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It's the kind of place you feel comfortable and right to curl up on the couch, beneath a soft blanket. Maybe, you even feel safe eating buttered popcorn on the couch, not worried about staining priceless fabric with buttery fingers, because his couch is a couch made for movie nights.
I’ve never had a movie night in any house I’ve lived. My movies are watched on my tablet in my bed sans popcorn, because as much money as I may have been raised with, Remira had always been firmly against televisions in the bedroom. Food in the bedroom was also a no-go. Something like buttery popcorn, that could add to my already generous ass, was strictly forbidden.
Cole probably doesn’t need a TV in his room—not with a couch like this. The kind you can really sink into. And his coffee table, a rustic blonde wood, is dented and scuffed. I think—I think he might put his feet on the table when he lounges back on that couch.
I don’t know why, but of all the things in his home, it’s his coffee table I love most. The scuffs and life in it.
I bite my lip, the pain cooling the hot sting of tears I refuse to let fall.
This house, Cole’s house, is the kind of place where love is made. Both the love between a family and the love between a man and a woman.
I've always fantasized about that love. I've always wondered—does it even exist? Like, really? Is it something that normal people have? Because I've never seen it. Not ever. Not from anybody in my life.
In my life, people are like sharks. They scent blood, and they devour. Weakness is a game they all love to play. It's a wound that they poke, and prod.
Love, real love—now, that's the biggest weakness of all. It’s also not a weakness I imagine many can afford.
So, it's best I squash the love I thought I had for him here and now. Before things spiral really out of hand.
Besides, I'm a big girl. I don't need to be stroked with pretty words, and I most definitely don't need a man to love me, in order to crush everyone who hurt me. And I will crush them all for every whip I endured. For every slap. For every mean, cutting, abusive slash of the tongue. I will destroy them.
I just have to wait a year. In a year, I'll have the power I need at my back to take over what is rightfully mine. That's if my father doesn't destroy it first.
And my whole plan hinges on this asshat working with me.
For that reason alone, it's a damn good thing I have the one thing he wants. The sole ticket to destroying his own awful family.
I paste my plastic smile on my face. “You have a nice house.”
A brow raises. “You think?”
“It's cute.”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. It sounds unimpressed. “Yeah, cute.”
I twist to meet his eyes. Like always, I feel them deep inside. It's like they have talons, and when they land on me, they cut in deep, leaving little spurs that burrow behind.
I wish they wouldn't.
I look away. “I don't know why you're saying it like that. Like you think I'm not being genuine. It's a nice place, Cole.”
“I've already told you. It’s Tav,” he grumps in a way that almost makes me smile, because I’m pretty sure it’s exasperation I hear in his voice.
I shake my head. “Not to me. You'll always be Cole to me.”
He drags his hand over his short hair, gives one sharp shake of his head and mutters, “Whatever.” My heart squeezes. It’s painful, and awful, and I ignore it. “What do you want, Olympia?”
It takes very real effort not to flinch when he says my name like that. Like he hates me as much as he hates them.
But how could he?
I was a child when he left. I was a child who looked up to him, who—God—he had to know I had feelings for him even then. Even innocent little girl feelings. He had to know.
In my mind, I can see the way I blushed whenever he was around. I can still hear Ophelia’s scathing words, telling me to leave him alone, to stay away. That he thought I was ridiculous. A child. Annoying. Pitiful. Even though her words had seared me like hot iron, I’d never been able to keep myself hidden away whenever he would come to visit. Even as Ophelia glared at me from over his shoulder, I’d always come out of my room when Cole showed up, hoping for scraps of his attention.
I hate those memories now; how desperate I’d been. How lonely. How my sister, who always hated me, hurt me with her words. How those words still hurt today.
How they throw me back to that young, pitiful girl. That child.
