In so many other instances, that would’ve been less complicated. One less thing tying me to Westley du Lac. But you know my past, and I know yours. So I’ll be honest—there’s a briar growing inside my chest.
Every day I remember how he felt inside me.
But now it’s both nights.
Both times.
The night I didn’t choose, and the night I did.
And now I can’t differentiate them inside my head.
And I hate myself.
A deep, gnawing cavern of self-loathing.
For liking it.
For muddying the waters further. For having no one to blame but myself. I need him to be bad. A villain. But he isn’t, not always. That night is a briar inside my chest, and my heart is twisting it together, wrong, tangled, and cutting.
I wish I’d told you the truth. I wish I’d let you take me away.
It would have been easier than this.
Five
STORY
The days blurred into one long, rainy song, sung outside my window by the unseen birds. Soon the week was over, and I had written to Grayson every day. Until my eyelids were heavy, until the words in my head settled into an ache in my chest.
Every morning, I felt little stirrings in my gut. I was connected to Grayson on butterfly wings, like our child was trying to reach him too.
My only relief was that West never came back. Every morning, vitamins were waiting on my nightstand, like the kind Grayson had left, but West was never there.
It was just me and the cruel Madame.
Thwack.
“That fork is for—”
“Dessert,” I cut off.
Thwack.
I breathed through my nostrils, focusing on the dinner of some thick, red soup. All the food here was overly fancy and it made me miss Grayson more. I missed him knowing exactly what food I craved.
Now, I craved the sugar on his lips.
At least this room had become some kind of comfort. It was older than even Beryl’s grandfather, I’m sure, and every day I found something left behind. One of the four posters of my bed was carved with the scratched-out initials J.C., directly below them, the wood was engraved with J.S.G.
I tried to imagine the girl before me, and I felt a little less alone each day.
It’s beautiful too. Pale white wallpaper with gold leaf damask covered the walls, and as I’d looked closer, I’d discovered faint lines of poetry. All different lines from different poets. I’d never seen something like that anywhere in my life.
Buried beneath a poem…
There was no way, right? My uncle had never left Crowne Point.
Thwack.