The Love of Lies

Apology

Ashton’s POV

I came home with not just several boxes of cookies, but a few mini-Bundt cakes, some puff pastries, and brownies. I don’t know why I feel as bad as I do, but I genuinely dislike what's happening between me and Cori.

Regardless of what she thinks, I know that I took the condom off, and had I been smarter, I would have told Syd what happened, but I was too afraid to make the woman look bad to her boss, so I didn’t give him any specifics.

I knocked on Cori’s door for what felt like hours, but the woman simply would not open it, and eventually, I put everything away, and retreated to my room, where my brother entered a few minutes later.

“You can’t sleep here.”

“Why not? This is my house.”

“Did you forget about the agreement with Cori?”

“So what? She won’t even know I’m here.” My brother looks like he’s having trouble believing me, so I very impolitely ask him to shut my door.

“Ashton bro, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What's wrong with you? Everyone in this family acts like this is normal. None of you know Cori, and yet, all of you have taken her side, forgetting that she tried to cut me out of my baby's life.”

“Stop right there. Cori never did that. She was wrong for not wanting to tell you, but she was under the impression that you were engaged. Did you know that Vanessa smacked her in the face?”

“What?” I know that Vanessa isn’t a kind or patient woman, but I’ve never known her to raise her hand to anyone.

“Cori left your apartment completely humiliated that night, and for whatever reason, she thought you were showing up at her job to blame her for ruining your relationship by not immediately leaving.”

“Why would her mind go there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. All I can tell you is that she didn’t want a baby; she still doesn’t, and with the way you're behaving, I wonder if it would have been better for us to have let the girl stay in her own apartment.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t planning to tell me about OUR baby.”

“Ashton… You don’t even want a kid, so why do you keep saying it like she was trying to force you into something? If you offered to sign away your rights right now, that girl would be happy to be rid of you.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” I lay back in bed, resting a pillow on my face for ‘solitude,’ but when I hear that my brother hasn’t left, I lift it to look at him again. “What?”

“If you say one word to her while you're here, I’ll fight you.”

“And you’d lose.”

“Untrue. Cori would definitely have my back.” I throw my pillow at Troy, who quickly closes my room door, and although I know he was joking, I take his words seriously.

If she’ll listen, the only thing Cori will hear from me is an apology; nothing more.

Cori’s POV

I was relieved when Ashton stopped knocking at the door, but part of me was worried that he’d barge in while I was asleep, so I slept on the floor opposite my bed, giving me time to hide if the man decided to randomly become violent.

The way he looked at me when he snatched my cookies was malicious, so I know he wanted to hurt me, and having grown up in an environment where abuse was a daily occurrence, I refuse to have it become my life as well.

I worked hard to break the cycle; first by getting away from my father the minute he put his hands on me, then by staying away from predatory people, and finally by working hard.

I’ve kept to myself for most of my life, even when I was at my lowest of lows and living out of my car, I did it with my head held high, and right now is no different from any of those moments.

Tomorrow, I will leave this man and his family, regardless of the consequences. If I have to live in a homeless shelter I will, because the last thing I’m going to do is become Ashton’s punching bag.

I didn’t get myself pregnant, but I can understand his frustration, especially since he was planning to ‘share’ me with his friend. I don’t mean anything to the man, never have and never will, and I can accept that. All I ask is that he allows me to mean nothing somewhere else.

Ashton’s POV

I woke super early, hoping to catch Cori in the kitchen, but she never left her room, and it makes me think back to her list.

My brother and Julia woke shortly after, and I watch them eat the pastries I bought for Cori for breakfast. I’m irritated, but there are enough for everyone, and I can always buy more if I have to.

“Is she not going to eat?”

“She works tonight, so probably not.”

“Is that good for her?”

“If she’s hungry she’ll come out.” I’m not sure that’s true, so I attempt to knock on the woman’s door, but Troy stops me. “We just told you that she works tonight. She had a long day, let her get some rest.”

Annoyed, I start making coffee, but only after Julia leaves for school, and Troy retreats to his home office, does Cori make her way into the kitchen, completely ignoring me the entire time.

She briefly glances at the several boxes of cookies before opening one of the boxes and staring into it as if she’s considering if dessert is a good breakfast.

I take it as my cue to drop my apology, but my words have the opposite effect, and Cori shuts the box, pushing it away before turning to the fridge.

“There are other flavors,” I say, pushing another box toward the woman who has pulled out a carton of eggs from the fridge. “Maybe you can just have one?”

“What’s in it?” Cori looks up at me with a dead expression that I’ve never actually seen her wear before.

“This one looks like its cranberry orange flavor.”

“And what did you put in it?” I flinch, realizing that Cori thinks I’ve tampered with the goods. I don't know where she would have gotten that idea from, but I don’t lose my cool about it.

“Cori, why would I poison you?”

“Some people are born evil,” the woman quips, quietly cracking an egg into a pan, watching it sizzle on the stove as though she wished she could trade places with it.

“Look, I was a jerk for what I did, but I was just angry about the things you told my father. I was just going to hold your cookies until you spoke to me; I didn’t mean for them to fall.”

“When I want someone to talk to me, I ask them to have a conversation, but I guess you only know how to deal in hostage situations.” Now I’m angry, but I don’t let my anger get the best of me, knowing that I’m the reason for this problem.

“You don’t know the pressure I’m under, and having my father talk to me the way he did when I’m working so hard to make him proud made me feel-”

“Insignificant, invisible, irrelevant, and worthless; you’ve told me that when I thought we were friends, but I don’t see how I have anything to do with your family problems when they existed long before I came into the picture.” Cori flips her egg, and places two slices of bread in the toaster, moving gracefully across the kitchen, but her face is still stoic.

“Do you really think that ‘YOUR’ baby isn’t adding to my stress?”

“Don’t worry; we don’t plan to add to it much longer.” Cori grabs her toast, flips the egg onto the bread, cleans the pan she used and starts walking away from me, leaving me to ponder what she meant by myself.

Normally, I would be at work at this hour, so I literally have nothing to do, and my confusion leads me to my brother’s study, where he has his trading PC setup.

The screens display lines and graphs on pretty much everything, which is my brother’s main job within our family company. He lives for noticing trends before they can be exploited, and if he were a more vocal and authoritative person, he would be taking my father’s place, not me.

“Is Cori moving out?”

“After she has the baby,” Troy says, scanning a document in his hand as he talks to me. “Didn’t you know that?”

“So, she’s just going to have my kid and leave?”

“She can’t stay here,” my brother replies, slightly scoffing as though I’m an i***t. “Bro, she’s young and educated. Having a baby won’t be the end of the world for her.” I fall silent and Troy clears his throat. “Did you say something to her?” He asks, standing as though he needs to go check on the woman.

“We spoke when she came out to make breakfast,” I reply.

“Did she accept your apology?”

“She accused me of poisoning the cookies I bought.” My brother laughs, seemingly tickled by my words, but I’m deeply bothered by that.

“What kind of man does she think I am?”

“The kind you’ve been acting like.” I narrow my eyes at Troy, who I know isn’t about to say something cute. “A d*ck,” he says, cheerfully smiling. “A very big one.”

Cori’s POV

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want every single cookie in the kitchen, but Ashton can’t be trusted.

Aside from that, my father used to buy my mother gifts when he would go too far in how he treated her, and every time she accepted them and his fake apology, she made me promise that I would never be as foolish as she was, and I won’t.

Fortunately, I don’t love Ashton, so nothing he does really gets to me, nor do I have a warped sense of attachment to the man.

As I stare up at the ceiling, trying to go back to sleep so that I’m not exhausted at work, someone knocks, and based on the time, it can’t be Julia.

“Cori, it’s me, Troy. Can I come in?” I open the door to the man, who has a very tempting plate of desserts in his hand, complete with a glass of milk that looks like it’s singing my name.

“I don’t want any,” I lie, and the man calls me out.

“The drool on the side of your mouth tells me otherwise. Also, Julia and I ate a ton of these for breakfast. If they were poisoned, we’d know it by now.”

“Maybe your brother gave you the good ones.” Troy laughs as he sets the plate down, closes his eyes, spins it, picks up a random cookie and takes a bite. “Satisfied?”

“Technically, most ingested poisons don’t have immediate effects, and some can build up in the system over time, like arsenic, lead, and-”

“CORI!” Troy can barely contain his laughter, but I’m not completely joking. “Why would Ashton want to kill you?” I tilt my head at the man, who shrugs in what I think is agreement. “It's a cookie. My brother bought like three hundred dollars’ worth of them because he wanted to show you that he was sorry, and while I’m not telling you to accept his apology, you can at least have a cookie, you deserve it.”

“I-I do deserve it.” I find myself reaching for one of the cookies, letting the buttery goodness coat my mouth before taking a deep drink of cold milk.

“You should bring some to work tonight,” Troy adds, but I’m too distracted by gluttony to respond.