by Nivia Borell
“You all just assumed we were in a relationship and living together. Your two families never questioned our relationship. You were living according to ‘what we don’t know can’t harm us’ and upholding the decency of not mingling in personal affairs.
“After agreeing to leave the party and come back later for Bria, I rose to my feet and thanked you for a lovely day. I had a note of irony in my voice. Once again, Sophia proved to me how sharp she is by raising her glass and nodding, understanding why I made that remark. ‘I’ll return in a few hours to pick up Bria.’
“She excused herself to take a nap.
“The two moms nodded with understanding. Katherine told her to take her time, and Rebecca added, ‘Honey, make yourself at home. You know where all the rooms are.’
“Then, Monica just had to have her fun, her eyes shone at the prospect, her eyebrows waggling. ‘Cousin, are you pregnant? I mean, who takes naps in the middle of the day? Do you have something to share with the family?’
“Everyone froze on the spot, me included. Bria then took my arm, mouth pressed into a thin line, and giving them no answer to the pink elephant sprawled on the table.
“‘Can you believe her?’ she asked.
“‘Why didn’t you deny it then?’ Curiosity dripping from my lips.
“‘Why would I? Let them believe what they want. They’re living in their happy bubble and praying I won’t screw things up again. They only wish for the charade of a great family, not answers that lead to more questions.’ She finished the sentence with a gesture of her hand in the air as we strode on the stoned aisle toward the parked car.
“We fell into a silence plagued by our own thoughts as Bria accompanied me to the car.
“I said I’d see her in a few hours as I lodged her in my arms. I could feel you shooting arrows at my back. When I bent down, Bria kissed me on the cheek, and the same dispirited voice from three years before resurfaced in my core. It irked me as I kept watching until she rushed through the door of the impressive white mansion. I got in my car and pretended everything was going to be fine, not realizing my entire world was about to burst in a few hours as the engine purred to life.
“Do you remember that day at all, Damien?”
DAMIEN
I raise an eyebrow, asking Alexander if he’s fucking serious with his stupid question.
I have forgotten nothing related to Bria. I’m stuck and plagued with this photographic memory when it comes to her.
One year earlier…
It’s the first of May, Bria’s birthday, and everything has gone according to plan. Joy bursts through me when Monica agrees to be my pretend girlfriend. The day I approached her, we were in my office overlooking the Thames. Beads of sweat covered my forehead. I needed her to accept but never thought she would agree in a heartbeat without questioning my motives. She leaped into my arms nodding, her eyes glistening with mirth. It should have rung a bell in my head, but I kept fantasizing about the day Bria would crumble in pain. And that day arrived.
What a perfect occasion it would be. She destroyed me on her eighteenth birthday, and six years later, I would get my revenge. In the car, I have a pep talk with Monica. My plan has to flourish.
She settles her red painted fingers on my thigh squeezing it. “I know what I have to do, Damien. You can trust me. They won’t know what hit them with how great I’ll play my role of being in love with you. And our story is flawless, so no one will suspect a thing. Relax already, you control freak.”
I shove any morality l have left away. I am not blind to her infatuation. There have been too many flauntings of her curves around me, sizing-me-up moments, and following me around even to London to not be aware of her affection. I have no damn clue what she sees in me, my eyes and heart sealed on Bria should have been discouragement enough and then my ‘fuck them, leave them’ antics. But exploiting her feelings is a risk I have to take. The reasons I chose her in the first place is, number one, she is Bria’s cousin, and number two, she doesn’t have to act at all by pretending to be in love with me, so the odds of failure are minimal.
I nod and say, “Let the fun begin then.”
The expressions on everyone’s face as they see us approach, hand in hand, half in surprise and shock, is something that will stay with me for a lifetime, but I am not there for them but for Bria. I scan her face as it drops, eyes widening and blinking, her jaw flutters, and her posture stiffens. The second she detects us, my spirits soar, and I relish in my success. My parents buy the fraud, and Katherine and George exhale like a burden has risen from their shoulders. Only Sophia and Filip stare at me, disapproval and sadness clouding their eyes.
“Are you losing your mind?” she mouths.
Filip squints at us and grinds his teeth.
Everything is going fine until Monica opens her big mouth and throws in a poisonous story of how we became a couple. She has the audacity to give a ludicrous answer about how we always had feelings for each other when everyone knows damn well how false and off-key that is because I have been obsessed with Bria. There was and is no one else for me. None of them would ever believe her words, and I am in some sick way proud of Bria’s answer. I wouldn’t allow anyone else ever to make her feel bad or second-guess the love she alone shattered. It has been the best thing in my life, and it may be long gone, but it is ours, and no one has the right to tarnish what we had.
I place my hand on Monica’s leg, and she gasps while I whisper in her ear, “You went too far.” She crossed a line, and I wouldn’t forget it. After a deafening silence since no one knows how to tiptoe around this, we discuss business and do our best not to let the awkwardness linger. We keep up the facade of a true family for the sake of appearances. The only true things in the extended family are our parents’ friendship and the genuine bond between Sophia and Filip. Everything else screams of pretense. Too much frustration and tension and unresolved problems hang in the air.
Our families have raised us well, though. They put us all together as they do with the business and still could guarantee no one would ever lose control. I am like a ticking bomb filled with rage, and they dangle her in front of me, the one person who unleashes it all in me. They also seem oblivious to Bria’s coldness as if it’s acceptable the same person who once suffused with light in any room now leaves an icy air behind her. We are all sick—and I don’t know how much longer I can last without exploding. These gatherings where both Bria and I have to be in the same place at the same time are seldom. We find good excuses not to be present at every reunion our parents organize, and the few times we have to see each other in a year seem like hundreds. Every single one burrows a bigger hole in my chest. And the problem is not our parents or our siblings. No. The sad truth is Bria and me together were the singular one big problem.
I survey the way Bria and Alexander interact with each other, so naturally and intimately. I have to peel my eyes away because I feel like an intruder in their exchange. Why is she allowed to have something like this when all my chances of finding love again have been chopped long ago by the same person who’s displaying whatever she shares with Alexander in front of me? She’s now someone I don’t recognize anymore. If she has been the same person, I doubt I would have found it in me either the force to hate her or to pursue my revenge.
As Alexander cracks a goodbye, Bria stands up and surprises us all with her wish to lie down and rest for a while. We halt at the words coming from the same person who could work twenty-four-seven and still have the energy to carry on the chatter. But maybe I’m the motive behind her tiredness. My chest rises with pride, ignoring my previous slip with the cake, just a damn peculiarity of the past, I keep repeating.
My triumph is short-lived as Monica graces us with another of her suggestions—that Bria might be pregnant. The word alone cracks me open, and I think I might see my heart displayed on the table while I perform my autopsy. This preposterous but somewhat valid thought alone gets me howling in pain. I had never taken such a thought
into consideration. But it is logical. They seem stable, they have no financial problems or cares, and they already play house. Indeed, why would they not take the next step?
Everyone else lift their gazes to Bria to confirm or deny it, but she spins around and accompanies her boyfriend to his car.
Eyes glisten at the prospect of a baby in the family may be thinking they would be given a new chance to do things better. But the visual of a pregnant Bria with some other man’s baby is too much for me. My insides rip with the pain of imagining a family we would never have together.
As our mothers daydream about having grandchildren and our fathers grin at the idea, only Sophia’s eyes plead with me to find the strength to hold on. Meanwhile, Monica seems to have no cares at all as she encourages the topic further.
After I gain back some control, I place the now ruffled napkin on the table and excuse myself by saying I have something to do and leaving them to their conversation. The only place I want to be in is my old room, in the sanctuary I hope can support and patch me back together to face the devastation if she confirms the pregnancy. I have an urgent need to lock myself in the room where we used to spend countless hours, days, and nights telling in photos the story of our love and our lives.
I decide to remove the photographs of us because what’s the point in keeping them? Why still torment myself? Am I able to? I hope so because not being able to get rid of them would say I’m weak still live in the past where the one I made the sanctuary for long ago found her way back to a life she isn’t sharing with me.
Although I no longer live here, the second floor is all mine, my personal space, my cave. I have my big, manly, sparsely furnished room, a large bathroom, a dressing room, and an office. No one intrudes in my former bedroom. I keep it locked, and one key is always in my pocket. The other is hidden under a floorboard I loosened, and the spot is covered by a potted plant. I come and clean my room a few times a year. The exertion feels cathartic but leaves me also disturbed for a while. Otherwise, I’m at peace and at home in the room surrounded by Bria’s lingering and bubbling presence and bittersweet memories. Only we know about my hidden place, but I forbade her to access it a long time ago.
DAMIEN
One year earlier continued…
With every step I take, my legs hoist the weights shackled around my feet. The nearer I come to the second floor, the more I catch a whiff of her alluring floral scent. I am losing my mind.
Halting at the door, I know deep in my core something is off. My whole body hyperventilates, and my heart hammers as I fumble with my keys. The door gives away with a small creak, and I freeze on the spot when I glimpse something I thought I would never witness again. Bria is asleep on my bed on the left side, her side, and her long, beautiful hair cascades over half of her rosy face, and over the pillows, her torso hunched, and her knees bent with her arm stretched on my side. She seems angelic in her peach blush colored dress which outlines her curves and small waist. Her flawless legs taunt me. My breathing hitches as I drink in every detail of this destructive, stunning woman.
My first reaction is to grab her and cast her out of the room she has no right to be in. Instead, I lock the door behind me, and put my key near the other one on the rectangular black table in the corner. I creep toward the bed, my eyes boring into her chest rising and falling in a steady beat, and then stall with my hands crossed on the nape of my neck. I gawk at the vision of perfection in front of me and bite back a groan. My muscles tense at how she still recalls an insignificant detail like where I stash the other key and wondering why she remembers that but could forget about us for one night.
My eyes well up as I notice how she fits this room holding an entire life in its four walls full of us. I kneel beside her and brush away a soft strand of hair. I ask myself what had been going on in her mind as she trespassed and saw it all, the witness to a shattered love. Did she look at them? Did she reminisce about all the different times the photos were taken? And again, why has she decided to nap in here in the first place? How many years have gone by, and still, it seems as if time stands still permitting us to dwell in the rightness of the situation, the two of us together in our private seclusion.
I hoist myself up, take off my oxford gray jacket, and then free the first button of my sky-blue shirt. I roll up my sleeves as I try to look at her and keep myself from choking on bitter air that fills my hungry lungs. My legs find their way toward the appealing bed, and I let my instincts guide me until I settle myself beside her. My hatred, revenge, and desolation scoot away so I can let myself feel her warmth and welcoming presence. Like a moth to a flame, I want to burn so my wild feelings will be embedded in my flesh for the rest of my life, and the scars would prove my heart belongs to her.
I feel her crane toward me, and like a fool, I shift my body to accommodate her and wrap my arms around her as I have so many times in the past. Her response is a slight moan filled with satisfaction that makes me squeeze her even harder to my chest. I am not in control of my heart and mind or my body. For once, they all wish for one thing—Bria at any cost, right here and now. My mind yearns to test my sanity, my heart craves to test my weakness, and my body trembles at her closeness.
The years vanish leaving behind the exquisite sensation of her softness and warmth in my arms, in my bed, and in our room.
I bury my head in her hair as I inhale the rich floral scent and drift off to sleep feeling an odd peace. I don’t know how much time we spent locked in unconsciousness, but when I feel her stiffen in my arms, I know first, she is awake, and second, the serenity is about to fly out the window. But she surprises me. I don’t expect her to remain nestled in my arms drawing patterns on the exposed skin but rather to rush away as fast as she can. Instead, she tilts her head, her eyes catching mine, and my pulse skyrockets. We stare at each other as she digs her finger between my brows, ironing the line, and stammers, “I… I shouldn’t be here.”
It’s not an apology but rather a statement as she lets me decide what happens next. For someone who has taunted me for years with her cold arrogance, here in my arms she pacifies the lion by caressing the air between us with sweetness.
“Well, Bria, a point on which we both seem to agree. Finally.”
“I am sorry.”
Instead of unfolding my arms from around her with every word she uttered, they clinch on her.
“For what?” I didn’t want to scare her away as I drawl. “Do you mean for entering a room I explicitly forbade you to enter or for being caught in it?”
Her brows draw together as I suppress a smile. “I didn’t expect anyone to search for me here, and curiosity got to me.”
“Is your curiosity satisfied, then? Don’t you know there is a price to pay and consequences to face?”
We both seem in dire need to put some distance between us, just enough space where I prop myself on the pillow as she lays on her stomach with her head craned to my side. Her eyes find mine, and she chews on her lower lip. Releasing her alluring full bottom lip that had me transfixed, she says, “Good, because I have no problem with facing the consequences. Whatever I have to pay, I’ll pay. The answers I discovered are worth whatever you deem right for my intrusion. Like now, I know why you allow no one to enter this room.”
“And what is the reason, tell me!” I ask, stroking her hand and keeping eye contact.
“It’s a homage to everything we had and lost, and it’s too precious to expose to anyone… and you’d look mad if someone saw what’s behind these walls. But it is beautiful, Damien. Like us… once.”
My lips curve into a small smile at the truth of her words.
“I haven’t seen you smile in years,” she says, while her eyes light up and her mouth hangs open before she snaps it and adds, “I had forgotten what it used to be like and how it can lighten up the entire room.”
Heat pokes at my cheeks, but I shove it away. “In the last six years, I have had no good reason to smile, Bria.”
“It’s still love
ly, though.”
Her candied voice reminds me she used to be my Bria and having her so near dawns on me as to how right and good it feels I almost forgot that this here with her is a mistake and a lie wrapped in the most devious illusion. She is not mine. And because the question has churned at my insides, I blurt it out, “Are you pregnant, Bria?” And my heart ceases beating while her brows knit together and she sighs. The silence that ensues pierces my ears.
She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear before she answers. Her touch ignites warmth in my core which spreads like fire in a dry field. “Damien, I will never have children. So, no, I am not pregnant.”
Her answer gives my heart a lifting flutter, but now I wonder what the never part is about. “Don’t you want to have them or something? Aren’t you happy, Bria?”
We are treading in dangerous territory, but we have never bolted in the face of danger before, so why should we begin now? It’s not that the years had made me wiser, just unhappy and older. My question hasn’t come just from curiosity, but somehow, I am both concerned and interested in her answers. A tormented side of me aches to connect, to get its fill of her.
“Damien, I won’t have children for the same reason you still keep the photos and this room intact. To pay homage to something that will never be again.”
Her answer shocks the hell out of me. She doesn’t want children because of the memory of us. Then she is as crazy as I am.
Bria says, “I don’t know how happiness feels anymore, Damien. I am just existing, nothing more, nothing less.”
“Is it because of us?” I tilt her chin and ask.
