his arms into the air, echoing a sinister laugh, chilling me to the bone.
“Why don’t you just go home, Holland? Before you do any more damage.”
“Asher,” Elle warns, not liking the tone he’s using with me.
Ash grabs her by the shoulders, pressing his temple to hers, and I watch how Chad’s back goes ramrod straight, ready to pounce on Ash if he does anything to hurt her.
“Lil sis, open your eyes! She’s doesn’t belong here. She never did,” he mumbles, sounding wounded. He places a kiss to her temple then pushes her into Chad’s arms.
“Stop it, Ash,” Ollie warns, taking a step toward him.
“Or what? You know I’m right, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. But after what happened last night, you of all people know she should leave. It’s dangerous to keep her. You know it is.”
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Ollie says, lowering his head in shame, “but her place is with us.”
I’m not sure what hurts me more—Asher not wanting me around or Ollie admitting last night was a mistake.
“You’re a fool, Ollie. Her place is not with us. It never was,” he spits out, his sneer abhorrent.
“I swear to God, Ash, if you say another word,” Ollie threatens, pushing Ash in the chest and taking advantage of the fact that Chad isn’t going to get in their way this time. He’d rather see the twins kill each other than let Elle get in the middle of their feud.
“Is that all you got? Bring it, you big pussy,” Ash mocks, and my teeth grind at witnessing how Ash has officially lost his mind. I don’t have much time to contemplate his fall into madness when Ollie takes the bait and slams his fist in his brother’s face.
Blood trickles down Ash’s crooked smile and his spine-chilling chuckle returns with full force.
“Did that feel good to you, brother? It sure did for me.”
“You are losing it, Grayson,” Chad interjects, shaking his head, his grip still firm on Elle’s waist.
“No, I’m not. I’ve never seen shit so clearly. You, Murphy, might live in denial, but I don’t.” He then tilts his head my way, pointing a menacing finger that might as well be a knife to my chest. “She has to go.”
“Stop it,” I mumble under my breath.
“Her place is with us,” Ollie repeats in Ash’s face.
“You’re wrong!” Ash lets out, pushing Ollie away from him.
“Stop it,” my mouth relents again.
Ollie begins to push Ash into a locker, the banging sound still ringing in my ears, and before I know it, I’m the one in the middle.
“I said, stop it! Both of you!”
“Snow.” Ollie breathes out hurriedly, but I don’t want to hear it.
“Don’t, Oliver. I’ve had enough. Enough, you hear me!”
“What are you saying?” Ollie chokes.
I crane my head back in Asher’s direction and use my own pointed finger to make my feelings clear.
“I’m saying that you can keep your hate, Asher. Swallow it, breathe it, poison yourself with it for all I care. I’m done. You want me gone? Well, it sucks to be you. I’m staying and the only pussy I see losing his shit is you! You see me cracking, Asher? Do you? No. That’s because I was never afforded such a luxury. Man the fuck up and leave me the hell alone!”
“Snow,” Ollie whispers uncomfortably behind me, the concern for his brother finally making an appearance.
“No. I’m serious. You don’t want me around? Well, guess what? I don’t want to be here, either. But sometimes we can’t have what we want. Just make do with what is given to us.”
Ash’s head tilts back onto the locker, taking stock of all the anger I have inside of me. His face turns from deranged to obscure, and I can no longer decipher the hidden emotions beneath it.
“Snow.” Ollie tenderly places his hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off me.
“No, Ollie. I’m not done. Ash can keep his hate. But you?! You can keep your lukewarm friendship, too. I don’t want it, and I don’t need it.”
“Snow—”
“My name is Holland, Oliver.” I hold up my hand, stopping his next words, finishing this once and for all. “There is no Snow. Not anymore.”
And there will never be one again.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” Elle asks hopefully, for the fiftieth time this week, as she hands off her luggage to the chauffeur of the town car waiting to take her to the airport.
I shake my head and offer her a tight smile.
As much as I don’t want to stay in New York over Thanksgiving break—with my mother of all people—going with Elle to stay the week at the Murphys’ lodge in Aspen, where Ash and Ollie will also be staying, isn’t something I look forward to do, either.
It’s been almost a month since my blow-up with the twins, and things have turned from dire to downright awkward. Ollie looks like a kicked puppy every time I cross him in the halls of Pembroke High and is hardly able to be in the same room with me in this house, making family dinners even more uncomfortable to bear. But I’m not naive in thinking I’m the only one causing him sadness.
Ash has become a ghost to both of us, not even living here anymore. Elle told me not to worry, since Chad’s parents took him in, thinking their father’s current declining health as the reason for him spiraling out of control. I don’t even see him at school. Not in the halls, and not when I tag along with Elle to swim meets. He’s left it all behind him. It’s as if he’s making a point to keep me out of his life. If I wouldn’t leave on my own two feet, well, he’s found a way to erase me from it anyway.
“Are you sure? You still have time to change your mind.” Elle gives it one final try.
The gold flecks of her eyes sparkle in anticipation. She’s excited about this trip, and I know she wants to share the experience with me since she’s told me, about a million times, how much fun skiing in Aspen is.
Not wanting to turn her bright grin into a frown, I lean in, kiss her cheek, and nudge her shoulder to the door, and reply, “I’m sure. Now get out of here. You’ll miss your plane and Chad will never forgive me.”
She giggles, grabbing me for another hug, and skips to the waiting car eager to start her vacation. The minute I close the door behind me, my smile falls from my face, thinking I may have made a mistake by staying here.
I can’t go home either since there is no one there. Candy won’t be able to leave Brown until Christmas, and my restless grandmother, not having her favorite student to teach anymore, is traveling the world, giving lectures about the amazing work she did that won her the Nobel Prize in her early forties. Everyone has moved on with their lives, while I’m stuck here.
At least I have Rome.
The ridiculous thought makes me chuckle, and then I slap my forehead, my face-palm perfectly conveying my frustration. How did my life get so screwed up that I now consider having Roman Grayson as my friend to be the only silver lining I’ve got going for me? Seriously! My life really has done a one-eighty, and not for the better.
I go up to my
room, deciding that getting lost in a good, ugly-cry book is a better alternative than finding said friend. Two hours into the book, I throw it to the ground, thinking I’ve had enough fabricated drama to last me a lifetime.
I walk downstairs, wondering if Henrietta will let me help with dinner to get my mind off the next few days, when I hear humming coming from the living room. As hard as I fight to keep the goofy grin off my face, watching Rome decorate a Christmas tree with candy canes and popcorn on a string, is just too silly not to laugh at.
“A little early for a Christmas tree, don’t you think?” I ask, walking into the room and grabbing an ornament from one of the various boxes on the floor. It’s made of simple glass with the name Eleanor inscribed on it.
“What can I say, I like to think ahead,” he muses, tilting his head just far enough to send me a wink.
“Right,” I reply sarcastically.
“Want in on this?” he asks, offering one end of the string that he’s about to wrap around the tall tree.
“Not like I have anything better to do.” I shrug, taking it from his hand, and begin our little Christmas endeavor.
“Just need one more thing for us to do this properly,” he says, throwing a little simper as he takes his phone out of his pants’ pocket. Suddenly Mariah Carey’s voice is heard throughout the room, singing to us what she wants for Christmas, even though it’s still November.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” I mumble, rolling my eyes and trying hard to keep my smile in check.
“That’s what I keep hearing,” he replies, and his carefree expression begins to rub off on me.
I’m not sure what made him change the way that he did. He used to be cold, unkind, and manipulative, but for the past few months, that isn’t the Roman I’ve lived with. It’s almost as if he had been carrying a boulder on his back, and someone just kicked it off him, allowing him to breathe and take his first light steps.
“I’m surprised we’re doing this. Don’t the Graysons get the staff to do this kind of thing? Or hire decorators?” I question, intrigued as to why he decided to decorate a Christmas tree today.