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He sighs but doesn’t continue. Letting me imagine athousand and one words that he will never say but think very hard. Impossible. Unrealistic. Incompatible. Inconceivable. Forbidden.
“So that’s it?”
My voice breaks in a pathetic question that I couldn’t hold back. That’s it. It’s finished. Nolan just closes himself off again. Breaking my heart, my dreams, and all the hope he had given me.
“Yes.”
He runs a quick hand over his T-shirt and quickly walks around me towards the door. I feel dirty. An old sock that was used once and then thrown away. So that’s what it feels like to sleep with a guy who leaves right after? Who abandons you when he got what he wanted?
“Was it that insignificant?”
He stops in his tracks, keeping his back to me for a second before facing me. The features drawn, he sniffles while observing me.
“Trust me, I wish it was, Scar.”
Then he quickly disappears, leaving me alone with his confession.
26
Scarlett
“Want some help, Meredith?”
I turn around at the same time as my mother towards that familiar voice and come face to face with the proudest smile I know. We’ve just finished eating and while everyone is still in the living room talking, I slipped away with my mother into the kitchen.
“Don’t suck up, Jones!” grumbles my brother who follows him closely.
“Always trying to be the perfect kid, seriously, you’re not 10 years old anymore. The Martinsknowwhat kind of specimen you’ve become,” continues Leo.
My mom laughs and I roll my eyes at the guys bickering around the counter again. Natalie, Tom, Anya, and James arrived a little less than two hours ago, while their sons, Leo and Nolan, have been crashing in the house since late morning. As if it wasn’t enough for the three of them to live together, they also have to spend their weekends at each other’s houses.
This weekend, it’s here again. And it’s been here fortoolong. I sigh, brushing the hair off the back of my neck with a quick wave of my hand. I close the dishwasher with my feet, ignoring the burning gaze I feel on my profile. He does that when I’m not looking at him, when hethinksI don’t see him. He watches me on the sly, acting with me in his normal way with the playful jabs, the jokes and the bickering. That’s when we’re not alone, our parents are around, and we have no choice but to act like this so as not to arouse suspicion. When we are alone? It’s radio silence, he avoids me, doesn’t look me in the eye or throws quick glances at me like the one he’s doing right now. I shift my position, catch his attention which he immediately diverts, then leave the kitchen.
Back to square one.
With even more memories than last time.
Nolan on my back. Me on my knees. His breath on my neck. His voice in my ear. His lustful gaze.
Anyway. He acts as if nothing happened, just as he promised.
And it hurts me. It really does.
“Scar, an NHL game in the basement?”
I sit around the living room table, where the parents are set up, and watch my brother standing in the middle of the room.
“Don’t you want dessert, boys?” asks my mother, who comes in from the kitchen. “It’s a chocolate cake.”
“When are you taking it out?” asks my brother.
“In about fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll come back when it’s ready,” Edgar says.
“Do you want me to tuck you in for the night too?” asks our father.
Leo makes a joke under his breath that I can’t hear, but I can imagine being sexual given my brother’s reaction and Nolan’s chuckle behind them.
