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“Ophelia, I’d start a Crowdfunder for the pigeon that shat on my car last week if I found out it had gone on a date with Shawn Miller.”
“What about the pigeon that would pee in your cup holder?”
“I’d leave that stupid, ginger pigeon on the rainy path outside the university gates.”
Stupid, ginger pigeon. It’s the worst way a man has ever described me, and yet I’ve never felt so seen.
I flick through the months of the year my parents died. August, September, October. November is missing. No. I flick through every folder again. And again.
count the keys on the clip beside his phone. A gold one for his room. The small, black fob for the Nightshade mansion, a smaller one that might be for a window, and the cleaner’s master key with the green tag. I almost hear my mind screech to a halt. The cleaner’s what? I reread the tiny, fading writing on the green plastic. What the hell does he have a stolen master key for?
I don’t switch it onto silent fast enough, and the chime of an email pings loud and clear in the quiet office. Alex clears his throat. “Sorry. That was my Green work phone.”
From: Alex Corbeau-Green Subject: Claustrophobic (adjective) having an extreme or irrational fear of confined places Date: Monday 21st October 05:43 BST To: Ophelia Winters I’m just dying to know the reason you are lying beneath me right now.
From: Ophelia Winters Subject: Asphyxia (noun) a condition in which the body is deprived of oxygen Date: Monday 21st October 05:44 BST To: Alex Corbeau-Green Can you shift to the right a bit? You’re right on my fucking lungs.
From: Alex Corbeau-Green Subject: Oneirology (noun) the scientific study of dreams Date: Monday 21st October 05:44 BST To: Ophelia Winters In the nineteen times it’s happened in my head, my first time on top of you didn’t look like this. ________________ He thinks about me.
I think of the Alex who put his little sister to bed. The one who crossed a continent when his mother called his name.
From: Ophelia Winters Subject: 1 Across Date: Monday 21st October 05:46 BST To: Alex Corbeau-Green Nine letters. First letter U. I’m not wearing any.
“Have you got something more interesting going on?” I feel Alex shift in his seat, and when his voice comes, it’s hoarse with desire. “Honestly, sir, you have no idea.”
From: Alex Corbeau-Green Subject: 2 Down Date: Monday 21st October 05:47 BST To: Ophelia Winters Two words. Five and six. First letters H and A. I’m about to have one. ________________ I smother my laugh in my elbow. I like the idea that I could give him a heart attack.
“Were you, at any point, intending to tell me that my parents didn’t die in an accident?”
“I don’t like it when people encroach on private conversations.” “I don’t like it when people encroach on private burglaries.”
“What did you want in his office?” I’d never tell you. “It doesn’t matter.” “Matters to me.” “Shame.” He takes a step forward. “Don’t make me chase you.” I take a step back. “I have stamina.” “I’d rather find that out a different way.”
“Smoking raises your blood pressure,”
“You raise my blood pressure.” “How?” His eyes drop to my lips for the smallest of moments. “That backless dress from last night, for a start.”
My back hits the trunk of a small ash tree, chest rising and falling faster. The cigarette hisses as he puts it out against the bark just a hair’s breadth away from my ear. The light is lower, casting soft shadows over the contours of his face. His palms land on either side of my head, and then his thick forearms. “Don’t.” Don’t touch me. Don’t kiss me. Just don’t. “Bold of you to assume I want to.”
“Do you want to know how I knew you were under the sofa?” I look away, focusing on a knot on the next tree along. “No.” He grasps my face in his left hand, firm but gentle, forcing me to look at him. It’s too hot, too humid, too dense beneath the trees. “Because everything smells like you.” He leans in closer. Close enough for me to see the cut and bruise on his face from his rugby match. Close enough for me to see the usual storm in his eyes has been replaced by something else entirely. “The passenger seat of my car, the couch in Carmichael’s office, my fucking bedsheets. You’re everywhere.”
His eyes are on my mouth when he finally speaks. “Whatever secret reason you’re here for, tell me Shawn Miller is all part of it.”
“You’re too good a woman for a man like him.” “And you’d be better?” A dark chuckle vibrates in his throat. “Ophelia, love, I’d be significantly worse. But I can’t watch you with him.”
“Did he kiss you?” “You have no right to know that.”
“Put me out of my goddamn misery, Ophelia.”
“I bet Shawn jumps up and down in the club.”
“With his finger in the air, too?” Now Alex is laughing. “And talks about the perks of cryptocurrency between songs.” “Hey, the Federal Reserve has literally just cut the interest rate. The market capitalization of cryptocurrency has had a great boost. Risk appetite is high right now.” Alex smothers his laugh in both hands. It’s beautiful. “He did not.” “The whole fucking date.” “Oh my god.”
“He probably still sends out his Snapchat streaks in the morning.”
I still send mine at 24
“Why all the crosswords?” I shrug as his footsteps echo behind mine. “Just to occupy my mind.” “So you’re like me.” “In what way?” “Worried about where your mind will go if left unoccupied.” Ten words. Ten words that I’ve been trying to articulate for years. Ten words that make me think I’ve had it all wrong about Alex Corbeau-Green. Ten words that make me feel less alone. “Yeah,” I whisper. “They’re a cage for my thoughts.”
“I guess we make a good team, Twist.” “Stop calling me that.” “You don’t like the nickname?”
“So what should I call you?” “Oh, I don’t know, how about Ophelia Winters?” “What should Shawn call you?”
“I don’t know…What do men call their girlfriends? Sugar?” I regret it the second I say it, but Alex raises an eyebrow before I can retract my statement. “Sugar. You want to be called sugar.” “No, not sugar. Something else, like…” I scratch my head. I have no idea. He presses his lips together. “Sugar.” I shove him out of the way, feeling my cheeks flame. “Not sugar. Honey? No. Not honey. Muffin? No.” He looks exasperated with me. “Jesus Christ. What’s next? Eggs? Preheat oven to two fifty? Baking soda, I’m home!”
“I guess we have no reason to see each other anymore,” he says as pulls his phone back out of his pocket and frowns. I wonder if everything is okay at home. Then I wonder why I care. “I guess we don’t.” “At last.” “At last,” I repeat firmly.
“See you around, sugar.” I hate the nickname, but my pulse flutters. The way he says it, it sounds sinful and not sweet. Dark and twisted. He says it like a promise. Like he’ll be looking for me.
Last week, paparazzi photographed Alex’s mother running in Central Park in her dressing gown. He left his rugby match halfway through and flew to New York the same day. His father didn’t leave the climate conference in Washington.
It was easier when the Greens were just words on an internet article. When I hadn’t seen photos of them on Alex’s Instagram, or watched a stupid video of him twirling his eight-year-old sister around the kitchen on Fleur’s Instagram story. I always knew I’d be ruining a family.
It’s what he would’ve wanted. —L. Underneath it is an object wrapped in a dirty T-shirt and a tea towel. Wondering if I need a hazmat suit, I pinch the T-shirt between my fingers and pull it out of the box. A tape clatters to the floor of my room.
The final bullet in the barrel. The grenade in Cain Green’s home. Only, he’s not home alone.
The two girls inside me—the girl before, and the girl after—want different things. One wants war, to make others suffer the same as she has, to not be alone in her misery. The other one just wants a quiet life of crosswords and peace. One wants to mail the tape back to where it came from. One wants to pull the trigger.
She’d have caught my stalker by now. My body falls still in the water. Alan Sine. It’s an anagram of my mother’s name. All of those puzzles. All of those crosswords, and it’s taken me almost two months to realize that Alan Sine is an anagram of Annalise.
I don’t know why I’m so scared, don’t know why I reach for my phone to unblock Alex’s number. It takes me too long to find his texts to me, too long to click on them. I don’t hit Unblock in time.
“And the girl?” I told him about Ophelia a few weeks ago in a moment of weakness, right after I’d found her sitting under the sofa listening to my conversation with Carmichael, right after our moment in the trees. I wasn’t in my right mind, riding whatever euphoric high it is that I get whenever I’ve just seen her.
“She’s not that sort of girl. She wouldn’t want me to love her.
She felt perfect against me; soft and strong all at once I should’ve kissed her.
I drop my final deadlift with a low grunt, undoing the belt at my waist.
Yummy
Who’s at home with you all?” “Ingrid and Russel, but Dad gets home early tonight. He’s taking us to watch Evie’s ballet.” The housekeeper and the driver.
“She’s frigid to a new degree, man. Was she like that with you?” I’m going to kill him. I can’t kill him. His father is on the board. I’m going to kill him. His father is on the motherfucking board.
“If you were talking about one of my sisters like that, I’d crack your skull, Miller.”
“I tell you what, next time I take her out on a date, it’ll be a fucking great job she isn’t your sister. Reckon Ophelia is as quiet in bed as she is outside of it?” My blood smolders in my veins. I shove him back. “She’s not even quiet, you dick, you just don’t shut up.” “Whoa, there. Better keep a check on those emotions, Green. Wouldn’t want to turn into your psycho mother, would you?”
I slam my fist into his nose. And again and again and again, until Jack pulls me off him and Vincenzo appears out of nowhere to drag me out of the gym. “Don’t.”
