Page 119 of The Bargain

Forever.

“Come on, Mr Lennox.” Mr North has caught up with me. “Let’s get you signed back in, shall we?” He wraps a fatherly arm around my shoulders and turns me away gently, back towards the Old Manor, away from Desdemona. He sounds serious, but he can’t quite hide the amusement in his tone. “Young love can wait. Work cannot.”

He’s right—and no matter what the future holds, I’m going to do everything in my power to never lose control over my own life. I’ll work as hard as it takes to get everything I want, to become the kind of man who deserves the woman I love.

I turn back, one last time. Desdemona’s almost disappeared behind the line of trees, and Mrs Kendall seems to be in the middle of a harsh telling off. But just as she’s about to vanish around the corner, Desdemona turns back for one more look, and our eyes meet one last time.

And then she’s gone.

46

Romantic Loser

Desdemona

The American spring is resplendent: flowers in full bloom, blue skies stretching endlessly, an open window to the cosmos beyond. Birds sing and bees hum, flitting from blossom to blossom. Our Hamptons house is so close to the sea you can hear the distant rush of the surf, the ocean’s lungs breathing in and out.

And I can’t bring myself to enjoy a second of it.

I’m like a shark that can’t stop moving, except that if I stop moving, instead of dying, I’ll think of Elias—which is worse.

So I spend my first day back home making plans. Scheduling my exam resits in the fall, scheduling revision sessions. Planning activities, tennis and swimming with Dad, sailing with the twins, spending time with Ophelia. I make calls to Dad’s office, asking if they might be interested in letting me intern over the summer, so that I can at least work while I wait for my exams. I create and colour-code a revision timetable, create flashcards, organise my books and notes.

On the second day, though, I’ve got nothing left to do, nothing left to plan. I go for a swim, then for a long walk with our golden retriever, Evie, who was named by Ophelia when she was a little girl by mushing Dad’s name with Mum’s. I read books, waiting for the rest of the family to get home. Dad’s the only one who’s already here, but he seems happy to relax and enjoy the last days of quiet before the twins come back and the house inevitably fills back up with members of the Spearcrest clan and their kids.

But Dad is so relaxed that it only makes my restless energy feel worse.

On the third day, I go into the city to visit Aunt Willow at her tattoo parlour, Styx Ink. I specifically go in on her lunch break, and accidentally walk in on her and Uncle Luca making out with abandon. Aunt Willow’s propped on the black marble reception counter, and Uncle Luca’s between her legs, one hand on her thigh beneath her short black skirt, and they’re making out hard and wet, Willow’s hand closed tight around a handful of his hair.

“Aren’t you guys too old for this?” I exclaim, turning around to face the door I’ve just come from. A mistake, because even though I can no longer see their disgusting display, I can still hear the wet sucking sound of them pulling away from each other. “For god’s sake, please stop.”

“My favourite niece!” Willow exclaims. She sounds totally unashamed, and in fact, I don’t even think she’s capable of feeling shame at all. “If you think this is bad,” she smirks, sauntering over to me to give me a hug, “you’d hate to see what your parents are like when you kids aren’t around.”

“Ugh, please, don’t!” I cover my ears.

Luca shrugs, and I can see the way his eyes follow Willow as she walks over to the little kitchen nook to make me a drink with her fancy coffee machine. Luca looks at Willow like he’d want nothing more than to drink her blood straight from her gaping heart and devour her soul right out of her body.

Their love for each other should feel grotesque, but it’s almost enviable—to love someone so openly, so shamelessly, that you don’t care who sees it, that it doesn’t even occur to you to feel shame for it.

“Heard about your expulsion,” Luca says when he finally manages to wrench his eyes off Willow. He crosses his arms and raises a pale eyebrow. “Need me to disappear some people?”

“They’ll probably be wishing for death once Sophie is done with them,” Willow smirks, handing me a frothy cappuccino with a little skull made of chocolate powder. “Expulsion, huh?” There’s a satisfied grin on her face. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie.”

Spending the afternoon with them is a welcome distraction, but seeing them together doesn’t make me feel better: to my complete embarrassment, it just makes me miss Elias more.

Because the truth is: I want to be the one propped on a reception counter making out loudly with Elias.

I want his eyes on me when I move away from him, his hand finding my waist whenever I’m close enough to touch. I want him with me, right now—and until we are as old as Willow and Luca, mortifying our own kids with our displays of affection.

And it feels insane to want this, it feels foolish and desperate and reckless. Like something I’m not allowed to do.

But I do anyway.

On the fifth day, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, books spread open in front of me, trying to concentrate on my studies, clicking the tip of my pen in and out and in and out and in and out and⁠—

“Enough.”

I start violently as the pen is ripped out of my grasp. Dad’s big arms appear in my field of vision as he unceremoniously closes all my books and notebooks.