At first they had just talked about random things like the weather, about the school clarisse attended, then he'd asked her why someone dressed as she was, was doing in a bar much less drinking. She had felt mildly offended by his comment about her dressing style and she let him know it, but he had raised his hands as if in surrender, telling her he didn't mean anything by it and that he was only teasing her.
That had brought a smile to her face. She told him the reason she was there was to forget her mother who has just died and it was actually her cousins who brought her there.
They talked for a long time, then he had asked her if she was ready to go, and she told him no that she was going t wait for her cousins. He bade her good night and was about to leave when she changed her mind and decided to go with him. Looking back to that day she had often wondered if things would have gone differently if she hadn't gone with him? It probably would.
She had been a lot drunk than she thought she originally was and since she couldn't go home on her own and he didn't know her place, he had booked a room at a nearby hotel for her to spend the night and sleep off the alcohol then go home the next day.
How kind and thoughtful he had been, very different from the Cole she knew now.
After he booked the room he helped her climb the short distance to the room. What a spectacle they made of themselves, her staggering and him trying to hold her up. When they got to the room , he helped her take off her shoes and then helped her walk to the bed to lie down . After he helped her lay down to sleep he'd turned to go . Clarisse didn't know what came over her that night but she remembered that she had suddenly felt afraid that if he left, she wouldn't see him again . So she'd told him not go and then she kissed him. Then all broke loose, all the pent up desire that had been simmering between them since their time at the bar became undone. He had kissed her back with such vigor and they had fallen into bed and made love till they were both exhausted, it had been wonderful, and she knew she had fallen in love with him. He had been her first, he had been her last.
She had woken up in the morning alone, no note, no nothing. And for a long time she'd deceived herself into thinking that he was going to come find her. But after a long time and he didn't show up for her, she had began to think she dreamt the whole thing until she had begun experiencing early signs of pregnancy.
That day she had lost her virginity and has come to regret it maybe not at first. She had come to regret it because the man who she had thought loved her as she loved him didn't even like her. To him she had only been a one night stand that he could easily forget and nothing more.
After searching and waiting for him for months and they later found out he was dead, at first she had felt sad, depressed even angry to have been denied her chance of having her own happy family, but later as time went on she had come to terms with it. A little part of her had felt relieve by the justification that the only reason Cole hadn't come for her was because he couldn't. And now she finds out that the only reason he even remembered her was to use her in his devious plans against her father.
She regretted the day she met him , but that day she had gotten something better . Her daughter and she would never regret that.
* * * * * *
Vincent was at his study sitting at his desk , his legs crossed at the ankle on top of his table, casually sipping wine direct from the bottle. He was smiling ruefully at no one but himself, well maybe not exactly no one because he was talking to a picture of himself that was sitting on the table. Except it wasn't him in the picture, it was his brother Cole.
"She called me cole." He said a sad look on his no longer smiling face. "How she must have really wished you were alive. She thinks am you, well I didn't expect her to recognise the difference between us, twins as we are and never knowing you had a brother. It was like a slam in the gut to hear her call me you." He said talking as if in conversation with the picture.
" I know people have mistaken us for each other through out the years, but her calling me cole felt different, like an accusation." He grimaced as if in pain. " I could never be you, my kind, understanding brother, the filial son . Cole, you were better than me in every way . I was rebellious since childhood, unkind, disobedient to our parents name it . I was the opposite of you in every way. You didn't deserve to be killed in that accident, our parents didn't deserve to be killed in that accident, I wish I had died in your stead." He said, his voice choked with suppressed tears. He paused for some time to let emotions which he rarely displayed reside back to the recesses of his mind. "Has it really been a year and five months now since that day you called, to tell me about the girl you had met in a bar and slept with. And I said 'wow your first one night affair congrats brother.' But you had sounded so disrupt, saying how you felt bad for the girl because you had used her to forget Lillian who had just broken up with you. That at first it had felt nice to sleep with her, to forget for the moment, but when you woke up the next morning and looked at her face , you felt guilty and couldn't stay with her any longer so you sneaked away." He said reminiscing.
"Then i said , you had come to the wrong person to air your guilty conscience, that i was hardly a saint much less the person to seek advice from, after all i had one night affairs all the time and left behind strings of broken hearts most of those times .
Then you'd chuckled and said you only called me to get it off your chest, not seek advice from me and that you were going to find her and apologize and make her understand it had been just a one night thing no attachments."
"Then the next day i received a call from a foreign number, thinking it you or mom or dad calling, i answered the phone only to be told that you guys had died in a fatal car accident." He said as a tear slid down his face ." I couldn't even say goodbye, couldn't ask for forgiveness from our parents for causing them heartache throughout the years."
"Am so sorry to you people and I hope you forgive for what am doing, especially you Cole. I know you felt bad for using Clarisse, but i feel nothing about using her to make her dad pay and he would pay, for the crimes he committed against you and so many other people.