Tarnished Love by Bianca Borell
CHLOE
This is the fourteenth day I wake up next to him. We’re practically living together. And every day I battle with two contradictory feelings that tear me apart: the happiness he brings me and the fear it won’t last. I trace a line over his chest. He’s so beautiful my heart squeezes. He brought me flowers yesterday, a bouquet of peonies, just because. Filip’s still a prick, but he’s my prick. His eyes blink open, and it hits me harder every day how he’s taken root in a place inside me where I never allowed anyone. We never talk about what this is between us, where it will lead, but it’s okay.
“Morning, beautiful.” I smile. No more casualty, just Chloe, and in these moments of raw vulnerability and intimacy, I am beautiful or honey.
“I have to see the doctor for my ankle.”
“I’ll drive you.”
When we reach the private hospital, his entire face pales and his knuckles whiten on the wheel. He spaces out, staring at the hospital building and then shutting his eyes.
“Filip.”
His head snaps to me, and I gasp at the pain in his eyes.
“Thank you for the ride.” I hop out of the car. I still can’t place my foot on the ground, and I hiss with very movement. I look at him over my shoulder. He bears the same ghostly appearance when he shuts the door, cussing under his breath.
“I have this.”
“I am here now, am I not?”
My mouth opens in shock. I didn’t expect his nasty tone.
“I am sorry,” he apologizes and locks his hands behind his neck. “I hate fucking hospitals.”
I figured that out.
By the time we reach the lobby, I am breathing hard, as if I ran a marathon.
The doctor informs me that my ankle is healing normally and takes me off the painkillers. Filip leans in to whisper, “You won’t be cranky now, will you?”
I pierce him with a look. There aren’t two people on this planet more unfit to have a relationship than the two of us, even so, I can count on him to lighten the mood. I like that, a little too much, and how he makes other parts of my body happy too.
“I can’t wait to fuck you properly,” he says as he slams inside me, and I fist the sheets.
Why because how he has fucked me until now was a prelude? I clench in anticipation. The doctor clears his throat, and I shake off my memory from last night. Filip bites back a smirk. The prick somehow reads my body. When we leave the doctor’s office, he takes only a few seconds before he asks, “So in what position was I fucking you that got you to zone out?”
“Who said it was you?”
He halts, a falter in his steps, and one nanosecond of shock, but it’s enough to keep the hope aflame in my heart.
“We’ll see about that.” He can wear just his cockiness, and he would still be the sexiest man alive.
***
“I hate this damn not moving thing.”
“Come on, you’ve got two more weeks.”
“I will never be that stupid again, Annabelle.”
“Accidents happen.”
“How are you? I miss you.”
“I miss you too. I’ll be back soon. You sound happy even though you bitch nonstop.”
I can’t hold it inside any longer. I have to tell someone, and she’s my best friend. I can’t believe I have waited this long, but even though fear lingers in the back of my mind, I trust him, us. We work.
“I met someone.” I nibble at my thumb and silence enfolds.
“Really?” she murmurs.
“Why are we whispering?” I ask, and we both burst into laughter.
“You like this one.”
“I kind of more than like him.”
“I’m gone only a month and miss my best friend falling in love?”
Someone calls her name, and she adds, “I am sorry, Chloe, I have to go. I am happy for you, and I can’t wait to meet this mystery man of yours.”
Yes, they’ll meet, and as my gaze roams around the room—a suitcase full of clothes lays discarded in the corner, his toiletries are in my bathroom—it hits me. How did we go from casual fucking to this? I snap a photo and send it to him.
Me: Do you see what I see?
Filip: This is not how it goes. Take before and after photos for me to see the differences.
Laughter bursts out of me and for the next two minutes I clean up, snap a photo, and rearrange it with his items in and send it renewed.
Filip: Looks better with my things in it.
My heart pounds at my ribcage, wanting to escape and fly to him, because he has it. Damn it, he has it, and tears distort my vision.
He pushes through the door as I play with my food. I made some stew, but he’s late, and I am cranky.
“Dinner is cold.” I sound like a fucking wife.
“Yes, the meeting ran late.” He yanks the first two buttons of his shirt open and plops on the chair next to me.
“You could have called.” Why am I picking a fight? Deep-rooted fears gnaw at my happy bubble. This is too good to be true, to last.
“Chloe, I had a shitty afternoon.”
“You and me both, but mine’s more like shitty weeks, not one afternoon,” I snap, and my hand flies to my mouth as he seeks my face.
“Fuck this,” he shouts and storms outside.
I am shell shocked. What was that about? It’s not about him, it’s my insecurities, but the prick could have stayed, and we could have a normal, civilized discussion. His things are still here. He will return for his designer socks and silk pajamas. I picture him when he’s older, he’ll have them engraved with his initials. He seems the type, the type I would have never fallen for, yet here I am in my bed, staring at the ceiling, missing him. The lock in the door turns, and the relief has me revving the anger scale.
“Oh, look who’s back.” He leans against the bedroom door, eyes boring into me, and any rebellion vanishes.
“I had a shitty day.”
“And I am cranky.”
I sit up and say, “Go get the chocolate ice cream. It always helps.”
When he returns, he slides next to me. He feeds me a spoonful and then takes a bite.
“Chloe, I lost someone in a hospital, that’s why I reacted like that. Someone I loved with all my heart, someone I would do anything to get back. That person is my sister.” He shuts his eyes for a second. “Nothing in our family is as it appears to be, and I keep all their damn secrets. But while my sister can’t do a thing about it, Damien can.”
The atmosphere shifts to heavy, and I whisper, “You want to use me.”
“Bria needs to be pushed.”
“Does Damien know?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you any idea how far he’ll go?”
“I don’t care as long as he succeeds.”
“And you still want to risk it?”
“I have to. Chloe, I won’t be here long,” he says, and his words butcher my insides.
“This only started thanks to your ankle. You’ll start working again, and I will be half time here, half time in Zürich.”
I massage my chest, my heart shrinks. What was in my bloody mind? That we’ll be the happy couple where he comes to my events and I go to his. And we’d have a future? I am such an idiot.
“You’re right.”
He twists his head to me. “So this is it?”
“Yes, casual fucking has to end sometime, right?” I grind my teeth, and he narrows his eyes at me and drags a hand through his hair.
“You have no fucking trust, do you?” he barks and shoots from the bed, pacing.
“Me? You’re the one who cowers away because things might get serious.”
“Chloe, who am I?” he shouts.
“I don’t fucking care about your last name or family business,” I shout right back, and he locks his hands around his neck.
“I am going to be six months in Zürich. Can you wait for me?”
Did he really just ask me that? I throw a pillow at his head. I never regretted anything more than not having stone ones.
“You, you, you . . . prick is a compliment. You’re a damn bastard,” I huff with the anger blaring inside of me.
“No,” he retorts and squats next to me. “Long distance things never work out.”
“It’s not as if we’ll grow old together.” His lips turn up into a sad smile, and I tilt my head and peek outside the windows, the lamps from outside casting some light, rain tapping at my window.
“Why are you still here then?”
“Because I don’t know what this is, where we’re going, and I won’t leave until I find out.”
“Why is it important to know, Filip? Has life offered you answers to all the potential questions?” He flinches, and I rest my cheek on my hand.
“One day you stay, the next you go. It’s getting on my nerves. Decide already.”
“This was decided for me.”
“Stop lying to yourself. No one could ever force you to do something you don’t want.”
“You’re wrong. There is one thing.”
Realization crashes in on me, it’s her, forever Bria, having the loyalty of two men that would burn and raise new worlds for her, because of her. And all the times I saw her I got the impression she doesn’t even care.
“Your sister.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Sophia is there.” Why can’t I keep my mouth shut? I sound like I want to change his mind and have him stay. Am I so desperate to keep him when the moment my ankle heals, I will be in the air more than at home?
“For two people who insist it’s just fucking, we look like a hot mess, beautiful.” I sigh because I miss him already. How did it happen so soon?
“We’re us, we’ll get over it.”
“Hey.” He tips my chin up, and I hope my eyes don’t reveal the sadness in my heart. “I am here to stay, but I need you to understand my priorities.”
“I am not one of them.”
“Do you want to be?” Of course I want to be, but this is something that has to come from him and not because I want it. I shake my head.
“I thought we don’t tell lies, Chloe.” I chew on my bottom lip, and he grabs my hands in his and states, “If I stay here tonight, correction if you let me stay here with you, the same rules apply.”
“Only you can fuck me, ha?” He nods.
“The same goes for me too.”
“Such a relief.”
“We won’t be seen together.” My heart deflates.
“Why?” I sigh. Give me this, let me keep dreaming.
“I can’t say, but it has nothing to do with not wanting to.”
“Everyone will still think I am with Damien.”
“We know the truth.”
“It doesn’t bother you.”
“No.”
“Since when?”
“Since my sister’s life is worth it.”
“Give me something, Filip, anything,” I plead, and he averts his gaze.
“Chloe, please.”
“This, what you propose, is madness. I am not a pawn.” He cups my face in his, pecking me on the lips.
“No, you’re the woman I want, and until I can find a way for my sister to come back, I will put my happiness on hold.”
My head drops. It’s his sister, Damien’s love. I don’t even know the woman who has the men in my life wrapped around her finger. I swallow my jealousy, but it’s more than that. My jealousy of her felt entitled with Damien, but she is Filip’s sister, she’s family. He tilts my chin up, so many emotions brewing behind his eyes, but all I know is he’s not mine, even though for some moments it felt like that.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Did you plan this?”
“No.” Why am I relieved, and why haven’t I kicked him out yet?
“What is really wrong with her?”
“If I tell you, you’ll look at her differently, and I need you to keep looking at her like now.”
“Like what?”
“Like you have him.”
“I have to think about this.”
“I’ll be in the next room.”
“No, Filip, alone.”
“Please, leave,” I whisper and force some tears back, reminding myself that love has always demanded me to give and hope to receive something in return. Will I have to be okay with getting scraps forever? I guess I am not that worthy. He turns, and something in me breaks. When the door closes behind him, I expel a lungful of air, and then silence drags me under.
