Page 199 of The Casualty of Us
“Oh, he made it safely all right,” Marley shouts back quietly somehow. “He’s currently telling my mother all the grand football-playing plans he has for the future as she freaking bats her eyelashes at him!” The level of her voice rises before dropping suddenly again. “I am in the pantry right now, Ophelia,the pantry.” Some bottles clink together before she grumbles out. “Oh, and I’m pretty sure all my other sisters are making a sister wives schedule to go along with my cousin fucking!”
“Wow,” O blows out slowly before cutting to the chase in ano bullshitvoice. “You really must like him to be this deep in the spiral.”
“I—”
Marley’s voice dies out suddenly, and O’s eyes narrow, the gray in them starting to swirl. “What’s that?” she pushes. “Are you finally going to fess up to avoiding me instead of telling me what happened?”
“O.” Marley’s breath echoes over the phone with her name. “I didn’t want to trash talk your brother to you, but I didn’t know what to say either. I still don’t.”
I watch her nose wrinkle with a confused look. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know. I didn’t know if you’d be mad and—” She pauses before taking a deep breath and exhaling. “It’s just—it’s complicated and I’m mad, I guess.”
“Good,” O snorts, propping her hip up on the counter. “You should be. He messed up.”
Marley scoffs a frustrated noise. “Then why is he here?”
“Because my brother is a good guy and deserves the chance to explain himself even if you don’t give him a shot after it,” she tosses back matter-of-factly. “Both of which are things that you already know, so why am I having to explain them?”
“O—”
“Just because he checks all of the boxes doesn’t make him the enemy, Marley.” Her eyes drift to me, little specks of gray stilling. “You remember that advice you gave me at the beginning of the year about Achilles’ heels?”
“Fuck.” Marley’s voice quickly picks back up to the whisper shout. “Don’t toss that in my face! It is not the same thing, Ophelia. It’snot. You have no idea what you’ve done. I just need to get him out of—”
“Have a good Christmas, Marley,” O calls out cheerily, lifting her hand to the phone. “Take your own advice.”
She ends the call just as Marley full-on screeches, “Ophel—”
“Hmm.” She glances at me with a little hum. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s up to them now.” I dip my hand into the tub before flicking some water her way, the drops still falling from her body mesmerizing me. “And I think that you should come here and find out what I’m going to do about it.”
“Do you?” she sighs, turning to give me a full view of her front while reaching her hands high into the air. “I guess you could.” Her nipples perk up, breasts high, making my hips lift in the water a little involuntarily, honestly. “If you can catch me.”
She drops her hands with a giggle bursting out, darting from the room on her tiptoes and leaving me narrowing my eyes at her. Giving her until she passes over the threshold of the bathroom before standing and getting out of the tub myself. Heart thudding fast in my chest with the need to chase and lips lifting at the game.
I get my way in the other one we’re playing the next day too.
Giving everyone a lame excuse to run out and drop the next note in the mail for her before distracting Bobby a few days later so she can pick up the reply. Not at all expecting the stack of papers she somehow materializes from underneath her coat upon returning home.
But I guess I should have—our trains were made the same, you see, and she saw it before anyone even knew what they were looking at.
Figuring it out just like I said.
Heartbeats too late, unfortunately.
Chapter Forty-Seven
OPHELIA - JANUARY 2014
“I’m just saying.”I scowl up at Hayes with a little pout as we walk back to the dorm. “This heart present is taking an awfully long time.”
“It’s almost done.” He laughs, reaching for me before stopping as his face falls. “Soon, Freckles.”
“So you keep saying,” I sigh, heart clenching at the way he immediately slides back into brooding at not being able to openly touch me and bumping him with my shoulder. “Can’t wait, Dimples.”
And I know that things can’t keep up like this for much longer. Not after Christmas. It’ll tear him apart, and I can’t have that.
