I'm gonna apologize in advance for the chapter not being super long but the next chapters' themes are all quite important and I didn't want to put too much in one single chapter so I hope you'll like it anyway xx
SCARLETT
No matter how hard I try to breathe, or how hard I try to make sense of what I've just found, of what is now imprinted with a red-hot iron in my memory, it doesn't work. I've tried to look for an explanation in my mind but nothing seems to work, to give a rest to my pain.
Maybe I shouldn't have looked at the bottom of that shelf, I should've left the picture there, without curiosity having the upper hand on me and maybe I wouldn't be standing here, completely heartbroken. Unfortunately, I have decided to look, to take the photo from the bottom of the shelf.
I had carefully looked through Elle's photos both on her Facebook page and in her room, enough to tell the few differences between the two of us, even if there weren't a lot. In this photo, if it wasn't for the pink hair lock, I've never had, in the hair of the girl next to Harry that looks exactly like me, I could've sworn that it could have been me, but it's not me. It's Elle, with her arms wrapped around Harry's waist and a big smile on her lips. It was just two years ago, like the date at the side of the photo says.
"I can explain..." Harry gulps while she looks at the photo between my hands. His eyes are filled up with guilt and it already tells me that there's not much to explain, it's exactly how bad as it looks.
"Explain..." I bitterly chuckle, repeating his words without even fully believing what is going on. I try to hold back my tears but I know that I won't succeed for much longer. "What do you want to explain?!"
"I know it seems bad but..." Harry tries to say, but a sudden sob escaping for his mouth forces him to stop. I would've never thought it but he's the first one starting to cry. Then it really is as bad as it seems and he knows it too.
"It is, or you wouldn't be here crying!" I have to close my eyes shut, to stop the tears, menacing to fall out, right where they are.
"There was nothing between us!" It's the first explanation he gives me, to describe the relationship he had with my twins, the one he's never told me about but I already know it. It doesn't matter if there was nothing because his feelings were there for sure. So many things make more sense now.
"You loved her!" I exclaim, knowing his answer already, I don't need to ask him. The look in his eyes just confirm it for me and I immediately feel a strong sense of nausea hitting me. "I'm gonna be sick..." I whisper to myself, bringing a hand to my forehead, trying to calm myself down.
"Hold up... I thought I loved her. I really did." He tells me, trying to meet my eyes while he talks to me. While he confesses his deepest secret to me. "But then I met you and I fell in love with you and I realized what I felt for your sister had never been love." His words sting, hurt me and at the same time, they make me want to laugh at his face. To show him that I don't believe his cruel lies anymore, like an idiot. That I won't fall to his feet every time he apologizes for breaking me.
"What love are you talking about?!" I raise my voice at him. "The day when you saw me, you wouldn't even look at me twice if it wasn't for her." At this point, tears start running freely down my face. "I would have just been one of the countless girls head over heels for you, watching you from afar."
"Does it matter now?!" He lowers his stare, with his cheeks still wet with his own tears.
"It fucking does!" I give him a push, wanting to hurt him so much more than that. "Our whole relationship is built on a lie. Every time you kissed me or made love to me, it was her you were thinking about." He immediately brings his eyes back to me, that this time are filled up with shock. He quickly shakes his head while I have to look down because I can't even bear looking at him now.
"Don't you dare!" He complains. "Maybe I approached you because of Elle, but it's with you I fell in love with." He tries to reach for my hand but I quickly step back, away from his touch.
"You always knew everything... I can't believe." I shake my head to myself. "Every time I told you about my family and how painful it was for me, you never had the decency to tell me what you knew."
"You didn't want to know, what the fuck was I supposed to do?!" This time, he's the one raising his voice.
"Not even when you thought I was dead you said shit about it. You could've told my father and they could've kept looking for me, instead of giving up because they had a corpse in the morgue, for fuck's sake!" I give him one more push, screaming at him as hard as I can. At my words, I can see the way the guilt is eating him alive, probably has been eating him alive for a long time.
"You went missing... I didn't think about the possibility of it being Elle's body. I didn't even question it." He says in a weak whisper, keeping his eyes down.
"That's because you're a coward, that's what you are!" I spit at him with all my contempt, not regretting my words not even a bit and I don't regret it either when I see how painful they're to him.
"She was my only friend, Scar... the only person I had near, not because she wanted to sleep with me or to use me for my money. She just genuinely cared." He sighs, with a nostalgic smile on his lips and with his eyes sparkling because of his tears. "That was the only type of honest affection I had ever received and I thought it was love on my part, but you changed everything." He tries to get near me again. "You showed me how it really feels to be in love, to be loved." When he stretches his hand toward my face, this time, I let him touch me. I let him touch me because I'd like to believe his words. I'd like to believe all his lies one more time as if he'd never lied to me before, or trapped me into his twisted games. I'd really like to believe him. I still want to hold on to him, to this shipwrecked boat that is our relationship but I can't anymore. I can't break one more time, because of him. I can't act like nothing has happened and like everything will be fine. I can't ignore the feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach every time he touches me or every time I think about my sister. I can't be blind anymore. I can't make a fool out of myself. While I think about everything all over again, it's at this point that it hits me. It's at this point that I understand something that kept making no sense to me.
"That night..." I say in realization, living it all over again in my head. I bitterly laugh, moving away from his hands from my face and backing away from his whole figure. "The night of the car accident." The terrified look in his eyes tells me everything that I need to know. "You saw her. You saw what I had seen." I feel a desperate urge to pull all of my hair out of my head for how mad I am right now. "You lied to me and to my parents," I scream at him, closing my hands into fists and making them collide with his chest without thinking about it too much. "You made everyone believe I was crazy, that I was out of my mind. You made me believe I was crazy." He doesn't try to stop me while I keep hitting him, knowing perfectly that I'm right, he's done all of it to keep his nasty secret from me. "I lost my fucking mind because of you and you just stood there, watching me, without doing a thing about it."
"I was so scared to lose you..." He sobs, not having even the decency to look at me in the eyes while he speaks.
"You're a fucking asshole... you ruined my life. Everything bad in my life happened because of you." He remains silent, he doesn't try to defend himself, I just see his face twisting into a grimace of pain at my words.
"It was all a game to you, wasn't it?!" He furrows his eyebrows and gulps again. "You never had her so you wanted to have me to satisfy your ego. To add her to your belt through me."
"Maybe at first but then the more I got to know you the more I wanted to know... you have to believe me." He sighs, bringing a hand to his face to dry up the tears still falling from his eyes.
"That's the point..." I laugh at his face, trying to suffocate my own tears. "I'll never believe you or trust you anymore."
"I can't live without you, Scar... I love you." He takes one more step toward me but I quickly raise my open palm to keep him away, to keep him where he is.
"Don't use words you don't know the meaning of," I say with contempt filling up my voice. "People that love you don't do what you did to me. Even today you lied to my face..." I bitterly laugh. "You knew how important it was to me to trust someone again after what had happened to me. I gave you my body, my heart, my soul and everything I had and you just broke all of it without any restraint. You just took and took without caring about what I was giving to you and how important it was." A sob escapes my lips while I talk and I immediately bring a hand to my mouth, trying to suffocate it and the tears that start streaming down my face again. I had let him do it to me. I had let him disrespect me all over again and as quick as he's brought my self-loathe away, just as quick he's making it come back. I feel violated by the hands of the man I loved the most and trusted with my own life. He's making me feel powerless again, still trapped in the hands of someone that is taking and taking from me until there's nothing else but a shell of myself left. I feel a shell all over again. "You disgust me," I whisper in his ear while I glance at him, hoping that he'll understand everything that he's making me feel with this only glance.
"I promise I'll spend my life making it up to you..." He tries to say and to take a few steps toward me again but I'm quick enough to back away. "I'll marry you and I'll be the father of how many kids you want. I'll do everything for you, please." At this point, he's practically begging, with both his words and eyes. "There's nothing more I want in life than being with you, I don't care about the conditions."
"You know what hurts me the most?!" I chuckle, lowering my stare to hide from him the tears that start falling down my cheeks once again. "That I would've fallen to your feet this morning, saying that there was nothing I wanted more in life. Nothing would've made me happier... but now it's all gone." I don't think about it any longer. Without giving him the time to say anything else, I walk with a long stride toward the main door, to find my security to ask them to take me home, far away from Harry. The last thing I see, before leaving the room is his eyes filled up with resignation and the same awareness as me; that this time it's really all over.
*
If I had to pick a word to describe exactly how I feel, the truth is that I wouldn't know how to answer. Nothing seems to fully describe it. I feel empty and at the same time so full that I'm on the verge of throwing up. I feel like I'm bleeding, but at the same time, I feel completely numb. When I woke up this morning I would've never thought that at the end of the day I would've felt like that.
When I close the door behind me, I walk at a quick pace toward my room because right now I really don't want to see anyone, but Celine manages to find me in time record anyway.
"Did you get my text?" I ask right away before she can ask me things.
"Yeah, I did. What happened?" I had sent a text to both her and my dad, in my car ride, that I wanted to go back to the United States as fast as possible. I stop in my tracks, turning toward her so I can look at her in the eyes.
"You have to be completely honest with me," I start saying and she furrows her eyebrows before nodding her head at my words. "Did you know about it?" I show her the picture of Harry and Elle I had shoved in the back of my bag. She looks at it for a few seconds. Probably she can't even tell if the girl in the picture is me or Elle.
"That's Elle?!" She asks incredulously. That's enough of an answer, I guess. I slowly nod my head, hiding back the photo in my bag.
"He's always known her and he's always lied to me." I chuckle, rubbing my face in frustration.
"Elle used to spend the holidays in Deauville with her aunt... that's probably how they met." She shrugs her shoulders.
"It doesn't matter anymore, it's over..." I start walking toward my room again and she follows right behind. As soon as I get in, I start filling up my luggage again, without worrying too much about neatly folding the clothes. I just want to go away from this damn city as fast as I can.
"Aren't you overreacting a little bit?!" Celine sits down on my bed, looking at me packing. I glance at her and for a second I really consider explaining to her in how many ways he's hurt me with his lie but the truth is that I don't want to start crying again. I'm even too tired to cry now. "Scar, you couldn't be more different from Elle. He stayed with you because of you, not Elle." It takes all my strength to remain impassive to her words, even though I feel my heart skipping some beats in my chest. I wish I could believe her or Harry, but the truth is that I can't anymore and I don't even know how long it'll take to trust someone else again.
To save me from this conversation is my father, that as soon as he gets home he comes to look for me here, in my room. My first instinct is to jump into his arms and in the warmth of them I almost feel like crying again but I manage to hold my tears back.
"What happened?" He immediately asks, resting both of his hands on my shoulders, examining my expression and eyes. I decide to show him the picture too.
"He's always lied..." I add, bitterly laughing at myself. I can tell, by my father's stare, that he's thinking about what I'm thinking too. About how the case would've gone so much differently if they had known since the very first start that I had a twin and he's probably thinking about the possibility of Harry being involved in the case more than what he had initially expected. On this point, I don't think Harry would go this far to cover his lies, but it doesn't make what he's done any less bad. "He said he's always been scared to tell me the truth."
"I'm sorry, honey..." he tells me, caressing my cheek to show me some sign of comfort. I take a deep breath and I just shrug my shoulders, knowing that I would burst into tears if I said something now. I just turn around and I try to finish my luggage.
"Can we go back home?" I ask my father once I'm done.
"Yeah, I've already bought the tickets!" He nods his head and he takes my luggage from me, to take it to the car.
"Will you come with us?" I ask Celine.
"I'll have to stay a couple of days more." She gets up from my bed and she starts walking outside the room with me. "I'm sorry about before... I shouldn't be telling you how to feel."
"It's alright, I know you didn't have any bad intentions." I hug her right after, once we get to the entry. Before letting me go, she kisses my forehead.
"I'll see you soon, honey." She tells me with a smile and I nod my head, walking toward the car waiting for me outside. I see my father saying goodbye to Celine with a kiss on the lips and then he comes into the car with me.
"How are you?" He asks me, after the first minutes of silence in the car ride.
"Not well, but I'll go on." I chuckle, resting my head on his shoulder and wrapping my arms around his own.
"Of course... you always exceed everybody's expectations." He kindly smiles at me and he stretches his free arm to reach my head with his hand to caress me.
Once we get to the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, we start walking straight toward the check-in for our flight. We still have forty-five minutes but none of us feel like walking around for shops and seeing stuff. I honestly can't wait to be on the flight to sleep through all of it. There's nothing more than sleeping I want to do now, I just want to disconnect my mind for a few hours.
While we walk toward our gate, I immediately stop in my tracks when I recognize the person standing right in front of it and moving his stare around and so does my father when he recognizes him.
Harry is standing in front of us, looking worse than he's done in a long time. His eyes are puffy and reddish, almost as much as mine. He looks at me with a saddened stare, before taking a few steps toward us.
"Hold up, I know I'm the last person you wanna see but it's important." He stops me, as soon as I try to open my mouth to send him away.
"How did you know where to find us?" My father asks, looking at him warily.
"I called Celine since none of you answered my calls." He shrugs his shoulders. I have turned off my phone the moment I left his house and I had no idea he'd been calling my father.
"What do you want?" I ask him, making clear for him how hostile I am toward him. Harry takes a deep breath before saying whatever he has to say.
"I think I might know who the stalker is." He looks at my father while he speaks. My heart stops in my chest at his words. "I haven't been honest with you the last time we talked... she knew about Elle and I was scared to tell Scarlett the truth, so I haven't been fully honest with you." Harry lowers his stare. I can tell he feels ashamed of his behavior and the words I've told him sooner this afternoon only make it worse, probably. "I remember the song and I know someone that perfectly fits the profile."
"I can't interrogate you here. You have to come back to the US with us." My father whispers to Harry. I can see how alarmed my father is. I feel my heart rushing into my chest and I'm not even sure I want to know just yet. Harry nods his head and then takes out a flight ticket from his pocket to show my dad.
"Already done!" He says after. I roll my eyes, walking away from both of them. Now I have to go through a whole flight from France to America with the person I wanted to see less in the whole world. Great. Just great.
I had seen my father and Harry talk about the case but I had decided to let them sit together and take Harry's seat on the flight. I didn't want to talk or listen to Harry but I knew that my father had to, so I just picked the easy way. I had fallen asleep as soon as I had gotten on the plane and when I woke up again I realized I had slept for over six hours.
When I leave my seat to use the toilet I immediately find Harry behind me when I leave the bathroom, blocking my way to my seat.
"Please, don't start here too..." I sigh, as soon as he opens his mouth to say something. He seems filled up with remorse even just for the fact that he's followed me here to talk to me.
"I really tried but I can't stay away from you and you know it." He whispers, looking down at me. His index brushes the back of my hand while he talks and I try to ignore both nausea and the thrill of excitement that his touch provokes me.
"Don't make it harder," I beg him, forcing myself to glance up at him. I'm not sure anymore that looking into his watery green eyes was a good idea because I immediately feel a shiver running all through my body.
"I know you won't believe me but I loved you for every little detail that made you different from her." He whispers, nearing his forehead to mine. I really wish I could believe him. It would be so easy for me to believe him, everything would go back to how it was this morning, but if I have to be honest I'm not even sure this is going to be enough. In some occasion love is not enough and it's not the thing that can make you feel better and live better. "It's you I fell in love with." He adds when I remain silent at his words.
"It's over, Harry." At my words, filled up with willpower and determination, I see pain and disappointment appearing in his eyes. It's a look I've already seen and that he's already given me but it doesn't mean it's any less painful for me too. It doesn't mean that this whole situation is any less painful for me, but there's nothing else I can do. I can't take any more of all of this pain. He doesn't protest this time when I try to go back to my seat. He waits a few seconds, before walking back to his seat too.
The next thing I do to take my mind off of all of it is taking out a book from my bag. Once I start reading I get immediately lost between the pages of the book and for a short amount of time I can really manage to take my mind off of everything that is going wrong in my life.