He makes it all look easy. I’ve watched each press conference, each blurry paparazzi video. Christ, I even got a one-month subscription to theFinancial Timesto see an article about him.
When you find yourself reading your third hedge fund managers’ take on the upcoming quarter to get full value out of your news subscription, you know you’ve fallen a bit too hard for a man.
It can’t get lower than this.
Fleur’s Instagram story is a mirror selfie with her new boyfriend. If I wasn’t trying to be less skeptical and judgmental about the world, I’d say he looks like an absolute wanker.
But I am, so I won’t.
Mia still lets me follow her private account with a hundred followers, but she, like the other five of her siblings, has been radio silent for the last month.
I’m worried about him. I hope he started those antidepressants, is keeping up his sessions with Harwood. I hope he’s not spreading himself too thin, but I know he is.
In the eerie darkness, I furiously brush away my tears before they have the chance to fall. I’m angry with myself, frustrated that no matter how many times I try to toughen up, feel less,move on, it doesn’t work.
I want to be more like Belladonna, but it sure is harder than she makes it look.
I shut off my phone, plunging the room into darkness. I squeeze my eyes shut before they can adjust, before I can see Sofia’s untouched bed, the cobwebs on the walls, the knife on the bedside table. With the bitter chill of an overnight snow seeping through the walls, I bury my head beneath the blankets and try, try,tryto relax.
Ping.
A text notification rings through, loud and clear in the silent room.
I can’t explain the bad feeling that washes over me, the way that ping sounds so much more menacing than the other identical ones today. The note is too high, too shrill, too out of tune. It echoes between the decaying beams above me and lands right in my stomach with a nauseating thud.
Through one squinted eye, as if that might make it any better, I risk a glance at the text.
I let my phone clatter back down to the side table, let my head fall back to the bed. It’s not dread, or horror, or fear that runs through me. It’s exasperation. A complete exhaustion, sapping the fight out of me.
I can’t do this again. I can’t take this anymore.
I turn over, burying my face in the blanket so I don’t have to see the blurry photo, sent from the anonymous number, of me walking out of the swimming pool greenhouse earlier today.
Chapter 4
ALEX
[DRAFT]
Subject:Sudoku (noun)Please teach me
To:Ophelia Winters
I don’t understand how you could possibly enjoy Sudoku. They’re making me angry.
I KNEW MYday was off to a rocky start when Josie, unsupervised, ate six bowls of marshmallow cereal for breakfast and then proceeded to vomit it all up on the way out the door. Crisis managed—I owe Emily, the nanny, a day off for that one—I made it into the office by nine, despite the traffic that a Monday morning in the city brings.
Jacqueline has my weekly schedule in my inbox by the time I slide into the chair behind my desk. A double espresso steams onthe coaster beside my laptop. I text her a quick thank you and open the shitstorm that is my emails after a busy weekend at home.
Two notifications ping through at exactly nine. My daily reminder,Don’t call Ophelia, sits beneath a text from Harwood, punctual as ever.
Robert Harwood
Morning. I’m back in the city today. Lunchtime?
Alex
Lunch sounds good.
