Daybreak (Sorrowsong University, #2) — Chapter no 21

Chapter 21

OPHELIA

The notification on my phone makes me grin as one of Alex’s security guys weaves through the lunchtime traffic, a com-fortable silence in the shiny

black car.

From: Alex Corbeau-Green Subject: Lonely (adjective) sad because one has no company.

Date: Wednesday 9th April 12:03 EST To: Ophelia Winters

Are you there yet?

Ps. Mia hides the good snacks in the cupboard beside the dishwasher.

So the data plan he’s put my phone on works, then. I continue to be

impressed by this cracked, dented six-year-old little machine.

I imagine the look on Alex’s face if I were to utter that sentence aloud.

He already thinks I’m a cavewoman.

From: Ophelia Winters Subject: Impatient (adjective) annoyed because you have to wait.

Date: Wednesday 9th April 12:04 EST To: Alex Corbeau-Green

Not yet. This city is kind of trafficky, if you haven’t noticed.

I shut the screen off to take in the madness of the city around me, but it pings straight away.

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: Trafficky (error) not a word.

Date: Wednesday 9th April 12:05 EST To: Ophelia Winters

We making up words, now? Text me when you get there, baby.

The car pulls up a short while later, outside a huge, terraced brownstone on a tidy street. “Wow,” I say, craning my neck to absorb all four floors.

The security guy opens the door for me. I’ve already forgotten his name.

There’s so many of them to memorize. “I’ll park the car, miss. Take the steps up to the door.”

I creep into the house like I’m a burglar, holding my breath and walking on my toes, for some reason. The foyer is huge, all polished wood floors and a white staircase with a beige runner. There are shoes spilling out of the closet beside me, and children’s drawings in white frames decorate the wall behind the stairs. There’s a warmth in the air, the smell of baking wafting from somewhere.

This is a home. The London house was a cold, polished shell. This is homey in a way that I’ve missed so badly. I turn to the closet, kicking off my boots and putting them on a shelf with Alex’s sneakers.

A cheery hi splinters the thick silence, and I let out an unholy shriek, dropping my bag.

The woman in front of me laughs, holding her hands out in apology.

She’s short and round, brown hair streaked with gray. “Sorry to scare you.

I’m Ingrid, the housekeeper.”

“I’m …”

“Ophelia. Alex told me you’d be here any minute,” she finishes for me, a warm smile on her face. Is everyone in Alex’s life this excited that he has

a girlfriend?

“I … this is a beautiful home.”

“It is. I love my job. I’ll show you around.”

She takes my bag for me, leading me into a kitchen, bright and airy with pale wood floors and white stone countertops. Huge glass doors at the far end lead out to a small garden, full of plants and trees. A tray of cooling blueberry muffins sits on the island, and if I wasn’t too embarrassed, I’d beg her for one. They smell ridiculous. “Are the girls home?”

“Emily will pick them up from school in a few hours, so you have some

time to yourself before then.”

“I definitely need a shower.”

“Here, I’ll show you Alex’s bathroom. He already had me go out and grab you some things. I can give you a full tour later, if you like. I’m guessing you’re exhausted.”

Alex’s room is at the end of the second-floor hallway. A giant cream rug covers most of the hardwood floor, a huge teak bedframe at the center of the back wall. Maybe I’m just tired, but the white cloud of soft bedding looks like it’ll be the comfiest thing in the world.

As always with his rooms, the space is immaculate, but the desk is utter chaos. Piles of sketchbooks, books, letters for his mom, study notes, architecture journals. There are at least a dozen sketches of me scattered across it all.

In the giant en suite—I’ll never understand why a bathroom needs two sinks—there’s a wicker basket with shampoo, nice soap, a hairbrush, tampons, some soft sweatpants, pajamas, cookies, and a packet of Jelly Babies.

Ophelia I’m spoiled. Thank you.

Alex Did Ingrid meet you?

Ophelia Yes, she’s lovely.

Alex I have nightmares in which that woman retires. She’s worked here for fifteen years.

Ophelia I might marry her instead of you.

Alex Her husband works for us too, as a driver.

Ophelia Damn it. Never mind, then. Gonna shower and take a nap.

Alex Send pic

That stupid emoji pings through, with the big watery eyes. I laugh, snapping a pic where the towel only just covers me.

Alex You’re so hot, baby.

Ophelia This shower is definitely big enough for two.

Alex I’ll be home first thing, as long as Mom looks okay. Cannot wait.

The shower is everything I needed. It washes away the stress, the flight, the panic from the lecture hall. When I step out in the fluffy towel and spot that Ingrid has left a warm muffin and a cup of tea on the side table, I think I might just curl up here and never leave.

I sit on the edge of the bed, peeling back the brown paper and taking a bite.

Jesus Christ, it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I flop back onto the white duvet, moaning around the food in my mouth.

The painting is on the ceiling above Alex’s bed. My painting. The mess of fingers and handprints I made while he fucked me in London.

Ophelia Nice view from the bed

Alex Something’s got to make the lonely nights less lonely

Now my brain is full of all sorts of visions of Alex in this bed, so I bury myself under the duvet and let my imagination run wild.

A KNOCK AT the door startles me. The curtains are good enough that I have no idea what time it is, but my phone tells me it’s just past five. I croak out

a hello, voice hoarse.

“Hey, girl!”

I’ve never met Mia, but I’d know her voice anywhere from the endless FaceTime calls I’ve spoken to her on.

“You’re home! Come in,” I say, combing my fingers through my hair.

The door opens, and a flurry of long limbs and dark hair launches toward me like a flying squirrel. She lands on the bed with a thud, grinning ear to ear. “Oh my god, it’s so cool that you’re here.”

“I can’t believe I survived the flight.”

“I know, right? Usually a very unreliable form of transport,” she says teasingly.

“Oh, so Alex’s attitude runs in the family?”

She laughs, flopping back beside me. “He’s the worst of us all.”

“How was school?”

She wiggles her feet, clad in white sports socks. “Fine. I had track

practice.”

“Does Evie like sports, too?”

She smiles at the mention of her twin sister. “Not really. She likes dancing. Actually, she likes figure skating. She’s excited to meet you, too.”

“I’m kind of nervous.” I’m more than nervous. Meeting a load of miserable businessmen and CEOs? I’d be fine. Meeting teenage girls?

Terrifying.

“Don’t be. We can just eat popcorn and watch a movie together. Did you see my mom? Did she seem … well, obviously she’s not fine, but did she seem okay?”

Concern creases her eyes and my heart squeezes. “It’s hard for me to say. I don’t know what she’s normally like. But we had a good chat. She seemed cheerful, considering.”

Mia stares at her feet, chewing her bottom lip. While Evie, Josie, and Charlotte have the blond hair and fair complexion of their father, Mia is all green eyes and dark hair, her skin a little sun-kissed. Although, anyone looks sun-kissed next to me. “Our mom is the best.”

“She is.”

“It’s not fair that she’s sick and my father isn’t.”

I nod, fiddling with the purple friendship bracelet on my wrist. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how Alex does this: answer questions from the six of them, all at different stages of childhood, all at different stages of understanding what death really means.

“It’s not fair Alex is dealing with all of this, either.”

“No, it isn’t.” I have a hundred questions. About Alex as a child, about life when their father was still at home, about how he’s really been these

past few months. None of them are fair to ask a sixteen-year-old trying to navigate one of the most difficult weeks of her life.

“Ugh. What are we doing?” Mia asks. “We’ve gone straight to miserable talk. We should get up and be positive. There are blueberry muffins downstairs. And it’s risotto for dinner. And there’s ice cream in the freezer. I made it.”

I stand up, pulling on Alex’s Sorrowsong Rugby hoodie. I’d kill to see him back there, playing beside Vincenzo. “You can make ice cream?”

“It’s really good, if I do say so myself.”

From the top of the stairs, I can already hear the buzz of life downstairs.

Ingrid’s voice, but someone else’s, too. A man’s. And lots of laughter, despite the situation.

It’s a home. It’s a home and a family and it’s a sink full of dishes and walls that aren’t cold the whole way through.

I will myself not to get emotional. But it is emotional. Whatever this is, here in this house, it’s the opposite of loneliness. “Sounds busy,” I say,

nervously.

“You come from a small family, right?”

I stutter, like I always do whenever I talk about my family, stuck somewhere in that horrible space between is and was. “Yeah. Well, it’s just me now. Just me at home … um … but there was three of us. But no, I’ve never had a big family.”

She flushes, like she’s cursing herself for asking me that. “Shit, Ophelia.

That was careless of me.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Really, it is.”

“If you’re overstimulated, you can just have a moment in Alex’s room.”

“Sounds perfect.”

I reach the bottom of the stairs, and a girl I recognize as Josie flies round the kitchen doorway like she’s been watching the stairs, waiting for me.

“Pheelz!”

I laugh, accepting her impressively forceful hug. “Pheelz? Did Vincenzo put you up to that?”

“Yeah.” She squeezes me again. “Alex told me not to scare you away.”

I hug her back, nose in her blond waves. “He did? We can’t keep letting

him get away with these comments.”

“Let’s take him down!”

“Deal.”

She drags me into the kitchen, where I see Evie—who looks exactly like her twin sister but with lighter hair—Éléanor, who is twelve and the shiest of them all, and Charlotte, who, at ten years old, gave me the most efficient, businesslike handshake I’ve ever received. Ingrid is here, too, and a gray- haired man I’m assuming is her husband. There’s another man, too, in a white chef’s jacket. It really is chaos. Several versions of my name are cheered, each of the sisters enveloping me in a warm hug. Evie holds on to me an extra second. “I feel like I know you already; we’ve heard so much

about you.”

“Oh no. I don’t want to know.”

She laughs, placing a drink in my hand. “All good things!”

Everyone is in good spirits, but they all look so tired. I don’t know how they’re all doing it.

But as the evening rolls on, I start to understand it a little more. They all lean on each other. Everyone is involved, everyone is included. When someone seems down, everyone rallies around them, even Ingrid, who seems to love Elise as if she were a sister.

And even though Alex isn’t here to guide me through it, I feel totally okay. Welcome.

But one absence is nibbling away at my conscience. I nudge Mia as we start pulling pasta bowls and glasses out of cupboards for dinner. “Where’s

Fleur?”

“I’m not sure. Probably in her room.”

“Is that because of me?”

“No. She never really hangs out with us anymore. She didn’t eat with us last night. It’s not you, I promise.”

I hate that I’m off on such a bad foot with her. I wish everything had played out differently.

The chef leaves a huge casserole dish full of risotto on the center of the table in the dining room, as well as a mountain of grated parmesan and some salad. I pull out a chair and sit down for my first family meal in years.

Laura flashes in my mind, as guilt-inducing as it is jarring. The coldness, quietness in her Inverness house no different to my own.

This right here is all she really wanted.

God, Laura. I am so sorry. I feel like I used her as a stepping stone to get here.

What Alex thinks about me is true: I am disgusted by the wealth they all have. It’s more than anyone needs. But if I happened to discover my dad was actually a millionaire and was just keeping me humble, hiring someone who can cook would be my first order of business.

I tried to make Alex a chicken salad last year and we both got a stomach

bug, as he assures me it was.

It was food poisoning.

But this risotto? Nothing short of incredible.

I’m sad Alex isn’t here, but it’s right that his mom has company.

“Are you still here over the weekend, Ophelia?” Mia asks, taking a

second helping of the food.

“Yes, if you guys don’t mind?”

Josie’s voice is loud and clear beside me, her hand landing on mine.

“We don’t mind!”

“We can bake a birthday cake for Alex!”

Shit. Alex’s birthday. He’s impossible to buy for. He has enough money to buy a small island, but the things he really wants are things money can’t

buy.

“Sounds great. Red velvet, maybe.”

“Soooo …” says Charlotte, in a terrible effort to seem casual. “You guys are all made up?”

I snort into my lemonade. “Yes, we’re all made up.”

“Are you gonna break up again?”

“Josie!” Mia pinches the bridge of her nose, glaring at her sister.

“What? We were gonna ask her.”

“We were going to interrogate her in a more subtle manner,” says Mia, through her laughter.

“We’ve been waiting for Alex to get a serious girlfriend for ages,” adds Evie, a solemn expression on her face. “We were worried it’d never happen.

And then he left you, and like … obviously we love him, because he’s our brother, but we wanted to strangle him. We never thought it was you who leaked the file. Well, none of us except …”

Another voice joins the fray, soft and lyrical just like Elise’s, but the accent American, rather than French. “Wow, E. Thanks a lot.”

The table quiets. I hope they don’t notice the way my shoulders stiffen with tension. I know who it is before I turn. Should I stand? No, she’s not a fucking earl. Go for a hug? She doesn’t want to hug me. Handshake?

I turn to face Fleur. I’ve seen her in pictures, billboards, and magazines, but she’s a lot more intimidating in the flesh. Her hair is dark like her brother’s, long enough that it kisses the top of her belt. She’s in an outfit that makes me realize that it’s not low-waisted jeans that are the problem, it’s me.

She has familiar piercing green eyes, and that sets me at ease. It’s hard to feel any hostility to anyone who has Alex’s eyes.

Still, anyone who can pull off low-waisted jeans makes my palms sweaty.

“Hey, Fleur,” I say, quietly. “How are you?”

Dumb question. Despite the happy atmosphere in the house, it’s pretty obvious all of these girls are struggling.

“Having kind of a shitty week, actually,” she says, sinking into the vacant chair at the head of the table. She fills her plate with salad, the mood around the table a little grayer. Alex has given me a heads up about Fleur’s feelings toward me, so I’m not really sure what to say. “How did my mom

seem?”

“She seemed quite cheerful, I think.”

She takes a mouthful, nude-colored nails tapping at her phone screen.

Her skin is glowing, hair glossy, but the dark circles under her eyes are just as bad as Alex’s. “Because Alex has finally found someone willing to put up with his shit.”

Mia laughs. “I think we were worried you were a robot.”

Evie nods in agreement. “He’s always had a creative imagination.”

“But he builds the best pillow forts.”

I grin down at Josie. Based on the way he kitted out the rental car on Boxing Day, I can believe that.

I always knew how much he’s done for his sisters, how hard he works to keep some semblance of normality in their lives, but seeing it here now, I have this sudden urge to reach beneath his skin and cradle his soft heart in both my hands.

But I can’t do that, so I settle for a quick text.

Ophelia I love you.

Ophelia So much.

The rest of the dinner passes in quiet conversation. Fleur doesn’t say another word, and she’s first to leave the table. Still, I feel like our first meeting could’ve gone a lot worse, considering the fact that a month ago, she wanted to remove my head from my shoulders.

The rest of us are all eating Mia’s homemade ice cream when my phone buzzes in my lap.

Alex My love for you keeps my heart beating.

I feel my cheeks turning pink. I never know what to say back to these things, just like I don’t know how I got so lucky. I send him a thumbs-up emoji, only because I know it’ll make him laugh. He thinks I’m a bad

texter.

I probably am a bad texter.

I SPEND THE first few hours of the night wide awake, staring at my terrible piece of artwork on the ceiling. A thick blanket of silence settles over the house, the hum of the outside world barely audible.

I pad down to the kitchen in my new—brown, of course—pajamas for a glass of water, whispering a quiet hello to the security guys in the foyer. I take a sip and turn to take in my surroundings. The dishwasher churns quietly, full to the brim from a busy evening of home-cooked food. More children’s drawings decorate the wall, and there’s a folder filled to the brim of handwritten recipes.

In the still darkness of the kitchen, I spot a shadowed form outside, sat on the garden bench with his forehead resting in his hand.

I fill up a second glass of water and slide open one of the double doors.

The stone path is cold on my bare feet, my pajamas a thin barrier against the chill. The wind whispers through the bushes, tousling my hair as I walk toward the defeated form on the bench.

Alex exhales a long stream of smoke, eyes on the starless sky above us.

“I’m bad company tonight, Twist.”

He’s trying to get me to leave, but it isn’t working. It won’t work. We’ve done that once, and it was a mistake.

“Not for me. Never for me.” I sit down on the bench beside him, watching the cigarette glow on his next inhale. “You came back early.”

“The next nurse on shift was a bit stricter with visiting hours.”

I run my hand over his back, feeling the heat of his skin even through his hoodie. His head drops again. I wish I could take some of the weight off his shoulders. “She’s okay, though?”

“Mentally, she’s surprisingly upbeat. Her heart and liver are just giving up.”

I lean my head on his shoulder, which softly rises and falls with his slow breaths. It’s peaceful out here. The chaos of the city is a muted hum. The air is crisp, but not cold. I can see why Elise likes to spend her days on this bench.

“I will quit,” he says, putting a second cigarette between his lips. The lighter battles the breeze, illuminating the hand Alex cups around it. He looks so tired. “I will. Just not this week.”

I take the box off him, because two is enough, and slip it into my pocket. He offers me the one between his fingers.

“No, thanks. I like normal-flavored air. Just plain, original, vanilla air.”

He laughs. “Fuck me, then.”

I grin back at him in the soft orange glow cast by the porch light. “Fuck you, then.”

“Evie texted me to say that you’re cool.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. If I could pick one adjective that I’m not, it’d be cool. When I was twelve, my mom asked my grandma to say something nice about me and the best word she could come up with was sturdy. She slapped me on the thigh like a retired man slaps his old car and said, She wouldn’t blow away in a strong wind, that one.

Nothing like a female family member to humble you at an early age.

I miss them all now, though.

“Your sisters are great. I like them all, Fleur included.”

“They are. I don’t know how they’ve not turned out terrible.”

I swing my legs where I sit, the garden quiet save for the sporadic noise of my feet catching the tile beneath us.

“I might never get better, Ophelia.”

This is unlike him. I’ve seen a lot from Alex, but never much insecurity.

“Alex. I’m miserable. Cynical. Grumpy. Glass half empty. In the future you envision for us, am I a cheerful, happy-go-lucky optimist who skips her way down the stairs every morning?”

He almost shudders, which makes me laugh. I don’t know why he is so charmed by my grumpiness. “Fuck no. You grumble all day.”

He snuffs out the cigarette on the metal arm of the bench and drags me onto his lap, rinsing his mouth with water from the glass. His hands run over my thighs, over the soft fabric that covers them. He leans into the curve of my neck and takes a slow inhale, like he needs me in his bloodstream more than the nicotine. “I’m frightened by my love for you.”

“I’m frightened by the idea of not having a slice of toast in the next five minutes.”

His laugh is warm and rumbly against my throat, and his fingers sink into my hips as though he can’t bear to let go. “One more minute.”

I drop a swift kiss to the top of his head. “If all you could ever offer me is quiet weekends and difficult mornings, that’s more than enough.”

“You’re just grumpy, though. I’m depressed. It’s a different beast.

Depression is exhausting to be around. Grumpiness isn’t.”

“I know it’s a different beast, but it’s the same love.”

Finally, he meets my eyes. His are full of worry, but I don’t need a mirror to know that mine are full of certainty.

“The same love,” he repeats, like it’s an unfamiliar concept. Like he’d never considered the fact that I might love him just as unconditionally as he does me. Somewhere, two car horns beep. Someone shouts. Our eyes stay completely locked, like no one exists but us.

“DO YOU WANT anything for your birthday?” I ask, sitting on the stool at the kitchen island, watching Alex put four slices of bread in the toaster and push the button down.

“You. Backward. Forward. Sideways. In the shower. On my desk.”

On his desk. Fuck. My knees press together. “Alex.”

“You’re present enough for the next hundred birthdays, Ophelia.”

“If you don’t say something, I’ll have to go rogue. I’ll get you interpretive dancing lessons.”

He’s grinning, at last, as he pulls a jar of chocolate spread from the cupboard that very clearly says Mia’s – DO NOT TOUCH on it and opens it.

“I’ll interpretive dance for you any day of the week, Twist. No need to pay for lessons.”

He dips a knife into the jar, then, standing between my legs, he holds it up for me to lick.

I run my tongue along the cool metal, watching his pupils dilate.

I’m hyperaware of the square inches where our bodies touch.

Hyperaware of the pulse that drums a thick, lazy rhythm in my neck.

Hyperaware of the way the width of his body forces my thighs apart, of how rough his jeans feel against me. Time seems to slow, the distant tick tick tick of a clock in the hall sounding like it’s been submerged in treacle.

When I reach the top of the blunt blade and wrap my lips around the very tip to gather the chocolate there, a hoarse curse escapes him.

My pulse slides from my throat to somewhere deep in my belly. One of his hands grips the knife so hard that veins bulge over his forearm, and the other slides up the side of my neck. My breaths come thicker and faster, each one inflating this balloon of tension between us.

“Fuck, Ophelia,” he breathes out, as I swallow the chocolate on a quiet moan. The air is dense, like we’re in the thicket of a rainforest. His exhale is animalistic. Mine is frantic.

This is what he does to me. I’m unraveled.

“I desperately need a good reason not to fuck you right here on this island.”

My thighs squeeze, but with him between them, there’s nowhere for them to go. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

He hooks a finger in the front of my pajama shirt and tugs it forward, eyes dropping to the opening he’s just created.

The expression on his face is anything but gray.

I spread my legs wider so we’re flush against each other, breaths heaving, control on the brink of snapping.

The toaster pops, making us both jump.

I drag in a desperate inhale like I’ve just run a marathon.

He steps back, raking two hands through his hair and opening a drawer to retrieve a clean knife. “God, Ophelia. I can’t have any rational thoughts around you.”

“I’d definitely be up for fucking on the kitchen island.”

His back turns, muscular shoulders flexing as he spreads butter and chocolate onto all four slices and slides two over to me. “One night when it’s just us here. No kids.”

I put the knife in the sink while he pours me a cup of tea. If the atmosphere around us had a color, it’d be a soft lilac: those first wisps of sunrise on a quiet spring morning.

It spreads a yellow-orange sort of happiness to all the dark, dusty corners of my body. There’s something so extraordinarily ordinary about us, feeling like my soul has been set alight while unloading the dishwasher beside him, feeling the cracks in my heart fuse shut while we wait the two minutes for our Cup Noodles to be ready.

Alex inhales his toast in four bites, practically hopping from foot to foot while I munch through mine, like a dog waiting for me to drop a crumb.

The toast does a bad job of muffling my amusement.

“What?”

“You.”

Another little shuffle from foot to foot. “What about me?”

“You want me to finish so we can go upstairs and fuck.”

He stills, but he looks like he’s been caught red-handed, the faintest blush kissing his cheeks. “Do you wanna?”

I fold the entire second slice of toast into my mouth like a piece of bread-based origami, hoping that’s answer enough, and he lets out the most wonderful laugh, tossing me over his shoulder, carrying me out of the kitchen, and taking the stairs three at a time.