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At first she hadn't believed that the thing in the bed was her brother. There'd been a plot, a scheme, Felix and Oliver had pulled off some weird heist and left them with a mannequin. There'd been some mistake, somewhere, and Felix was fine; had he done something really fucked up? Paid some penniless actor or homeless man with a vague similarity to have plastic surgery and get copies of his tattoos? Why?
So he could disappear with Oliver fucking Quick.
Venetia had turned the possibility over and over in her mind. Hospitals did that to you; the constant light and noise, even in a private suite, was designed to drive people mad. That's how all the staff could work such long hours; they'd been turned into automatons by the Hospital, because after madness came numbness. She couldn't succumb to her theory properly, because Venetia didn't want to be a fucking doctor. She didn't want to be anything.
She just wanted her brother back.
How had they done it? The fight before the party- it had been a ruse. Maybe they'd swapped for the Fake Felix on that drive. Had there been a fake Oliver too? She hadn't seen either of them properly, too busy mingling and getting ready, but she'd known that something had changed. The double act was over. Felix was prowling about looking for a cunt to fuck instead of being really fucking gay about that little twat. She'd seen Oliver stumbling about, heard the occasional plaintive have you seen Felix when the music lulled.
He wouldn't ask her, of course, because then he'd have to tell her what happened. At the time, she'd assumed that Ollie had grown some balls to go with that massive cock and had just tried to snog Felix. He clearly wanted to, but Venetia knew her brother. That ship had sailed, Ollie, sorry. Felix was a fucking liability- everyone knew that boy's boarding schools led to some real lax standards when it came to hand stuff- but her brother would never kiss a boy. That might give the wrong impression, and although the Baronetcy passed to the oldest male heir… Well, who knew what lawyers could do these days. Maybe they'd wrangle a way to hand it over to Peregrine, the way her uncles wanted.
Or maybe they had snogged, and Oliver's technique had put Felix off that avenue of self-discovery.
Yes, it had been pretty hot when they'd had their liaison, but when she looked back… She'd had worse, but she'd also had far better. The mandatory booze with dinner and all that bullshit about being a vampire had done a lot of the work for him, along with the mist and the moonlight. Hindsight, though, stripped back the romance. Oliver was a little dog, panting and licking away, so the moment Felix whistled he was gone.
It wasn’t as if she had cared. He had been a distraction. The only single man for miles who wasn’t staff or a blood relation, a little bit of rough to stave off summer boredom. Venetia was used to posh boys, so what was the harm in trying something new? It wasn’t as if she wanted to keep him, just fuck him until the novelty wore off. But oh no, Oliver wanted to fuck Felix, and Venetia was- once again- the spare. The insurance, in case it all went wrong.
It was teetering on the brink of wrongness for a while, but Felix was stable. That had made Venetia burst into hysterical laughter, her parents staring at her as if she had pissed on the floor at a funeral. She hadn't been able to stammer the punchline that had popped into her head, something about how will you get all the horses out of him?
Knowing that he'd probably make it, probably wake up, had clutched her by the shoulders and forced her into delirious joy.
Felix would wake up, and either it would be him or it would be this clever replacement he and Oliver had created. If it was the latter, Venetia would hunt them down, the stupid fucks, and slap Felix until his face was bruised and swollen. He wouldn't be able to get that eyebrow piercing in, she'd turn him into a puffy mess, and he'd deserve it for hurting her so badly.
She knew it was the former. Their hands, her fingers threaded through his, reuniting their wobbly constellations. You couldn't fake those, the way some of the lines had gone fuzzy and others stayed sharp, because she had pinioned his hand between her knees and poked stars into his skin. Her hand had been sore, because she'd gone first, and they'd been silly and drunk and so young. Venetia's grip was tight, to make up for Felix not responding at all. Using her other hand to bend his fingers was both utterly useless and felt like fraud. Venetia needed to know when he surfaced enough to hold her back. She wouldn't let go. Not even to sleep, curling as best she could in the uncomfortable vinyl-covered armchair that gave mum the heebie-jeebies because it was so hideous.
Mum and Dad were here every day, but Venetia was permanent. She showered in the little bathroom off of Felix's private room, as fast as she could. Using body wash as shampoo meant her hair felt like overcooked noodles when it got wet, but Venetia would have shaved her head if it'd have had some benefit. Not that she was going to ask if it'd help, but if someone mentioned it…
She slumped, giving Felix's hand another testing squeeze. His chest rose and fell, breathing on his own. As if it was a milestone. Learning to talk, read, walk, breathe… She swallowed, mouth pinching tight so she wouldn't cry. Tears just burned, and she'd been draining the jugs of water the nurses left by Felix's bedside but she still felt dehydrated.
The hand in hers, huge and as familiar as her own, moved. A twitch, barely a twitch. Venetia squeezed again, then held her breath. Still as the grave.
Felix squeezed back, and she suppressed a scream and twisted to slam her free hand on the call button.
She'd been, as ever, both right and wrong.
It wasn’t Felix. Not her Felix, anyway, but Venetia wasn't sure how Oliver had managed to steal her brother's soul but leave his body. Had he done some ritual, left hair under Felix's pillow or stolen a drop of his blood? Where was Felix now- were there two of him? Was Oliver Quick holding hands with a smiling, happy doppelganger of her brother, having carved out all of his misery and left it behind?
The bitch that wore her brother's face kept scowling, and Venetia wanted to take off her shoes and throw them at him. Demand that he go back to normal, show some fucking gratitude. He was alive, wasn’t he? Oh, stupid Felix, doing too many drugs- except, when she'd asked why he'd decided to go overboard, he refused to even look at her.
He knew better. He knew she knew that he knew better. What, he was Scarface now? Slamming his stupid face into mountains of coke, considering himself immune to overdosing?
She wrote idiot into the crossword in her crappy Real Life magazine, although the clue was to rub out (5). It was therapeutic, filling the little white boxes with the words she couldn't say. Twat and traitor and whatthefuck, watching Felix sulk and wallow and not tell her what was happening. If this was because she'd had one shitty little hookup with his poor little pet… Ooh, sorry Vee, you touched Oliver so you're excommunicated.
The fucking thanks she got. Sat by his bedside, kept vigil, contemplated how she'd end it if he died. Not even a thank you, or a I’m glad you're here. Even when he was in the hospital, before he was moved to the rehab- still all delirious and mostly out of it- he hadn't even smiled at her. He kept looking around, as if he was waiting for someone, and Venetia knew who.
She turned a page in the magazine, glancing over to the bed. Felix was staring at the door again, face like thunder, and she cleared her throat. “Want me to read My Ex Had A Double Life? It's juicy.”
“No.” He didn't even turn his head. “I don’t want to hear that shit. I'm done with liars.”
Process of elimination pointed to only one possibility, and it wasn't her. Clarity. An odd feeling, given the murky emotional water she'd been wading through, because it came with a heaping side of amusement.
She knew what was happening. It clicked into place like the final piece of a boring puzzle. She had seen it, never felt it, but she had friends who had done exactly this, just with more chick flicks and ice cream and less overdosing. It was a breakup. A fucking breakup, although clearly Felix had no idea. He hadn't come to her, panicking, because he liked a boy. Ergo, this was even worse, because Felix was mourning a relationship he’d never fucking had.
The complete and utter empty-headed wanker.
“Everyone fucking hates him. It's hilarious.”
Nothing like a near-death experience to bring family back together. Not that either Venetia or Farleigh had been near death themselves, but it had meant they could bypass awkward apologies and get back to normal. No need to acknowledge the elephant in the room, or even hint that they’d never considered that he might be innocent when that email was sent. Comparing notes on Oliver Quick had been easy, once his name was brought up, because both Farleigh and Venetia had come to the same conclusion.
Felix had a big, stupid, gay crush on that weird little dickhead. They'd argued or something, and Felix had spiraled and Oliver had fled. The secret consensus was that Felix deserved it. He’d broken plenty of hearts, it was about time. Especially considering that poor girl who'd… And no wonder, if the first person to turn Felix Catton emo was a boy.
“So he's not even cheering up a little?” She was waiting for her nails to dry. Farleigh was on speakerphone and there were smears of black polish on her duvet cover. It didn't matter. They'd be laundered for her, put through one of the mechanisms of the house. “Honestly, good. It’ll stop mum from trying to get me on that stupid grapefruit diet.”
“Is she still on that?” Farleigh purred, not mentioning anything about how citrus is acidic, so it must be even worse to bring back up. Besides, she'd been doing that less. Not stopped, just a lull, her attention focused on Oxford. She liked to imagine Felix stalking around, face like thunder, finally reduced to being human. The charm on his life had been broken, Felix being pissy and disliked made it easier to love him. No more envy over the golden boy, watching him sail past while she struggled. “Someone should tell her that too much vitamin C fucks with the collagen integrity of skin.”
“Does it?”
“No.” They both laughed conspiratorially, before back to the true subject at hand. Farleigh reported back to Vee like a secret agent, and they gloated together. “We went to a party yesterday. He got into a yelling match with Annabel's new boyfriend- Jake? He was going on about liars again, and Jake assumed Felix was talking shit about Annabel.”
“They're all so fucking blind.” It seemed amazing that nobody else had noticed that Felix being an insufferable misery coincided with the sudden disappearance of Oliver Quick. All too wrapped up in their own drama, Vee supposed, and now the shine was gone from Felix none of them gave a shit. “So, what, he got in a fight?”
“No. He stormed off in a huff, and I stayed. It was more fun without him.”
“He'll get past it. Eventually.”
She found Sir James sitting at his desk, head in his hands. The phone was beeping- that was what had drawn her in, and the click of the handset being replaced seemed to bring her father back to life. He blinked, sitting up, but there was a grayish cast to his face that didn't sit right, but Venetia wouldn't question it. He adjusted his jacket, meeting her eyes. They rarely spoke one on one; they loved each other, but in a detached way. It was so much more civilized, and it also meant she never had to directly confront him about his friendship with Handsy Henry aside from sly barbs when it could be laughed off. Both of her parents hated ugliness, except when it was red-faced and had good cigars and a disgusting moustache and kept trying to get their daughter alone.
“Oh. Venetia. It's you.” Her hand was within his reach, and he patted it with a sigh. “I've just gotten off the phone with your brother.”
His face didn't exactly say I have had a lovely chat about how lovely Bali's beaches are, and clearly dad wanted to tell her. Make her shoulder some of his burden. Venetia smiled winningly. “Is he having a nice time?”
“He must have been.” Sir James smiled back, and it was so wrong that Venetia felt her face drop. He looked like one of those wind-up monkeys who bashed cymbals together, all teeth and staring eyes. “The stupid little fucker’s knocked some girl up.”