“I don’t have a stand, genius,” I grumbled.
Mira dug through the bags to come up with a medium-sized bright red bucket and a big bag of some weird glassy-looking rocks. She set the bucket on the table and motioned at the tree.
“Just stick it in the bucket and hold it straight.”
I’d learned long ago that my older sister could do all kinds of shit to make my life miserable, so I did as she said, holding the tree while she poured the rocks in the bucket to hold it upright. Finally feeling secure that it would stay standing, she marched into my kitchen for a pitcher of water which she poured in the base.
“Okay,” she said firmly, “there are some lights in one of those bags. Get them out and let’s decorate this puppy.”
I hated to admit it, but Mira was kind of right. It seemed strange, but the sparkling lights cast a warm glow through my relatively dismal apartment and, as we decorated, the snow began to fall more heavily, blanketing the world outside. Very picturesque. The last thing Mira pulled from the bag was a package of cocoa mix.
“Did you bring any booze for that?” I asked sardonically, raising my eyebrow.
“Are you too much of a man to drink straight cocoa, Brannon?” she chided.
“I’m not four, Mira,” I grumbled.
“Humor me,” she shot back as she went into the kitchen to heat some water in the microwave.
As my sister and I sat on the couch sipping cocoa, watching the sparkling lights and the snowflakes falling, she started nosing around in my business.
“So,” she began, “what’s up?”
I cast a suspicious look in her direction.
She pursed her lips and pointedly glared back at me. “Is it that Sophie chick?”
Nail on the fucking head. But I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to forget. I looked down and took a sip of my cocoa. “It’s none of your business.”
“I heard a little about what happened,” she said quietly. “You couldn’t keep it in your pants.”
“God, don’t… you’re my sister.”
“Your sister who practically raised you after Mom died,” she shot back. “So is that what happened? You cheated on her?”
“She did walk in on me with someone,” I finally admitted, “but we’d already… it was already over. She’s marrying someone on the same rung of the social ladder.”
“She’s marrying someone already?” Mira asked in surprise.
“She told me she’d broken up with him, but I watched him give her a ring.”
“Why did she take the ring if she’d broken up with him?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t have to.”
“You didn’t ask? You just…” Mira paused for a minute, knitting her brow in confusion. “What did you do, then? If you didn’t ask.”
“Threw him across the Uptown.”
Mira’s jaw fell open. “Brannon—”
“He gave her a fucking ring. I stood there and watched as she slid it on her finger. A sparkly little diamond.”
“Little?” she asked. “How little?”
I blew out an exasperated sigh. “All I saw was a fucking rock. I don’t know.”
She held out her left hand, displaying her own wedding ring set. “Bigger? Smaller?”
“I didn’t measure it, Mira,” I muttered. “About the same size, I guess.”
“Hmm…” she thoughtfully said, pursing her lips and looking back at her own ring. “I thought these guys were all loaded.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.
“That whole bunch. Her parents. Her ex.” She shook her head. “They’re all flash, big glitzy rocks.”
“Whatever,” I scoffed, “it was clearly an engagement ring.”
“And you didn’t talk to her?” she asked raising an accusing eyebrow.
Shit. She was totally going somewhere with this.
“She made her choice.”
“Right,” Mira shrugged. “So, you just went and fucked someone else?”
“I didn’t fuck someone else,” I retorted. “Not that it’s any of your business, but she just gave me head.”
Mira held up her hand and twisted her features in disgust. “Oh my God, TMI, Brannon. But that doesn’t really make it any better, you know.” Her eyes softened. “Not if she loved you.”
“Well, she didn’t fucking love me,” I harshly spat and glared at my sister. “You know, if you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a really shitty job of it.”
Mira opened her mouth to impart more big sisterly words of wisdom, but was interrupted by a quiet knock at my apartment door. Tossing another owly look her way, I thumped my cocoa down on the coffee table, hard enough to make it splash over the edge of the cup, and rose to answer it, scowling and growling the whole way.
But my jaw about hit the floor as I pulled the door open. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, like all those sleepless nights when I laid there for hours missing her. And there she was…
Sophie, standing right in front of me.
But unlike any Sophie I’d ever seen before.
Her long blonde hair was wet, hanging limply in a sodden mass clumped with quickly melting snowflakes. She only wore a light fleece jacket, a pair of jeans, and some little brown boots which were likely more fashion than function and obviously soaked through. Her clothes were drenched, and she stood there shivering, her lips almost blue with the cold of the night outside.
And her eyes… framed by the dark makeup that was smudged and smeared around them, the crystalline aqua blue seemed almost liquid. She’d clearly been crying, and even now she appeared to be just barely holding it together.
“Jesus, Sophie,” I gasped.
“I d-didn’t mean to c-come here,” she sadly breathed through chattering teeth, “but I d-d-didn’t know where else to g-go.”
“What happened to you?”
“I… I, um…” she began as her eyes shifted to see Mira coming up behind me. Sophie’s face fell even more, if that were possible. For a split second, a tortured confusion, a vivid and haunting dismay, washed over her face. She bit her trembling, chilled lip and began to turn away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… You don’t want me here…” she trailed off in a small, panicked voice. “I’ll go.”
Without another look or a backward glance, she began down the hallway towards the stairs.
“Sophie, wait,” I rushed after her and grabbed her arm, whirling her around. She kept her face turned away, her eyes downcast, but I could see what was either melting snow or tears slipping down her cheeks.
“No, Bran,” she whispered, shaking her head, “I shouldn’t have come.”
She wrenched at her arm, trying to pull away, but I wouldn’t let her. I didn’t know what had happened, but she was clearly in some sort of trouble, and I was worried about her.
But even more, I still fucking loved her. Even with all the shit that had happened right there at the end. Even knowing how she’d played me.
I didn’t want her to go.
“Sophie,” I gently prodded, “what happened?”
“God, Brannon,” she faltered under her breath, her shoulders shaking. “Just stop. Let me go. Go back to your guest.”
Mira? She was leaving because of Mira?
“This is Sophie?” Mira asked from a few steps away. She had that motherly concerned look in her eyes.
Sophie sniffed, not looking back at her. She tugged at her arm again, slamming her eyes tightly closed and trying again to pull away.
“I’m Mira,” my sister said, stepping closer. “I’m Brannon’s sister.”
Sophie immediately stopped pulling away and turned a shocked and tearful gaze back to Mira. Mira just smiled at her, a warm, concerned light in her eyes, shifting to alarm when Sophie’s breathing became choppy, bringing her hand to cover her eyes as she burst into tears. Body-wracking sobs that shook both her and I. Wrapping my arms around her, I pulled her half-frozen form up against my chest.
>
And she cried. She completely broke down, taking in ragged, convulsive breaths as she wept. Mira shot me a dirty look.
“Jesus, Brannon, get her inside,” she ordered with a scowl.
Duly chastised by my sister, I slipped one arm under Sophie’s legs and lifted her against my chest, walking her into my apartment. Mira closed the door behind us, and slipped into my room to grab a blanket from my bed. As I settled on the couch with a sobbing Sophie on my lap, Mira tucked the blanket around Sophie and me.
She brushed some of the slushy hair back from Sophie’s face. “Awe, honey,” she said, “you’re freezing. I’ll go heat up some water. Make you some cocoa.”
Mira bustled around in my kitchen as I sat there with Sophie, as her tears eventually began to fade and her overwrought sorrow quieted to exhausted sniffles.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against my neck. “I feel like an idiot.”
I nuzzled my face into the top of her head, still sopping wet, but warming a little now to release that familiar fresh and clean scent. A scent I thought I’d never experience again. A scent that was only ever Sophie. It made my chest ache heavily, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world right then.
“What happened?” I finally murmured, but was interrupted by my sister who appeared before us with a steaming cup of cocoa.
“Here,” Mira said, holding it out to Sophie. “Take a few sips, hold the cup up against you to warm you.”
Sophie shot a guilty look up at her, but did as she was told.
The silence filled the room. Mira’s unspoken questions. My complete shock that Sophie was here, even more by her emotional and physical state. Sophie, having finally gotten herself a little under control, seemed to want to fade right into the couch. To disappear right before our eyes.
Mira eyed her thoughtfully, then aimed a pointed look my way. “Do you guys need anything?” She asked, motioning her hand back and forth between Sophie and I. “I should probably get home before Chase and the boys think I’m not coming back.”
Sophie just stared into her cup and swallowed hard.
“I think we’re okay, Mira,” I replied.
“Okay,” she smiled, a little anxious and uneasy. “Give me a call if something comes up.”
I nodded and gave her a worried grimace as she stood to grab her coat and purse. A few seconds later, yet another apprehensive glance, and she headed out the door.
Sophie didn’t talk at first. She just sat in my lap quietly holding the cocoa. Her clothes had me soaked through to the skin, but I wasn’t about to say anything. I didn’t want her to move.
Ever.
“I left,” she murmured after a long while.
“Left what?” I asked softly.
“All of it. Everything.” Her head was still tucked into my shoulder, her voice barely a whisper. But I could feel her shake her head just a touch, her wet bangs brushing against my jaw. “I tried. I tried to go back. Like it had all been before. I tried… being perfect little Sophie again.”
“Back to Richard?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice, and that made Sophie raise her head to look at me.
She frowned at my dark expression, shaking her head. “Not Richard. I never did go back to Richard.”
“Sophie,” I argued quietly, “I saw you. I saw the ring.” I pulled her hand out of the blanket to see that it was still there. My stomach turned at the sight of the little diamond.
Because I realized that it really was kind of a little diamond. Very unlike Richard and his flashy new red Mustang. And a sick feeling began to rise in my gut as I began to wonder if I had possibly overreacted that night.
“It wasn’t what you thought,” she whispered, her eyes luminous, reflecting a bleak despondency. “It was my grandmother’s ring.”
“Why did Richard give it to you? Why were you even with that fucker? I thought you were supposed to be having dinner with your parents.”
“I was. Supposed to have dinner with my parents, I mean. I got there, and it was Richard instead. My dad had set it up. My mother gave him my grandmother’s ring, thinking the sentimentality might bring me around.” She looked down at the ring. “He asked, all the while apologizing for how small the diamond was. Pretty typical,” she said, a desolate smile tilting her lips. Her eyes lifted to mine. “And I said no. I said that, as much as having that ring would mean to me, I couldn’t marry him. I told him to take the ring back to my mother.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “But you took it. Sophie, I saw you take it from him and slip it on your finger. Fuck, you still have it, even now.”
“He did the first decent thing I think he’s ever done for me,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “He said I should have it anyway, no strings attached. Not as an engagement ring, but just because it meant something to me. He said he’d promised to try one last time, to do what he could to make our parents happy. But he also said he understood, handed it back to me, and asked me to not marry him. That’s when I took it.”
I didn’t really know what to say. My dreadful guilt threatened to choke me as the clear realization dawned that I had really, really fucked up. That I’d jumped to conclusions and completely lost my temper. I’d lost my mind, thinking that she was playing me.
But worst of all, I’d lost her. I’d lost Sophie.
“You were so angry,” she continued. “Like you hated me. You told me not to call or come by, and I couldn’t bear to see that look on your face again, to hear that loathing in your voice.” Her lip trembled and she looked down into the cup again. “But then, I, um… I talked to Lily at work.”
I brushed away a new tear that trailed down her cheek, but she didn’t look back up at me. She sniffed and continued on.
“She told me that she thought you cared about me. That I was wrong to stay away. That you had changed in the time we were together. She said that I should… go see you. So I came to the party—” She abruptly stopped, biting her lip. Fighting to keep the tears at bay, she closed her eyes, only to have them spill over and trail down her cheeks.
I had already felt like an asshole. In my own self-absorbed devastation, it hadn’t even occurred to me how she saw things. And Viv… she was the ultimate tipping point. As much as it had shredded me to think she was choosing Richard over me, I could only imagine how Sophie had felt walking in on Viv and me. Because there was no mistaking what had been going on there.
Pulling her closer, I pressed my lips against her hair. “God, I’m so sorry, Sophie. That was… that shit with Vivienne… I’m so sorry you saw that.”
“No, don’t be.” She shook her head. “It just seemed like a wake-up call. Here I was thinking I was special, and—”
“You were special,” I interrupted. “You are.”
Her eyes closed tightly as she fought back the tide of her tears. “I was a fool. Thinking you might…” Her voice faded off as she began to shake with quiet sobs.
“God, Soph,” I said, gathering her as close as I could. “Don’t cry, baby. Fuck, don’t cry.”
For once, Sophie didn’t do as she was told. It seemed like she couldn’t. And my heart broke holding her while she wept, knowing all the pain she felt was because of me. I was such an asshole.
“Soph, I was so angry. I was drunk out of my mind,” I whispered. “I was desperate to forget you, and I didn’t know how.”
Sophie sniffled against my chest, a shuddering breath shaking her shoulders.
“That was the only time,” I continued. “Not that it matters, but that is the only time I so much as touched another girl since that first night at the Copperline.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she sniffed, slowly shaking her head. “Like I said, it just sort of seemed to confirm that I was going in the wrong direction.” She took a deep breath and looked up at me. “So I went home. I went back to my parents.”
“Your parents?”
“I tried to be what I was before. I tried to fit myself back into their world.” She choke
d out a dry laugh. “I even agreed to be Alyssa’s maid-of-honor after Richard proposed to her.”
“Jesus,” I murmured, “that happened kind of fast.”
“She’s pregnant. I guess she finally figured out a way to keep him.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah, ugh,” Sophie agreed bleakly. “But I was getting by. I put on my mask and became Sophie Buchanan again. Every day seemed just a little easier than the day before. Things just started to feel… numb. And then, tonight, my father let loose on me. He’s furious with me for driving Richard away. Said he’d even tried to bribe Alyssa.”
“Bribe her to what?”
“To have an abortion. He said it was scandalous, what she was doing. That she was no better than welfare trash, that it must have been my influence since I’d fallen from grace myself.”
“What the fuck?”
“Right in the middle of it, I walked out on him. Just got in my car and left. I drove around for a while, kind of aimlessly.” Her eyebrows furrowed and she closed her eyes again. “And it hit me. I don’t fit. Anywhere. Not with them. Not with you—”
“Sophie—”
“I pulled to the side of the road and watched it start to snow. All of a sudden, it all seemed so clear. All my life, I’ve been surrounded by luxury. I’ve been given everything anyone could ever want, except the one thing that I really needed.” She looked up at me. “I’ve never been loved.”
“Soph—”
She placed her fingers over my lips, stopping me. “I felt like I was with you,” she whispered, causing my eyes to burn and my throat to draw tight. “For that short little span of time, I really felt like I was. Not for how I looked or what I could do for you or what you could get out of being with me. But all these little things.” A heavy tear trailed down her cheek as she brushed her fingertips along my face, over the ring at my eyebrow and down my jaw. “You loved to make me laugh and make me scream. You loved to make me let go of everything I thought I was supposed to be. You loved to show me what I could be. You loved to show me who I really was inside, to bring it out into the light, and to share it. To help me let go of the mask I’ve worn for so long.”
A huge lump formed in my throat as she spoke, a hollow sense of regret so strong that I could barely stand it. I couldn’t even speak. I had no idea what to say. I hadn’t had the faintest idea what I had meant to her.
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