to work. I wanted you to start a homestead with me.”
Morticia snorted. “Jonathan, with his five-thousand-dollar suits, on a homestead, raising goats and farming?”
I bit back a curse. “Sarah, I wanted to be a billionaire. You knew my aspirations. We were supposed to be happy together.”
She blinked up at me. “I know,” she said, lip trembling. “I saw a magazine article about how you were the newest Frost billionaire. I’m so proud of you. I miss you, and I screwed up. I never slept with Trevor, so I’m going to ask the priest for an annulment. Once I leave him, you and I will be together forever. We’ll live in your high-rise, and we can raise our twenty kids there.”
47
Morticia
“Aaannnddd I’m out,” I said, sliding past Jonathan. “You and your future football team factory clearly have a lot to catch up on.”
“Morticia, wait,” Jonathan pleaded helplessly.
I turned and walked to the front door. A part of me desperately wanted him to run after me, to tell me, “Screw Sarah. Screw your crazy family. You’re the only one that I love.”
It’s the endorphins talking, I told myself. Sex is addictive.
One step. Another.
Jonathan didn’t run after me.
I forced myself to keep my back straight as I walked out into the cold night.
This is for the best. You have the pictures you need. You will win that internship. You will live in a house with three other people and work for peanuts in a windowless archive room.
Life is grand.
“What the fuck—Sarah just showed up?” Lilith demanded later that evening.
I had taken the train across town to Emma’s apartment. Now we were all crammed inside the small studio. I was baking apple-caramel cinnamon rolls, because if there was ever a day I needed those, it was today.
“Yep,” I said, “she just appeared. Told him she was sorry, and she loved him, and she was leaving Trevor and wanted him back.”
“And you just let it happen?” Lilith asked incredulously.
“I thought you were gunning for him! You were going to have him wrapped up under the tree by Christmas,” Emma cajoled, stealing a spoonful of caramel sauce before I could bat her hand away.
“I was never after him. It was all part of my evil master plan to take spicy pictures for my art piece.”
“Still,” Lilith said, “it’s the principle of the thing. Sarah’s married. She can’t have both Jonathan and Trevor.”
“Since they didn’t consummate it,” Emma said, making air quotes, “she could qualify for an annulment.”
“It’s just too much drama for me. I had the pictures I needed, so I vamoosed and let them sort it out.”
“Wait, did you say you got the pictures?” Lilith was wide-eyed.
I nodded.
“Let me see!” Lilith cried, reaching for my bag.
I attacked my twin with a wooden spoon. She grabbed another off the counter, and we fenced. Emma snuck under us and grabbed the camera, flipping through my pictures of Jonathan.
“Oh. My. God! These are so hot.” She gasped. “Girl. You are not letting Sarah just waltz in and take that.”
“If that’s what Jonathan wants,” I said unhappily.
“What do you want?” Lilith asked me.
“I want…” I wanted sex, yes, but I also wanted to hang out with Jonathan and cook in his kitchen. I shrugged. “I guess I want to get to know him better. We haven’t even had a cat playdate yet.”
“You can’t quit before you even start,” Emma said.
“I don’t know if he even likes me.”
“He took you out on a date then took you back to his condo and fucked your brains out. Sounds like he likes you,” my twin said.
“But he loves Sarah,” I countered.
“Sarah is like the cheap dime-store plastic ornament on your Christmas tree that’s made in China from toxic waste,” Lilith said, wrinkling her nose. “No one wants celluloid ornaments on their Christmas tree. That stuff off-gasses and randomly bursts into flames, then boom! Your whole house is a fireball.”
“You are the handcrafted porcelain ornament with sentimental value,” Emma told me.
“No!” Lilith barked. “She’s Artemis, goddess of the moon, goddess of the hunt, fighting for her prize! You do not back down!”
“I’m not fighting over a man,” I said flatly, crossing my arms.
My twin placed her hands on my shoulders. “You can’t just give up. Maybe this is your one shot in your entire lifetime at true love. Go ovaries to the wall. If you flame out in a nuclear bomb of glory, we will build a shrine in your honor.”
“It’s going to be just like Justin all over again,” I groaned.
“No it