Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 22

My front door catches on a pile of spam letters and overdue bills gathering on the peeling doormat as I push it open.

A family portrait of the three of us stares back at me from the entryway. I can’t bear to look at my mother. How long was she sleeping with someone else for? How could I have been so stupid as to miss the signs?

Like someone returning to their hometown after an apocalypse, I pace around the tiny property in complete silence.

The house is just as I left it, only colder and dustier. The chill is deep in the foundations of the house; the furniture, walls, carpets, and curtains all icy to the touch.

The houseplant I left in the kitchen is dead. At some point, the freezer has broken. Whatever was in there fills my nostrils with a putrid scent. The boiler by the front door coughs and splutters as I turn it on, struggling to wake up.

I hate myself for crying. I don’t remember when I became so weak, but I don’t know how I’m going to cope.

Cup of tea. All good plans start with a cup of tea. Leaving my mittens on, I turn on the dusty kettle and pull a mug from the cupboard. The words dad joke fuel are fading against the white ceramic.

I miss him.

The white puff of my breath joins the steam from the rusty spout as I pour boiling water over the bag.

A text pings through. My phone is too loud, too shrill in the silence of the house.

I try to think of an excuse, a valid reason I wouldn’t want a boyfriend to come and visit. I’m not embarrassed about my childhood, my financial status, or the size of my home, but I don’t really want him to see my life here. Despite the mess he has at home, he’s rich in ways far more valuable than money. His cupboards are full and his breakfasts are loud and busy. There is love between the walls of their mansion.

My screen flashes with an incoming call. I hit the green button and smile. “Hey.”

“Hey, beautiful.”

“Are you driving?”

“You’re on Bluetooth. Cars have that now.”

“Shut up. Where are you going?”

I hear the rhythmic tick of an indicator. “Just going to pick Mia, Éléanor, and Evie up from dance. I gave the driver a day off. You seemed sad over text.”

“I’m okay. I’m great. Excited for Christmas.” I cringe as I say it. It doesn’t sound remotely convincing.

He picks up on my tone, of course. “Does your dad know? About the photos of your mom?”

I cup my mug to try to warm my shaking fingers. “Alex, I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I’m here for you, though. You know that?”

He can’t see my smile, but he can have it anyway. “I do. It’s more than I deserve.”

His voice is sure and comforting. I let it soothe my soul. “We deserve each other.”

“Until midnight.”

I can hear his grin. “Until midnight, a hundred years from now.”

I stare at the black mold that rots the windowsill. I have a to-do list longer than one of Bancroft’s lectures. “I gotta go.”

“Bye, baby.”

I hang up and drag my bags upstairs, dumping them on the single bed in my bedroom. A cloud of dust puffs into the air when I throw them on the mattress.

I don’t think I’ll ever bring myself to take the main bedroom.

I strip my bed and carry the sheets down the stairs, stuffing them into the washing machine and turning the dial.

It doesn’t start.

“Give me a break,” I mutter, unplugging it and plugging it back in. No luck.

I decide it’s an issue for another day. Who needs bedsheets, anyway? I’ll lie on a towel.

I sit on the fold-out dining table in the kitchen and dial the number for the nursing home down the road.

“Benmara Care Home.”

“Hey, Sarah. It’s me, Ophelia.”

“Ophelia! You’re home already?”

“Yeah. Sorrowsong has short terms, like Oxford. Do you need extra hands over Christmas? I could really do with the company.”

“We’re always in need. May will be very excited to see you, and I will, too, of course. I can’t wait to hear all about university.

“If she remembers who I am. I’m free every day.”

“Can you come in tomorrow for dinner service? Is that too short notice?”

“I’ll be there.”

“It’s great you’re back, Ophelia. Your mother would be very proud of you.”

Would she? I’m wondering how well I knew her at all.

The first three weeks of Christmas break go by quicker than I had dreaded they would. I go to the nursing home every day and visit my old neighbor, May. She and her late husband, Mr. Rogers, were a big part of my childhood. In the absence of biological grandparents, they were it for me. They’d come at Christmas and take me out on walks, and if my parents got stuck late at Sorrowsong, I’d eat dinner with them.

Mr. Rogers passed peacefully in his sleep six years ago, and a few years after that, May was diagnosed with dementia. Still, she’s the closest I have to family, and I live for the moments when a glimmer of recognition sparks in those hollow eyes.

And I’ve become a professional at reading bingo.

Sarah pays me to help, too, even though I’d do it if she didn’t. My first two weeks of wages paid off the water bill and a washing machine repair, my third week paid for a freezer repair. I hope I have earned enough during the break to pay the electricity bill and to fix the heating.

The time between shifts is hard. It’s so cold in the house that it stops me sleeping. The dreams are bad, too, alternating between helicopters crashing and a stalker breaking into this house.

It’s too quiet. Too still. Too lonely. I fall asleep crying and wake up with puffy eyes. I never thought I’d be counting down the seconds until I have to go back to Sorrowsong.

Alex tries to call me every day, but he’s busy. I know how full-on it is with his mother and his talks with Green board members. He spent the first week in New York, then he took his sisters skiing in Aspen, and now his whole family is in Paris for the week.

I roll over in bed with a groan, the delighted squeals of children outside reminding me that it’s Christmas morning. I just have to get through today. Then I’ll be over the worst of it.

I open a text from Vincenzo. It’s a photo of Belladonna drinking from a bottle of champagne. The surroundings make it look like they’re in some kind of Italian villa, and in the background, there must be fifty other family members. Merry Christmas, Pheelz.

I shut off my phone, envious and lonely. Something makes me pick it up again. It’s this self-isolation, this misery, that keeps me lonely, stops me from making friends. I need to make an effort to change. Instead, I text him a cheery reply. Another text pings through at the top.

My face appears in front of me like some kind of horrendous jump scare. Christ, is that what I look like? I mutter a curse into the freezing bedroom air. FaceTime. The bane of my life. I can’t roll out of bed and look good like Alex does. I sit up and smooth a hand over my hair in the darkness, squinting at myself. I swear one eye is bigger than the other.

His face appears on the screen, that fond warm smile on his face that I’ve come to know so well. It sounds like utter chaos in the background. “Hey. Merry Christmas, sugar.”

I smile, burying my blushing cheeks into my blanket. He’s blushing too, expression warm. “Merry Christmas.”

“You look beautiful.”

“That’s factually incorrect. My lips are crusty.”

“I haven’t mentioned my crusty lip kink?”

Despite the heaviness in my heart, he drags a laugh out of me. “It hasn’t come up yet, no.”

He presses the phone to his chest as someone shouts something at him in French. I wish I was the phone. He shouts something back, but I can’t translate it. His face appears again. “That was my mom. She wants to say hi. She’s really good today.”

“To me?” I squeak, hand blindly fumbling around for my hairbrush in my side table. “You told her about me?”

“Yeah, like, six weeks ago.”

“What? Was I that much of a done deal?”

His grin is boyish and so unlike him. “I have a way of getting what I want, and I really, really, really want you.”

Christ, I think I love him.

“Viens ici, Maman,” he says, beckoning someone over. I panic, sitting up in the dark and running the brush through my hair. This feels serious. This feels like more. I flick the dim, orange bedside lamp on.

Elise Corbeau sits down beside Alex, and I’m momentarily stunned. She’s as beautiful as she was when she was twenty, just in a different way. I occasionally forget his mother is one of the most famous models of all time. Her dark hair is loose and glossy, down to her hips and the same dark shade as Alex’s. Her green eyes peer down at the phone, pink lips turning up into a smile. A gentle flush caresses her olive skin.

Alex is the spitting image of his mother.

Elise plants her hand on her son’s arm and looks up at him, back to me, and back up at him with a delighted expression on her face. “Oh, Alex, elle est vraiment belle.” She takes the phone from his hand and angles it away as if to keep me to herself. “You are very pretty, Ophelia.”

“Hello, ma’am.”

Ma’am? What the hell is wrong with me? I sit up straighter and remind myself that Alex’s mother is not a drill sergeant.

“He always had a thing for redheads. He used to have a crush on that tigress in Kung Fu Panda.”

I file that knowledge for later. “Oh, so did I, to be fair.”

I see Alex’s hand slap over the camera, trying to grab the phone back. Elise bats him off. “Alex, love, go and make yourself useful in the kitchen before Mia burns the place down.”

One familiar green eye appears in the corner of the screen, making me laugh. “Blink twice if you need help, Ophelia.”

“Oh, he is so dramatic,” says Elise. A frail hand brushes her hair from her face. She’s painfully thin. “He seems so much happier this week. I’ve hated watching him struggle to stay alive for so long, mostly because of me and the stress I put him under.”

My heart constricts. I loathe the thought of Alex losing a fight with the monster inside him. He’s very transparent with me about his depression. Some days he wakes up and fires me a text to let me know he’ll be quieter today because it’s one of the bad ones. “He’s more than I deserve.”

“You deserve each other.”

I feel warmer, like I’m in the chaos of their giant living room in Paris and not the dark gloom of my bedroom in a miserable town in Scotland. “He says that too.”

Her expression is warm. Happy. Contented. She’s really good today.

I look at her smiling down at me like I saved her son’s life, and a realization seeps into my veins, bitter and welcome all at once. I can’t post my report online, can’t send it to a journalist anonymously.

I can’t do anything with it at all.

I can’t bring more bad press onto this woman, no matter how much I hate her husband.

The last four years have been for nothing.

“Are you with your family for the day?” asks Elise, replacing my depressing thoughts with even more depressing ones.

Her question knocks me sideways, derailing my plan to be cheerful. I stall for a few moments, trying to think what to say. “Um…well, it’s complicated. My parents aren’t around. You know how families can be sometimes.”

Her face softens with understanding. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You’re not alone, are you? We can fly you out here in no time.”

And be in a house with Cain Green? I think I’d rather die. Somewhere in the background, six girls shriek with laughter. My eyes sting with jealous tears, and I beg them to go away. “I’m working at the nursing home later, so I’ll have company there.”

“I can see why he likes you so much.”

Alex appears over her shoulder again, placing a glass of orange juice in his mother’s hand and a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. He sets a small cup of pills down on the arm of the sofa. He’s dressed casually, for once. A black, relaxed-fit T-shirt drapes over the muscles of his chest in a way that shouldn’t be legal, the tattoos on his arm stretching as he rubs his neck.

I say a happy goodbye to Elise as Alex walks me into a quieter room.

“You’re giving me a look,” he says, chugging a glass of water.

“It’s lust,” I reply simply. “I wish you were here.”

He chokes on the water. “This is how I’ve felt since you got into my car in September. It’s like being a teenager again. The things I would do to you if I had you here.”

Fuck. I desperately search for a new line of conversation before I get naked on FaceTime, again. “Your mother is so beautiful.”

“She doesn’t believe me when I tell her. Like you.” He frowns at the camera. “Are you outside?”

“I’m in my bedroom.”

“I can see your breath, Ophelia.”

Shit. “Uh…the window is open. Fresh air and all that.”

His expression remains serious, a V forming between his brows. “I thought you got the heating working?”

“Please just don’t.” My voice wobbles. I hover my finger over the End call button, because it’s easier than letting him see me cry.

“Don’t hang up, Ophelia. Stop running from everything. Turn your camera off if you want to, but don’t hang up.”

I put the phone down on the bed, brushing my tears away with my sleeves. “I hate Christmas Day.”

“How is your dad? Does he know yet?”

He’s dead, I want to scream. But I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can’t admit I lied or admit I only came to Sorrowsong to tear his family apart on a FaceTime call. The second I see him at Sorrowsong again, it’ll be the first thing that leaves my lips. “He’s not here.”

“Is your mom there?”

“No,” I whisper, resting my head against my knees. “Alex, I…I have to tell you about them, I just don’t want to do it over the phone.” I’m terrified he’ll leave me when I tell him, terrified that if I do it over the phone, I won’t see him again.

“Hold up. You’re alone?”

An ugly sob makes my chest ache. “I’m alone.”

I hear him breathe out a curse, watch him run a hand through his hair. “I’ll head to the airport now. Wait for me, okay?”

Alex leaving their thirteen-million-euro mansion to replace me surrounded by snotty tissues in a rotting council house is something of my worst nightmares. “Please don’t. This is why I didn’t want to say.”

“Please let me.”

“I’m working in a few hours, anyway. I’ll be busy. Let yourself have this day, Alex. Enjoy time with your mother while she’s doing so good.”

He looks so torn, his face wrought in an anguished expression. “She wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

“I’ll be at work, I won’t be alone. These good days with Elise are special.”

He can’t argue with me. They are special. “But what about after work? What about dinner?”

I furiously brush the tears away, but they keep coming. “I’ll stay late and eat there.”

“Jesus Christ, Ophelia. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come and got you days ago. Were you alone when we called last night?”

“Yeah.” And the twenty nights before that.

“Holy fuck, am I that obtuse I didn’t notice? I feel terrible. Why didn’t you say so?”

I cover my face with my hands. Shame weighs me further into the mattress. He doesn’t even know the half of it. “I’m sorry. I’m caught up in my own dishonesty.”

“No, I’m sorry. I wish I was there.”

“I wish you were, too.”

“Is your heating broken?”

“It finally gave up last night. It needs a new seal. I’ll get one when the shops reopen.”

“Fucking hell.”

“I’ll be okay. I can cope.”

He gazes down at the phone. “That’s never been in doubt, Twist. Not for me.”

“I had better go. I’ll call you after work, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting, beautiful.”

I can feel the warmth of his body through the phone screen. It seeps through the frozen air between us and into my own, settling around my heart. He always says the right things, replaces the perfect balm for my wounds.

“Alex! Come and open presents!” shouts a girl.

“Yeah, come on!” says another voice.

I try to muffle my sob in my knees. It’s such an ugly thing, to be envious of other people’s joy. I know Alex’s home life is even more difficult than mine, but I’d do anything to have them back. I’d ignore the tense remarks, pretend I didn’t know about the affair. I’d slap a happy face on if it meant there’d be a sink full of dirty dishes and a bin full of wrapping paper at the end of the day.

“Ophelia, I can have a jet at Inverness in less than two hours. You’d be here by lunch.”

“No.” It comes out louder and harsher than I expected, my tone bitter. The idea of going in any aircraft, but a Green aircraft especially, makes panic wrap its hand around my throat. And then after I landed, sitting across the table from Cain Green? I swallow the bile in my throat and soften my tone. “No, thank you. I’d better go. Go open presents.”

“Call me after work.”

“I will,” I whisper, hanging up. I lie back on the bed and bite the inside of my cheek so hard it bleeds. No more crying. Not today.

I drag myself out of bed, checking the thermostat. Twelve degrees Celsius. The heating is on high, but it’s not doing anything. Still, a shower helps warm me up, and the four layers of clothing I tug on afterward.

Wiping the steam from the mirror, I turn away from my reflection in disgust. Alex might be the one person who can understand the depth of my hatred for his father, and I’ve shut him out. All morning I’ve been rehearsing a way to tell him.

Did you sleep well? Yeah, cool, your father killed my parents, or at the very least, he accepted a bribe to kill them. Yes, that’s correct, I did lie to you. And wait until you replace out I’ve been trying to put your family in a huge public scandal for years.

I’ll keep rehearsing.

The nursing home is quiet. Those with children—or rather, children that can still be bothered—have been collected and taken to their family’s houses for the day. Only those with nowhere else to go remain. But that’s okay with me. It’s less stressful this way. I have more time to divide between fewer people. Having just finished reading an Enid Blyton book to everyone, I sit opposite May’s armchair, painting her nails a bright red. It would be easier if she didn’t keep wiggling them and saying Oh, aren’t they pretty, but I can’t resent her.

I haven’t heard much from Alex, but I did log onto Instagram and look at his sister’s story to see them out for lunch at one of the most expensive restaurants in France. I’ve paused the screen a hundred times on the moment where Fleur pans the camera around to Alex, sitting with his arm around Josie as he helps her build a new Lego model at the table.

His usual black shirt and slacks have been swapped out for a Henley and black cargos and holy fuck, I’m not coping. He’s huge. I’ll never forgive Instagram for not letting me zoom in on a story. Can Fleur see that I’ve rewatched this a hundred times? Shit. I hope not.

Even Alex posted a rare story, a mirror selfie of all his family bundled into an elevator with the caption a Corbeau Christmas. I wonder if it’s an intentional dig at his father.

A few weeks ago, I’d never used Instagram in my life, and now I’m a stalker.

I paint a shiny topcoat over May’s nails, rubbing some hand cream over the fragile, mottled skin around them. Janet in the chair beside her leans forward and hums in approval. “Would you do mine too?”

I grin and shuffle my chair over. “Of course I can.”

I need some more friends my age, because I’ve only got to Janet’s index finger by the time I’ve told her and May about Alex. Maybe May’s been faking her frailness, because the second I mentioned I’d met someone, she sat bolt upright in the chair like Charlie Bucket’s grandfather.

Even Sarah abandons dishing out pills into cups to see as I scroll my camera roll to replace the only picture of Alex that I have. I don’t want a generic one, one that anyone could replace on the internet. His head lolls lazily against the pillow, half-lidded gaze looking just above the camera, right at me. I took it right after he showed me how to give him head for the first time. He looks sleepy and sated, no darkness in his eyes at all.

I’m beginning to love the need for control that lives inside him. Maybe there’s a darkness in me, too, because I don’t want him to hold back for me. I don’t think I want gentle.

May squeals like a woman a quarter of her age, pressing her thin fingers to her lips. “Oh my. He is just splendid.”

“Isn’t that Alex Corbeau-Green?” shrieks Sarah, snatching the phone.

“Yes, you know him?”

“I follow his Instagram. Those viral pictures of him running in those shorts last year were my entire life. Oh my god, Ophelia.”

Oh, right. I forget he’s famous. She knows of him. She doesn’t know him, but I do. I feel a little giddy. “Find another picture,” demands May, slapping my arm.

I type Alex’s name into a search engine. There’s a fresh set of photographs from an aviation conference this week. I open one up, drinking in his sharp tuxedo and undone top button. His pocket square looks familiar.

“Wow,” whispers Janet, leaning closer.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, zooming in on the small piece of red fabric that peeks out his breast pocket. “That’s my underwear.”

May shrieks. Janet squeals. Sarah drops her cup of eggnog. I clasp my hands over my cheeks.

He had better have washed them.

I end up painting all the ladies’ nails, and even one man too. All the while, I’m grilled to within an inch of my life about Alex. I think the whole town knows. So much for not getting my hopes up. If this thing with him goes south, it’ll be crushing.

If this thing with him goes south, it’ll be all your fault, the voice in my head says. I shove it down.

I eat dinner in a paper Christmas hat surrounded by people four times my age, reminding them all of my name between each mouthful. We watch a children’s show that apparently is good for people with dementia and I end up having to help May spoon her food into her mouth, but oddly, it’s been a good Christmas. My parents won’t be around for me to care for them when they’re elderly, so the least I can do is help the people here.

By the time Sarah and I have washed up twelve plates and bowls, cleaned the kitchen, and handed over to the night-shift carers and nurses, it’s almost 9 p.m. I’m grateful it’s so late. It’s easier than passing the time at home.

Checking my phone when I leave, I have a festive email from my stalker; a quote from A Christmas Carol.

Sorry, Alan, I’m only interested in Dickens quotes from one man nowadays. Somehow, even now I know how dangerous Alan Sine is, I feel strong enough to deal with him. I reread the quote with mild annoyance.

Happy, Happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days.

I pull off my mittens to type a very short response.

Bah humbug.

I dial Alex twice as I walk down my parents’ road. The bitter chill lessens when his deep voice filters down the line. “Sorry I missed the first call. I was putting Josie to bed.”

My heart flutters. Both the people in my head want to have his babies. “Did she have a good day?”

“A great day. She got a Lego model of a train. She loves trains and buses.”

I freeze in my tracks as I battle the weeds in front of my door. “Oh God. There’s a giant parcel on my doorstep. It must be from Alan. Oh no. He has my address.”

“Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. The parcel is from me. I should’ve texted. It’s a new boiler for your heating. Someone is coming on the twenty-seventh to fit it.”

“What?” I whisper, peeling back the cardboard.

“Do you want me to call someone to sweep your house for you just in case?”

“No…” I stare at the parcel, dumbfounded. I’ve always had an issue receiving presents, even before I lost my parents. “Alex, I…I’ve been saving for this. I can pay for half now and half later.”

“Please don’t.”

“But I…” I run a hand through my hair. God knows how much he paid to have someone deliver that today. “Alex.”

His tone is so warm, so soft and sure and full of affection. “Ophelia, my love.”

“I’ll take it inside, but I’ll transfer you money for it.”

“Okay. Pay me by midnight,” he says, and I’m grinning at the unspoken sentence at the end. A hundred years from now.

“By midnight,” I promise. “How is your mum? How are the other girls?”

“All very good. Maman ended up going to bed super early. Took her sleeping pills and ended the day while it was on a high, you know? Now it’s just the housekeeper and me against a tsunami of pink glitter and lip gloss.”

I huff out a laugh as I haul the boxes inside. They’re ridiculously heavy. “You do so much for them.”

“I can’t let him break their spirit. How was work?”

“Good. You may have a small army of ninety-something-year-olds lusting after you.”

He hums down the line. It’s deep and sexy. “I guess I could be into it.”

“Great. I’ll get the hoist ready.”

“Is the hoist for me?”

I clutch my ribs with laughter. Now that is a vision. “Do you want it to be?”

His words warm my freezing skin. “As long as you’re there, I don’t care.”

“Nice pocket square, by the way.”

“It’s very versatile. Wore it as a bracelet in bed last night. Wrapped it around something else this morning.”

And he didn’t send me a picture? Rude. “I miss you,” I whisper. It comes out dirtier than I intended.

“Fuck, I miss you too. You wanna have phone sex again?”

I bite my knuckles as I toss my keys and bag onto the peeling kitchen worktop and kick off my snowy boots. Alex’s husky voice spewing all manner of filth into my ear at night, making promises I couldn’t even utter aloud in the light of day, has only fueled my need to see him.

For three weeks I’ve heard him desperately choke out my name as he comes while I do the same, but it’s not enough. I want the real thing. If he forgives me for how dishonest I’ve been. Guilt eats at my insides. “I really do, but I think I’m too cold to get naked.”

“I’m so glad I bought that heating system.”

Thank you. The words sit on the tip of my tongue, making me feel ungrateful. But a thank-you would mean acceptance, and I can’t accept another kindness from Alex until I’ve told him the truth.