It makes no sense.
Unless every little thing we’ve done has been…
I couldn’t fathom it.
I was so close to the spot I’d seen them. Just a few more feet and I could confirm what I’d seen. I pushed aside the remaining satin and black… and was grabbed so tightly above my elbow I snapped back like a rubber band.
“What are you doing?” my mom demanded.
“I…” He was just beyond this wall of people.
I pushed my mom away, breaking through the last of them.
Empty. Just a dark window and glittering sconces. I looked left and right. Had I imagined it? As relief was about to cool my anxiety, I noticed my mother’s must-sparkle-like-a-diamond window was smudged. I stepped closer and pressed my finger to the glass, imagining Theo and Gemma.
Their mouths heating the glass.
I fell against the glass. It had to be a mistake.
“What is it this time?” Mother pulled me from the window. “Not enough of a spotlight on Abigail Crowne during her own engagement party?”
“How did you find my box?” I asked, a horrible thought slicing through me. “Did you guess? Did you see me put it there?”
“I have better things to do than go rummaging
through the FEMA relief zone that is your room. It was given to me.”
I all but slid down the window.
There was only one person who could give it to her.
Tansy Crowne didn’t lie. Truth hurt better than lies. Truth was a better, sharper weapon to wield. Lies were blunt, vulgar weapons used by weaker people, those who didn’t have the power to ascertain truths.
And yet.
“He wouldn’t do that. You’re lying.”
She didn’t honor such an accusation with a response, lifting up her wineglass and waving to someone across the room.
That, combined with what I’d seen, chipped away what little hope I had left.
I’m going to break your heart, and you’re going to thank me.
This had all been one, elaborate ruse. A game to trick me. To make me fall in love with him. The air was too thin. I took sharp, gasping breaths, but it just made it worse. My vision was going black, my knees giving way.
My mom was on me in an instant, eyes elsewhere, smiling like I wasn’t having a meltdown. “Stand up before you make a scene,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I. Can’t. Breathe.”
“Then grow another set of lungs.”
She hauled me off the floor, linking arms with me like we were going on a mother-daughter walk, when in reality she was tugging me out of the ballroom.
“Let me go!” I tore out of my mother’s grip. “Can’t you see something is wrong? Don’t you care?”
The muscle in her jaw twitched. “I think you’ve had enough fun tonight.”
“I think so,” I agreed.