Ten years ago Zoe and Romans lives imploded.
When Zoes brother and Romans best friend Will died at a party their lives were ripped apart. After a drunken car accident and the man who saved him Roman joined the navy in order to run from from who he...
"Yeah were stuck in traffic though. His driver is trying to get around it but were still going to be late"
📲Will
"OK. Remember its at the penthouse. Maxtons parents are out of town"
Zoe📱
"I remember🙄"
📲Will
"Whatever. Hurry up. 😈Some friends are here so come find me"
After about an hour of sitting in almost stand still traffic because of a road closure for some celebrities' latest movie premiere Ro and I finally walk through the elevator doors to the penthouse. Located on the 55th floor of the Hurst building Maxton Hursts parents have one of the nicest homes in the Upper East Side. Despite its massive size the penthouse is crammed wall to wall with people tonight. When Maxton throws a party half of New York is liable to be there. When Ro showed up earlier tonight as my ride instead of my brother, I was both shocked and thankful. Will isn't the most reliable. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother but at only 20 years old he has had some scandals that would make Hollywood celebrities blush. He has had more and more scandals in the press recently for numerous offenses. Drugs, partying, girls, you name it and my brother is doing it. He's always been the rebel child of the two of us but in recent years he's grown far more unpredictable and his taste for heavier drugs has grown too. For as long as I can remember Ro has been his best friend and like family to me. He stepped in on the things my brother wasn't sober enough to notice; like the numerous times Ro had protected me from drunk guys at parties looking for more than I was willing to give. My relationship with Roman Beau Dupont has always been simple though. He was my older brothers' best friend, semi-professional party boy, my friend and my habitual protector. The last year or so it wasn't so simple anymore. We had grown closer and closer texting almost every day. The last couple months we had started stealing innocent little touches that grew into little kisses and lately more feverish ones. Three weeks ago, the day after my 18th birthday party Ro came storming into the kitchen while I was baking cookies spun me around and crash landed his lips against mine. The kiss was full of so much more fire than we had ever shared before. The taste of him was intoxicating. The flavor of the cinnamon gum he was always chewing lingered on his tongue as it mingled with mine. The kiss was short lived though because Will chose that moment to come barging through the door talking about some party he and Ro were supposed to be at in an hour. Since then, Ro and I had been sneaking off with any available chance to be alone. The car his driver Anthony chose to bring tonight luckily had a partition, so our time spent in traffic wasn't wasted.
When we finally made to tonights party it was only about 11pm and th place was already packed. Beau took my hand pulling me toward the dance floor.
"One quick dance Z and then we will go find Will."
I let him pull me towards the makeshift dance floor in the living room of the penthouse. I swear it is the most natural feeling in the world when his hands slide around my waist drawing me into him as we sway to the beat. We had agreed that telling my brother about us would be necessary soon before he figured it out on his own. I'm not excited at all for that conversation because Will is going to lose his mind, but it had to be done.
After only three songs and not nearly long enough I checked my phone to see if Will had texted. When there were no new messages decided it was time that Roman and I went to hunt him down because knowing him, he was probably either nose deep in something he shouldn't be or passed out somewhere having already done the things he shouldn't. I swear I spend half my time helping Roman carry my brother home after their parties and helping get him cleaned up. Will is luckily never a mean drunk though. He's always telling me in his inebriated states ho I'm the best sister ever and he wouldn't be able to live with our parents without me. He would always say it was he, I and Roman against the world. Growing up among the New York elite we all had seen more nannies than our actual parents except when they were handing us wads of money to go away or telling us how disappointed they were in us for embarrassing them. Honestly, I think most of Wills partying was just to get my parents attention. Any time he and my parents fought I knew there would be at least couple day long bender coming afterwards that would end with me cleaning him up, practically force feeding him electrolytes and meals and him buying me a massive bouquet of peonies (my favorite flower) and saying he was sorry for my having to see him that way. His partying had been worse lately and i wasn't sure who he was hanging out with as much because Roman had been with me a lot more lately, but I knew tonight was going to be a mess. Yesterday Will and our parents had had a massive argument over something and i walked in to the brownstone just as Will was leaving as our dad screamed obscenities at him. Our parents never cursed; at least not where people could hear but he was standing in the doorway screaming at will so I knew the fight was bad. Will didn't come back home that night but he texted today saying to come out to the party that he wanted to see me.
I turned to Roman to ask where he thought Will might be when I caught him staring across the dance floor with a murderous look on his face. Turning around to see who Roman was looking at, I caught sight of Cain Forbes. That blonde hair of his that his whole family shared was unmistakable. He looked out of his mind, but unfortunately that was how he and many of my brothers' friends looked most of the time. Absolutely out of their minds. Sadly, my brother and many of his friends had a taste for expensive party drugs. Lately though Wills current drug of choice was cocaine as far as I knew; I was hoping that we would grow out of it but these days it only seemed to be getting worse. Just as I was turning around to ask Roman what the look he was giving Cain was all about. I heard it. A loud horror movie like scream. Something about it sent a shiver down my spine and my gut instantly twisted. The next thing I know, Roman is dragging me across the dance floor towards the sound of the screaming. He's pushing us past a group of people standing in the doorway. The girl who was screaming though, was standing by the couch. She was looking down at someone as they lay spread across it. What I wasn't prepared for, and what my gut didn't warn me about enough, was what I saw when the group in front of me cleared. Will was laying on the couch. My brother was pale and lifeless on the leather couch of the Hursts lounge. His blue eyes that matched mine were cold and vacant staring blankly into nothing and his mouth hung open and a white foam like substance dripped from it. While that image of my brother is permanently burned into my brain the next several hours are a bit of a blur. Roman letting go of my hand and rushing across the room, screaming at Will to wake up. Shaking him violently as Wills head rolls back and forth between his shoulders. Then Roman screaming to call an ambulance while no sound ever came from Will. I don't remember much after that because all I could manage to do was close my eyes, cover my ears and pray that the next thing I felt would be Roman telling me that Will was OK and that it was just a close call, but that never came. Ambulances came, police came, detectives came. But no comfort or peace came. Will was gone.
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Will had according to the autopsy overdosed on cocaine laced with fentanyl. According to the detectives an amount smaller than a grain of sand of fentanyl could kill a person. My parents were stoic as usual, pretending that nothing had ever happened. My father was constantly the phone with lawyers talking about how this needed to be kept out of the media and his death was only too ever be publicized as a "tragic accident with no details to ever be released. My mother on the other hand spent most days in her "library" nursing a martini and staring out the window of the top floor of our brownstone overlooking Central Park. Something felt so wrong about my brothers death. Will had been a party animal when upset but he usually was pretty good about being sure of who he bought from, he never took anything that he didn't buy himself and he even tested it sometimes to check it. He was dangerously smart and observant when he wasn't high and while he loved to get high my brother didn't plan on dying from it. Like I said it often seemed like he only did it for attention. He had managed to keep straight As at Columbia where he was studying finance; how does guy who's high all the time manage that? Sometimes I swear I think he was faking even using because I had never once seen him with a hangover. Then the funeral came. Alone with my parents I kept looking for Roman in the chaos. But he wasn't there. It was like my brother died and so did Roman. It was as if I had imagined him. Not only had Will left me, but Roman had left me too. They had left me to fend for myself in the den of vipers that was high society New York.
