Page 33 of The Fool

“None! I feel nothing towards her. I just got caught up in the moment, you know, weddings and shit.”

Lily sees right through my lie and with her expression saying as much.

“As much as I know how you love to feel up a woman, feeling up a woman who you have acted like you hate for the past eighteen months, and at your brother’s wedding no less, does not really seem altogether rational.”

Knowing I can’t win against Lily, a self-confessed surveyor of people and how they behave under stress, I sigh heavily and slump onto the bed next to her, ready to bear all.

“The last time I felt like this was with you, Lily, and I knew then I would screw it up. Everyone knew and told me so in the bluntest way possible. So, I set you up with the next best thing, my brother.” I pause to point at Cam’s angry face; my confession has done nothing to ease his temper from the looks of things. “Trouble is, I’ve run out of brothers.”

“Oh, my God, Nate, that was a few years ago! Do you not realize how much you’ve grown up since then?” she says, laughing at me as she does so.

“Maybe, but not when it comes to women,” I argue. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, especially if I feel strongly about them. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I literally forced myself to hate her. It’s your husband’s damn fault, putting her with me so I’d be working with her day in, day out. Hatred was bound to turn into something else. You should have left me with Jack.”

“God, you’re an idiot!” Cam snaps, throwing up his hands over my stupidity.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve done the whole ‘he’s being horrible because he likes you’ routine, because that’s a pretty shitty reason to be vile to someone.”

Lily is now looking at me in much the same way as Cameron. Good, I deserve it.

“It seemed like the only option I had at the time,” I reply sulkily, shrugging my shoulders with embarrassment.

“Bullshit!” Dad pipes up. “Man the fuck up and tell her how you feel and that you are sorry for being a complete idiot.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” I gasp, with Cameron and I both looking at him in shock over his use of expletives.

“He’s right, Nate,” Lily says more softly, not thinking anything of my father swearing in front of us. “And for the record, you never even gave you and me a shot. You were too busy convincing yourself and everyone around you that you were incapable. Trouble is, Nate, if you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

“Hey!” Cam says, turning to glare at Lily. “What do you mean, giveyoua shot?”

“Calm down, honey,” she says as she glides over to give him a calming kiss. “I’m glad he didn’t because now I have you. I will always love your brother for that,” she says, before turning to offer me a wink. “Now, get lost, Nate, and go and think about how to fix all this.”

I get up to walk out, Dad follows but pauses at the door to hold it open for the bride and groom.

“You guys go ahead, my wife is going to show me how glad she is,” Cam says as he grabs her ass and starts tongue kissing her. I can’t help but roll my eyes, but I do know I made the right choice about Lily and him. They’re sickeningly great together.

Chapter 12

Bea

When I got home last night, I was so wound up with anger and hurt, I immediately took to my laptop and wrote my letter of resignation. I then crawled into the shower and tried to wash away my shame, and my humiliation, but to no avail. In the end, I made up a bed on the couch and watched old re-runs of ‘Friends’. Not for comedy, but for the nostalgia. I remember watching those on repeat as a child while sitting next to my mom on the couch. Emma would be coloring on the living room floor. Things were so much simpler before the onslaught of hormones, things I never appreciated at the time. Ben used to come home and roll his eyes at us, complaining about how frequently we watched the same episodes. We ignored him completely, much to his annoyance.

Speaking of which, Ben must have been on a late shift, for I never saw him. I gave up waiting for him to come home and fell asleep. It was a broken sleep, one consisting of my usual anxious dreams.

Beatrice Summers, do the world a favor and go and die!

This morning, I woke up with a start, my breath quick and shallow and my heart beating much too wildly inside of my chest. Waiting for my breath to even out again, I grab my phone and check the time. It’s only eight, but I need to get up and drink some water to try and halt the threatening headache that’s already trying to spread over me. By nine, I still don’t want to eat, but at least my headache hasn’t progressed.

I listen to Ben getting up to go to his bathroom, only for him to slump off to bed again. I can’t blame him; it’s precisely where I would be if it wasn’t for fear I’ll have more bad dreams. Though, the feeling of my heavy eyelids has me resting my eyes for a moment or two, causing my willpower to not succumb to sleep to wither away. I can feel myself slipping, right up until the sound of someone thumping on our apartment door has me jumping in surprise. It must be Finn, having sweet-talked one of our neighbors into letting him in through the outside door. I find myself smiling over the thought of seeing him, of being able to vent to someone who wasn’t there to witness me making a fool of myself last night.

However, when I open the door, I’m taken aback by the sight of Nathaniel Carter filling up the door frame, all the while grinning sheepishly at me. Not quite believing he is here, looking casual in a pair of black cargo shorts and a fitted white t-shirt, I look over my shoulder to see if I’m still lying on that couch, stuck in the land of dreams.

“Good morning,” he says in a deep, husky voice, giving away how much he must have had to drink yesterday. The genuinely friendly tone in his voice has me turning back to face him with a thoroughly confused look on my face. His presence is so disarming, I don’t even think to care about the fact that I’m standing in an old pair of checked PJ shorts and a faded pink tank top, or that my hair is pulled up in a messy bun.

“Bea?”

“Morning,” I answer curtly, still with my eyes trying to search for some sort of explanation as to why he’s suddenly here, looking so out of place in my building’s narrow corridor. But then the memory of writing my letter of resignation comes to mind and I realize I no longer have to answer to his bullshit. The decision to end this has been long overdue, but now that I’ve come to it, I’m more than ready to show him that he can no longer get to me.

“Have you now decided to come and humiliate me in my own home? Does work not cut it anymore?”

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