by Elena Monroe
Work wasn’t exceedingly annoying. Savannah was actually working already when I walked in, and nothing was more pleasant on a Friday morning—”Fri-Yay”, if we are being accurate. This was the only day the whole team worked, and the day would normally move at super speed. Savannah met me at the door and linked arms with me, practically dragging me to the coffee bar, asking me questions, and oddly taking interest in my life. I still hadn’t shaken off Hunter’s declaration of not living without me, even if I was rejecting his heart, and now tried-and-true Savannah was throwing me.
“Are you okay? It’s so hard being the one glowing up when your ex is clearly not handling the breakup well.”
“What are you talking about? Glow up?”
I felt like I was on some reality show, and she was prompting me to answer how she wanted—except she was speaking another language, and I wasn’t following.
“Oh, sweetheart… it’s all over the news. That handsome devil who said you two dated in college…? He was hooking up with a student… I’m really surprised you didn’t hear about this yet.”
Everything in me became muffled, quiet, even still… I remembered the feeling from that one high school party I went to, when Hunter changed my life forever. The next morning, there was this eerily calm sensation to me, displaced in all its glory, but it still demanded every part of my attention.
She held out a coffee, and I could tell by her smile she wanted to shit-talk Oliver together. Maybe she wanted to bond? Did Hunter already know when I saw him this morning? Who else knew? What news channel was this playing on? The room started to spin. I wanted to be resolute with my trust; it could hold me up and dust off my poise.
I trusted Oliver. There was no doubt in my mind.
It was different when he was my TA. We were the same age, and neither of us anticipated me being in his class. It was different…
I walked the slow path to my office upstairs and closed the door and then the blinds next. I needed to get a grip in private. I pulled out my phone and opened the group chat named “Sinners”, the one with a crescent moon next to it, symbolizing how I had all texts on mute. I typed slowly, carefully, knowing only Liz was most likely awake already. Maybe Aspen too.
Oliver is on the news.
I couldn’t even bring myself to type out why. This was going to ruin him, haunt him, and cage him in a way someone like Oliver couldn’t be caged.
I didn’t even stop to think of how he was feeling before I texted him. My heart dropped with every doubt I should have crushed. I should have put my love and trust for him first, before my insecurities, before I damned the innocent. I should have known better. I had been that innocent, damned after my uncontrolled night with Hunter.
Pressing back, I exited the group message, once it yielded no responses. I suddenly ran away with the thought that he could be detained, charged, or something worse than the news splashing his name on the screen with a photo of Amherst University.
I touched Oliver’s name quickly typing: I just heard. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?
I waited for a response longer than I intended to, but I waited as punishment. I was all ready to protect myself by taking a step back, in case it was true, instead of learning from my previous mistake five years ago. If I was going to love Oliver unconditionally, that meant believing he was innocent before guilty. We were finally one hundred percent handing our souls and hearts over, with no roadblocks or even speed bumps, and here I was calling a timeout by acting this way.
H ayley was hitting the crush button on my blender with so much force I was pretty sure the development of the infant inside me was going to be stunted, possibly deaf.
She was in full-body meltdown in my kitchen, while pouring an assortment of liquor, ice, and frozen fruit. I normally wouldn’t be against this, but I was, because all alcohol was off limits, despite my doctor giving the A-Okay to have wine now and again. I smiled sweetly at her during that appointment, while Leon laughed into his fist. He knew as well as I did that Sinners didn’t know limits. We were zero or one hundred. Nothing in between existed.
“She actually hung up on me. On me. She met someone.”
Hayley never let the emotions crack her exterior. She only had one soft spot, and that was Palmer or her parents. One wasn’t as much of a soft spot as a giant black hole of pain. Her parents all but cut her off when she came out after college.
I used the remote to turn the TV on that sat in the corner of the kitchen. It was such a stupid and manly thing to suggest it being a good idea to have a TV in the damn kitchen. In this case, it was exactly the background noise I needed to ignore her straw sinking into the contents of the blender, which smelled intoxicating.
“No… she wouldn’t do that to you! She’s never even brought up breaking up while she travels.”
Hayley didn’t even take the blender off the base, while she sucked up the alcohol at noon through a metal straw. We were the lucky ones, working unusually 9 - 5 jobs. I was a soon to be society wife and building my resume with as much volunteering and philanthropy I could to get enough buzz before I started my consulting business. Being pregnant was just a speed bump in my plan. While Hayley was living her tortured artist life and clearly thriving.
I glanced toward the screen to see “Amherst College” in the headline below the news anchors, alongside “Professor and student”. I squinted at the TV and turned up the volume quickly to catch her enunciated words.
Why was this news? You’re over eighteen and so are the profs. If they aren’t changing grades, then what’s the problem.
Hayley spit out her drink all over my island when we heard his name come from the anchor giving us the highlights of the story. My jaw went slack in the same kind of shock. Our phones buzzed at the same time against the slab of marble, and we both jerked our heads to make eye contact. It was hitting us that our Ollie was the center of a witch hunt, and like all witch hunts, we didn’t see it coming until they dragged the innocent bodies into the center of town and strung them up.
Caden called Hayley, and I had to try not to grab the phone out of her hands. If anyone was going to have details, it was going to be Caden—his closest friend and confidant. Thankfully, she put it on speaker, dropping it against the slab, so I could hear without pushing my ear to the other side of the phone.
“Hey, we’re driving up to Amherst. You coming?”
I chimed in without asking or waiting for my turn. “Wait a minute. Who is ‘we’?”
Caden shouted to someone else, but we could hear his voice still boom into the speaker, not missing us much. “Sinners only. No Maddison or Hunter. In or out?”
I couldn’t hide how protective my voice got when he mentioned Sinners—the originals, not last minute additions. My mind traveled to Layla, who never was a last minute addition in my mind, but a piece we always needed. As soon as I met her, I knew she was more like me than anyone I had met before. We shared the same OCD tendencies, the same love of learning, and the same polish of shy at first glance. Even the things that made us different I came to admire in our friendship. After college, we always stayed in touch, before she graduated and moved to Boston, taking the same footsteps.
“What about Layla?” I wasn’t making a choice until I knew that the only way we had to help Ollie was in our back pocket.
Caden’s sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed. “No… I was gonna leave the love of his life two hours away, while we coddle his ego. He’ll just love that, Liz.”
He always had a way of pushing my buttons. He knew sarcasm was on my short list of pet peeves. Hayley pulled the phone up to her ear, as Leon waltzed into the kitchen, greeting me, without knowing Hayley was here drowning her Palmer sorrow. I stood up from the barstool when he leaned forward to plant a kiss on my temple. He always whispered against my skin, even when we were alone; his words were my secrets—mine and mine alone.
“How are you feeling?”
I squeezed his muscular forearm. “I’m good.”
I pointed to the TV scr
een to the story still scrolling along the bottom. He laughed, with no regard to our loyalty.
“Fucking up again, huh? Can’t say I’m shocked. Guy went to rehab in college.”
I slapped his arm at the same time my phone buzzed in my hand.
Addi: I need you to come to Amherst. Don’t tell mom or dad.
I was making connections with her message and the news breaking that engulfed Ollie—I was making connections I didn’t want to make. They were fighting over my loyalty, ripping it to shreds to see who had more pieces.
I quickly demanded an explanation from Addi that I never got—not one response after I told her I was coming. No excuses, no explanation, or even deflecting. She was pleading the damn fifth, even with me. That was never good. Even when we were younger, she’d act out or make mistakes that she wished she could take back almost immediately. She would crawl into my bed guiltily and plead for forgiveness, and I always forgave her, because I saw our parents through the same lens she did. They gave me more attention and pushed me harder, and all that looked a lot like affection when we were young. I thought she grew out of that when she got a boob job at 17, dyed her hair a blonde that didn’t match anyone in our family, started wearing a signature red lipstick, and looked more and more adopted.
She wanted to thrive in the space of their absent love, and instead, she got a makeover. None of that made over her heart or personality. She was just a pretty shell now, still making the same hostile mistakes and pleading for forgiveness.
I got used to it after a while, bailing her out of hard situations and begging her to grow up. This wasn’t any different, except now Ollie was involved somehow.
Hayley brought my blender, minus the base, with her when she exited the kitchen and shouted behind her, “I’ll be downstairs! Caden is gonna be here in five!”
Leon boxed me in against the counter, as his gaze landed above my head, forcing me to look up. I could feel the tension in his arms and saw it make his jaw look even more like it was cut from steel. Ollie was his kryptonite, ever since college.
He spoke above me, almost like an afterthought, and he didn’t wasn’t entirely sure he wanted me to hear: “Should I be worried?”
Leon wasn’t someone who was full of doubt or insecurities. He was the opposite: overly confident to the point of being unaware of how others felt. This was new territory for both of us. I treaded lightly, making sure not to bruise his ego more.
“No… I’m having your baby, and we’re getting married next month. This mess involves my sister somehow. I have to go; otherwise, our parents will.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck as I spoke, and he became more tender, his jaw more slack, and arms stronger without the tension. I learned, after college, that relationships aren’t about push and pull; they’re about building and breaking. We have to build up the other person in weak moments and break the parts of us that tell us we aren’t good enough. It’s build and break.
His classically sharp features finally closed in on me, and our lips met in a hungry embrace. Both of us were dominants; we liked our love soft, but our sex dirty.
Amherst was like a place that changed, but never stopped feeling like home. We passed the coffeeshop on the way through to Ollie’s place—the same place he lived while in college. It made me realize how much he stuck to his routine, while we all fell first into this unknown of adulthood.
Layla was quiet the entire time. I wanted to know what she thought, but I didn’t ask. The silence spoke loudly enough, if I listened closely.
The rest of the Sinners had a stoic silence to them too. This was easily one of the most intense moments I had felt, as we drove, comfortable through the silence. The only thing breaking the silence was Aspen on the phone with his Junior Associate from his firm, relaying the only details we had and creating some mental plan we weren’t privy to.
We pulled up to Ollie’s house, using the dirt road, and Caden didn’t move from the driver’s seat. “We need to be careful with what we say. He’s still recovering, and I’m not gonna let some choice fucking words be the reason he chooses to do blow again.”
I felt like I was in college again, and Caden was going the extra mile protecting us still. He still took up that role in adulthood, but he passed the baton to our partners now. He really only had Ollie left to protect, and now that Layla was back with him, it was going to be a short-lived position.
Inside wasn’t any different than the car—quiet and uncomfortable. It was like our punishment for failing at adulthood.
“What are you guys doing here?”
My shock and bewilderment didn’t go unnoticed when Ollie seemed perfectly fine in his kitchen, making coffee.
“It’s all over the news... I mean… are you fired? Suspended? How are you calm?”
My words backed up into each other, trying to ask too many questions at once.
“Liz, calm down. I didn’t do anything. Obviously, they’ll figure that out when they investigate.”
No one else knew about my sister’s involvement, not even me really, or how she was exactly involved. I waited for the group to fan out, relax, and give him space, so I could ask him in a low tone about Addi.
“How is Addi involved?”
He leaned against the opposite counter, while I stole the coffee mug from his hands. He was watching Arson from afar after he tugged on Layla’s hand and drug her to his cars. Her heart was stolen by Arson, and it made my heart swell bigger in my chest from the extra weight of love.
“That’s not decaf. She’s the one they’re saying I slept with.”
I felt heavy, knowing my sister was the source of this stressful afternoon. I escaped her drama once I went off to college, but now we found ourselves back in the same old roles we once occupied.
“Humor me. It’s not true, right? Not even before Layla. I know she’s pretty…”
He let himself laugh, like any of this was humorous. “I prefer girls who have picked up a book in the last century.”
I let my fingers relax against the warm mug, not giving it back or drinking more than the sip. It was a distraction for me to focus on. Caden stood up with Arson on his shoulders, and another pound was added to my heart. It was all the maternal instincts building up and giving me softer spots. Arson grabbed onto his hair and his small hands covered his eyes, but Caden didn’t care, he was making him happy. He was going to be a great dad, once he found a girl he liked enough to keep around.
He finally spoke, “Intuition? Some privacy to talk? And let’s be real, these muscles need fuel. I’m starving.”
Caden provided the relief we all needed in that moment, as we all busted out laughing when he started flexing his arm muscles.
I texted my sister quickly with just a question mark, demanding some answers, but my phone remained silent.
The coffeehouse went untouched, familiar, but it was like a bad break up, where you were forced to feel those jitters of longing and knowing nothing would be the same without a time machine. It was anxiety stoking, as the memories flooded through your focus and the weight of why you ever left in the first place felt heavy.
I noticed a girl turn around, with only her long, straight, almost-grey hair pouring down her back, and I knew it was Addi. I shouted her name, when the guy holding his arm around her looked up from being buried in her hair. I knew him, almost as well as my devious sister: Hunter. His arm was around my clearly-distraught sister, and I felt more out of the loop than ever before. Was this pregnancy brain I had been reading up on?
T he worst things in life don’t happen with a bang, a bump in the night, or even a red flag you can notice as a warning sign. Truly bad things happen quietly, unseen, and out of nowhere.
I was in my lecture hall setting up early, writing shit on the white board, and opening my book tabbed up to high heaven, where I wanted to remember the words that sunk into my soul of Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruiki Murakami that we were dissecting.
I spent my whole time as a TA focusing on lov
e that was painful, full of angst, and didn’t feel good until the wounded characters felt whole on their own. I wanted to focus on unrequited love—the kind that you feel alone and that acts like a viral infection with no real evidence or cause, but that still pumps through your heart none-the-less.
It was five years later, and nothing about my love for Layla felt unrequited. I felt like a man off to war, and my beloved was at home, waiting for my arrival. Unlike the soldiers in time’s past, I didn’t have a locket or letters from home to keep me going. I only had the undeniable truth of knowing Layla was the only one for me. There was nothing unrequited about us; we learned to be whole on our own, even though those missing pieces we gave to each other haunted us.
I was thumbing my red tabs when the dean walked in with campus security. There was no email or voicemail to clue me in, when his presence made me stop everything I was doing and pay attention. Only a few men required all of my attention and, essentially, my boss… did. He was a tall, ex-athlete, and a grown-up Frat president, who ended up shaping youth, when I could bet that he fucked them over at a younger age. He reeked of being drunk off the power.
“Oliver, we have a problem.”
His voice dropped off, not letting me have any more information, until my heart rate rose enough and I could feel the pounding in the base of my throat. I stood up, crossing my arms, making sure I stood strong and not giving anything away, as he took off from where he left off.
“We’ve had a complaint. Someone came forward, and it’s our job to investigate everything with a level of seriousness.”
This guy was killing me. He needed to spit it out. I was clean and carried a spotless record since college—minus a few fights here and there to get my rocks off instead of sniffing up white lines. There wasn’t any truth to his fucking complaint he pocketed, except me turning down students who would touch my arm, stay after to ask questions or come up to me on campus, while licking their lips.
“Spit it out. I have a class starting.” I looked down at my phone and realized exactly how early I was, too early—one of the pieces I held onto of Layla’s.
