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“Fuck you, Harry.” Her sudden, angry outburst catches me off guard and when she surges to feet in front of my, it forces me to take a step back. “How would you have known anything? You never paid attention. You never cared. You never asked me how I was feeling. You are so goddamn self-absorbed and self-righteous about truth and honor and all of your other virtues” She’s seething with anger. “You couldn’t see the truth staring you in the face, and you seemed to like it that way.” Her anger pours out of her eyes as she glares at me. Her jaw is clenched but her words fly out of her mouth as if propelled by a slingshot.
“Yes, this all my fault for not realizing that my sister was a viper who would happily sell me out if it meant she could continue keeping up appearances.”
“I’m sorry Harry.” The desperate plea in her voice only angers me further. Those two words have never felt more inadequate as they do right now. I step around her and sit down in the chair she just vacated. I’m exhausted, completed depleted of energy. I feel numb.
She doesn’t turn to face me. Instead, walks to the brass and glass drink cart “I didn’t think you’d cared about Zara and Will. I didn’t think you’d ever find out because the only thing you actually pay attention to is the estate. You don’t think about anything else.” Her finger cut the air as she gesticulates wildly. Zara wanted to fall in love. But not as much as she wanted to marry well. We all do. We all need to. This life is all we know and preserving it is important. Not just for us, but for the generations to come.”
She pauses and I feel her looking at me. I can’t meet her eyes.
“We’re all human. We all need love, affection, attention.” She says, the scorn back in her voice. “George cheats on me. Constantly. He always has.”
My eyes come to her then. She’s hunched over, her hands wrapped around her waist, her head hanging low. She looks broken and there’s flicker of pain in my own chest as I watch her rock back and forth. But I don’t respond. I’ve always thought George was an asshole. He inherited an estate from his uncle that was barely able maintain any of its livings. The money that Freya brought to the marriage allowed him to pay off all of its debts and sell it.
“I didn’t know he was unfaithful, but I could see that he wasn’t focused on your happiness as much as he was on his own.” I say.
There is a hollowness, an iciness that I’d never heard in her voice before. “I loved him.”
She turns around to face me and her expression is grim. “I loved him so much, Harry. I knew he wanted my money, but I also thought he wanted me. When I realized I would never be enough, when he told me he’d never let me divorce him, I sought out my own happiness. Then, I found that it’s what everyone did. And so when I heard about Zara and William, I was shocked at how angry I was. But I felt like a hypocrite. And Harry,” She rushes toward me, kneeling down and grasping my hands. “I didn’t think you’d care.” The last word is a wail and I try to free my hands. She only clings tighter “I could see you didn’t love Zara. I could see you were just going through the motions with her and thought if you knew it might hurt you, but that you would still marry her. But when she died, and you were so heartbroken, so angry, I knew I’d been wrong. But I didn’t know how to tell you that I’d known. I’m just so sorry.” Her tears are flowing freely. Her nose red and running, her eyes closed in anguish as she sobs at my feet.
I’m angrier than I could have imagined I could ever be at my twin. But seeing her like this, tempers some of my anger. I pull her off her knees and bring us both to standing. I wrap my arms around her and hold her against me as she sobs. After a minute, she pulls in a shuddering breath and steps out of my hold. I’m relieved for the distance because we still need to talk about what happened tonight.
“Camille came to my house today. She’d found Lilly’s phone —”
“Where did she find it?” I demand. Her eyes come to me and widen just slightly, before she looks away, “I didn’t… ask.” She says.
“You were just so excited by the dirt she handed you that you thought, “Details be damned.”
She lifts her chin, the first sign of defensiveness she’s shown. “I just wanted to get here as fast I could. Harry. She’s lied so much.” She says, her disdain for Lilly back and my spine straightens. Her eyes widen when I narrow mine at her, a warning.
“But, Harry.” Her voice is high pitched when she says “She had a baby and she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t tell you.”
I gape at her, the callousness she’s exhibiting completely blindsiding me.
“She was raped. She gave the baby up for adoption. She’s fucking grieving, Freya.” I shout. “You couldn’t even tell me that my fiancé was fucking my best friend.” She looks down at her shoes. “Tell me. Would you have found the courage to tell anyone if what happened to her, happened to you?”
She starts to respond right away and I stop her.
“You need to be very, very careful. Think before you speak because if you insult Lilly, if you even say her name in a tone I don’t like, I’ll stop listening.” I warn her. My voice low and shot with steel.
She looks at me and this time, it’s horror and realization that leech the color from her face. Her hand comes up to her mouth and she covers them in shock. We stare at each other a little before she puts her hands down.
“You love her.” She, her eyes wide with wonder and regret.
“Yes, I love her. Very much.” This is the first time I’ve even considered that love was what I was feeling for Lilly. My brain and my heart aren’t on the best of terms with each other.
I’ve nurtured my brain, my thoughts and education - but at the expense of my heart. I’ve been thinking of Lilly academically. That she’s beautiful, has a great sense of humor, is very brilliant and in so many ways is incapable of being dishonest. I know it sounds crazy to say that, after all of the ways she’s intentionally mislead me. But, those were acts of self-defense. I know that now. But her first instinct is always the most honest one. Lying, pretending, those things have a taken on a toll on her. It’s not who she is. I know that and I have for a long time.
But now I’m struck with the realization that I hadn’t let myself think of the way she makes me feel. How thinking at all, when she’s near me, is impossible. That every time her name crosses mine, my fucking heart gives a little jump for joy. Even in the months we spent apart. When I was trying hard to make myself hate and forget her.
Every time I thought about her, my heart skipped a beat and for a full second, I felt this amazing, unadulterated pang of joy. But that was quickly crushed by my mind taking over and telling me that she was a liar and I was better off not knowing how to reach her. I told Freya nothing but terrible things about Lilly. That she was rude, that she was reckless and didn’t take her malaria tablets. That she was selfish and ditched her cousin to spend time with me instead. Clearly, she was also disloyal, I’d said. None of it had worked.
My heart wouldn’t have let my brain win. And that even if she hadn’t come to this wedding and presented me with the most amazing, undeserved second chance in the history of second chances, I would have eventually gotten my head out of my ass and gone looking for her. Even if I had to walk door to door in Miami, I would have found her again. Because she’s my “once in a lifetime” person. The one that, if you’re brave enough, good enough and have a little luck on your side when your paths cross, you might just get to keep. I hadn’t known that she was love’s version of a moonshot until she was gone.
She’s made me want more from life than I thought I could have and she made everything more colorful and interesting. And to top it all off, she’s a bombshell whose magical pussy feels like its lined with ecstasy.
Making love to her is spectacular. When I’m inside of her and she’s clinging to me like letting go meant she’d fall off the edge of the earth I feel like the luckiest man in the world.
My brain has finally caught up with my heart. So, when I’m asked if I love her, every single part of me knows the answer.
