Page 42 of The Likelihood Of You

Sydney Harbour

Today 21:08PM

Call me, Flo. Please. We really need to talk, honey.

Honey? Fucking honey? Was she kidding me?

Cleary no common sense was bouncing around in her bubble wrap brain tonight, because she lost the right to call me any sort of sweet nickname when she decided to fuck my fiancé.

I’d gone from a light ball of feathers to a pinball of steel, pinging between neon flashing bulbs and metal rods with the number of moodchanges I’d had in the past twenty minutes. I went from warm and fuzzy when I got home, to empowered when I got into bed, and now I’m just outright angry. It’s a good thing there were a gazillion pillows for me to turn around and scream my lungs out into.

After calming down and releasing my anger on my vocal cords, I looked at the text again. The more I re-read those words, the quicker my anger turned back into sadness.

Like I said, apart from the first couple of weeks after it happened, I rarely cried over what I’d seen. Maybe I let a tear or two slip every now and then since I got settled, but I mostly had it under control. Partly because crying makes me sleepy, and falling asleep on the subway or at the production lot wouldn’t have been ideal. Partly because I knew deep down what I’d seen was a good thing, as twisted as it sounds.

When I was in the safety of my own room and my own company, I let myself cry. No matter how much I told myself I’d look bad on what they did and thank them for it, no matter how much I sugar-coated it, the most important people in my life betrayed me. It was that plain and simple. They reached into my chest, took my heart and stomped on it with stilettos and leather loafers. And it hurts. So, of course, I’m going to cry.

It hurts because, yes, I was cheated on, but more so because Sydney was my rock, even before our parents died, but even more so in the aftermath. We were each other’s shoulder to cry on. She cradled me when I woke up crying in the middle of the night. I brushed her hair and braided it when she was crying so much she couldn’t hold up the hairbrush.

But now? Now, she was nothing more than a girl I’d go to if I needed a kidney. Less than that, really. And I think that’s what hurtsmore: she no longer plays a big role in my life, considering how much of a main character she used to be.

To be truthful, I felt lost. I was in a new city, meeting new people, and Syd didn’t know about any of it. On nights like tonight, there’s this deep pressure inside me urging me to call her and spill everything. To let bygones be bygones and talk to her about how I kissed a bloody movie start tonight…twice. Tell her about Jacob, how he makes me feel, and how much he does for me. How we met, how he bakes just like me, and looks captivated every time I talk about it. Or anything for that matter. About how I was positive something that complicated and public would never work, but now I’m warming to the idea of it.

If things had turned out differently, she would’ve called me every day, just like Nanna. Maybe she would have even visited me by now. But, for one reason or another, she decided she would rather have Hugo in her life than me.

And I’m assuming Hugo was all she had now.

That thought triggered something in my brain, and I quickly realised there was a way to check if that was true.

In the heat of packing, flying over here, meeting Jacob and landing a killer job, I’d forgotten to block her on social media. It was a rookie mistake because everyone’s lives, apart from the sad bits, were displayed all across their socials.

I hastily swiped all the way to my socials, clicked on the tab that lets you see who’s viewed your story and began to scroll. It didn’t take long for Syd's name to come up. Which made me question: if she’s been seeing my stories, why has it taken so long for her to reach out? Has she been seeing them? Or was it just today she decided to check up on the little sister she betrayed?

My finger hovered for about a second before clicking on her name. Her account opened up, and like always, I was taken aback by how annoyingly pleasing her account aesthetic was. Her posts were the definition of pretty, but there were just one too many latte art pictures with the caption ‘Talk to me after my coffee'.

Fucking millennial.

The other thing that caught my attention was the pink circle around her profile picture. I wasted no time in clicking the image of her mirror selfie, but once I did, I felt the chocolate chips and cherries I’d snacked on before starting to crawl up my throat.

My heart rate slowed down entirely, and I felt the temperature of my blood change, as I stared at the nauseating picture of her lips pressed up against Hugo’s cheek, a smile so slimy on his face.

Anyone would think they were… in love.

Chaptersixteen

Jacob

When my hand grips the metal handle to Charlie’s office, I take a step back, sucking in a pocket of air, in the hopes that it'll drain away the uneasiness that had brewed in my stomach on the elevator ride up here.

I’ll go in eventually, but for one reason or another, I always seem to do this before I enter. The gothic black brick walls and the use of spotlights that lay beyond here were partly to blame for that.

The other part was the man I could tell knew I was out here, even with the door closed.

After a few deep breaths, I twist the handle; the creaks on the hinges make Charlie’s head whip around to face me as I shuffle into the room.

“Thanks for coming in, Jacob. It feels weird seeing you actually turn up to something scheduled.” Charlie lectured, that shrill voice of his and the old man’s scowl reminding me why I wanted to keep thisa strictly virtual relationship. But these in-person catchup meetings couldn’t be helped.

“Look,” I said, taking a seat in the spinny leather chair on the other side of his glass desk, that uneasiness still looming. “I apologised aboutAllure, but what could I do?”Besides telling him the truth.“Anyway, you said yourself they were more than happy to reschedule because of how badly they wanted to do an issue with me.”

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