Elena's POV
"Are you the sender?"
I toss the phone at him the moment he opens the door and he catches it with one hand like he was expecting it.
He looks at the phone.
I am standing in his doorway with soup residue still in my hair because I showered five times and almost finished my perfume and it still smells like cafeteria.
"No," he says.
"That is what the sender would say."
"Come in Elena."
I walk. His room is nothing like mine. It is twice the size, smells expensive, and is quite impressive, but I came here for none of that
I stand in the middle of it with my arms folded.
"Give me one reason to believe you."
He goes to his laptop without a word and turns the screen toward me.
It is the footage from the hotel room, that night of the party. I stare at the screen for a long time.
"Someone sent this," he says. "Anonymously. They wanted me to know they had it. They wanted me to know they were watching both of us."
"So someone is using both of us."
"Yes." He closes the laptop. "I hired private investigators three weeks ago. Look." He pulls out a folder from his desk drawer and slides it across to me. A name highlighted in yellow at the front. Jessica Douglass. Computer science student. Second year.
"She has been sending the messages," he says. "I am getting close. need more evidence before I move on her and I cannot do this alone."
I look at him standing there in his expensive room with his private investigators and his folders and his perfect controlled face. And I begin to open the fule
"You have been watching me since before the party ," I say. "That is not normal Thomas."
Something moves across his face. "I know."
"That is actually insane."
"I know."
"And you still want me to trust you."
"Yes. With time, you will understand."
"Fine," I say. "We work together."
Side by side, we sit at his desk going through the file, cross referencing the access logs with the burner phone task timeline. It is actually good. We are actually good at this together. His brain works fast and mine works differently and somehow the combination fills in gaps.
At some point we stop talking about Jessica Douglass.
My eyes dance around his face. His smooth, chiselled jaw line. His jet black hair. His grey eyes. Damn, he looks so much like Tobias.
I trace his clothes on his body. I have always seen him in a suit. Now he looks different. His singlet gives me a sneaky peak at his chest. He is sweating a little despite the AC in the room
Damn! He reminds me of Tobias. And Tobias in my head in this type of way is no good.
I am having flashbacks. If I stand up from this seat now, Thomas would see how soaked I have become
What if this is Tobias pretending to be Thomas. Should I make the first move? Damn, Elena, you are fucking crazy
I see his lips moving animatedly and I wonder if he fancies me the way I fancy him.
Well…
Uhm…
If you ask me how I got tangled in the sheets with Thomas right now? I have no vivid reply for that
Every this happens so fucking fast and I am maoning his name now
His hands are careful. Intentional. Like he has thought about this before and decided exactly how it was going to go.
God help me.
At some point my brain surfaces for air and I think I have now slept with both of them. Both brothers. Thomas and Tobias Blackwell. I think about Tobias's torn shirt on my floor and Thomas's hands right now and I think did they plan this? Do they know about each other? Are the Blackwell twins the kind of people who would do something like this?
I look at Thomas's face and I cannot tell. He is the least readable person I have ever met in my life.
I am in so much trouble.
Sweet trouble actually, because the way Thomas goes in and out of me? I am ready to suffer the consequences
***
Victoria is outside my dorm the next morning.
Fucking GPS
She looks at me and she looks at the jacket I am carrying that is obviously not mine.
"You actually did it," she says. "You slept with him."
I remember what I said to her outside the library. I am fucking Thomas next. I hear you are into him.
I look at her and shrug. "I told you I would."
Her face goes red. "You scheming little…"
"Have a good morning Victoria." I go back inside
"I will destroy you!" She calls after me. "I am building your downfall. Enjoy it while it lasts Elena because I am coming for everything!"
***
I am sitting outside the humanities building that afternoon eating a sandwich when I feel someone approaching. It isMaya.
My heart starts to race. Because Maya means Tobias and Tobias means did she find out and did she tell Thomas and does Thomas know and is that why he…
"Hi," she says.
"Hi," I say carefully.
She sits down next to me uninvited. "I saw your stepdad last week. He has a new girlfriend apparently."
I blink. "Okay."
She picks at the hem of her sleeve. "She looked young. Younger than us."
"Good for him," I say flatly and go back to my sandwich.
Silence.
"I have been keeping my distance," Maya says quietly. "Because I did not know if you wanted me around. After everything."
I say nothing.
"I miss you," she says. "I know that sounds ridiculous given everything but I genuinely miss you Elena."
"Go back to your rich boyfriend Maya."
I get up to leave and she runs after me.
"Elena, wait. Do you remember the winter in the trailer park? We shared one blanket for three weeks and I fell sick and I thought I was going to die, but you stood by me?"
I stop walking.
"Do you remember when someone gave us pizza laced with laxative, pretending he was good will?"
I close my eyes.
"I know something went wrong," she says. "But you have always been my person."
Abracadabra, bitch. She got me
Then I turn around.
We are friends again and everything goes back to how it was
Days pass. Maya and I get lunch together, talk, and exist in the same space without anything blowing up, except hate her new spoiled rich friends. Maya has changed a bit. She is more vain, but I can cope.
The burner phone stays completely silent for the time being and I start to think maybe it is over. Maybe Jessica Douglass being identified scared whoever is behind this into stopping.
I forget the phone exists.
Then one morning I reach into my bag for my lip balm and my hand closes around something that should not be there.
The burner phone.
I did not put it there.
I stare at it in my hand in the middle of a crowded hallway and feel the familiar cold spreading through my chest.
New message.
TASK: Go to the hospital today. Request a blood test. Check if you are pregnant. Send photo evidence by 6PM. Failure penalty: Professor Winters gets called back and expelled permanently this time. You have been warned.
The next thing…
I am sitting on the cold floor of my bathroom at 7PM surrounded by evidence.
Twelve home pregnancy tests lined up on the tiles in front of me. The hospital blood test result in my hand.
They all say the same thing.
The burner phone buzzes.
Congratulations Elena. Now the real fun begins. Which one of them do you think the father is? Thomas or Tobias? Honestly I think I calculate your ovulation better than you do.
PS: Consider naming
you child bastard! Hahahahahahaaa
I read the message.
I read it again.
Then I laugh.