The video changes for a third time, this time creating a grainy image of Calla, McAvoy and – what with the uncanny resemblance to other another – a man who can only be McAvoy’s uncle.
“We have a job opportunity we’d like to offer you, Miss Becker,” he says.
I watch Calla grin, gripping the pen and notepad in her lap tightly.
This must have been the moment she learnt I was going to be her new client.
I grip the back of my neck, squeezing. Hard. While tears prick the edge of my eyes.
How fucking stupid have I been?
All along, Calla has known who I am.
She’s known who my brother is.
The video fades before it loops around again in a vicious never-ending cycle I can’t seem to stop.
My heart feels like it’s been fucking ripped from my chest.
God.
All along… Did Calla ever even want me for me? Or did she just want to use me as a step ladder to get to Grey? The golden Millen brother.
Maybe that’s why she came up with the fake dating thing… To get McAvoy off her back yes, there’s no denying that, but she picked mespecifically. Because she knew. She knew who I was. Who my brother is. What she could gain by stepping into his circle.
I feel sick.
I’ve been so blinded by love that I never saw this coming.
Again.
How could I have been so stupid?
Of course she wouldn’t want me.
Feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut, I bend my knees and sink to the ground, burying my head in my hands.
How can I have let this happen a second time? I feel like I’m living in a sick version of déjà vu. This isn’t the first time someone’s used me to get to my younger brother, but I stupidly thought after Monica, that she would be the last.
My ex-girlfriend Monica entangled me into her web of lies, so much so I even had a ring hidden in my sock drawer, until the day she revealed she’d only been dating me to get on Grey’s radar. We fought. It wasn’t pretty. And the next day she upped and left, taking her belongings and the dog we’dbought together with her. She blocked my number, my socials, even my email and that was that. I never heard from her again.
I swallow back the urge to throw up.
How could I have been so stupid?
For a heartbeat there I really did believe in fate; the way Calla and I kept finding our way back to another one.
Now I know different. Of fucking course this was all premediated.
With shaking hands, I hit call on the unknown number contact. But of course, there’s no answer. I don’t know what else I expected.
Feeling rather like I’m floating or at least starring in a bad dream I’ll wake up from, I switch to Calla’s contact name, pressing the phone to my ear tightly as it rings.
“Hey you,” she answers. “I was just—”
“How long have you known?”
Calla giggles nervously on the other end. “Known what?”
