“If I hadn’t thrown down that fucking coin, my dad wouldn’t even know about Story. I never would have followed her. Never would have been forced to marry her or make her my mistress. The house wouldn’t have burned down. None of this would have happened; the world wouldn’t know.”
“Careful, your poker face is slipping.” I gritted.
“Years ago, I made a mistake—”
I dragged my finger across my bottom lip. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“You did the same thing to my sister.”
I saw red. “I might be the worst thing to happen to your sister, but I never did what you did.”
“You ghosted her! You ghosted my sister for decades.”
It took me a minute to breathe back the rage. “The only reason I’m not beating you bloody right now is because that mistake you made is now front-page news. She needs me more than you need a broken bone.”
West stared behind me, at the door Story had just gone through, a distant look in his eyes. If I thought he were human, I’d think this affected him.
Maybe it was a reminder of what he’d done, and how he couldn’t erase it.
But I didn’t think he was human. He was a narcissist, a control freak, and his image had been tarnished.
I opened the door to find Story, slamming it shut on West.
STORY
The eyes of socialites in their spring dresses were glowing red monsters in the twilight garden. Everywhere I looked, someone looked back. I stumbled over cobblestone—I didn’t know where I was going, just that I needed to go somewhere.
The fading sun was too bright.
The twinkling lights Tansy hung blinded like a sun flare.
West was the victim, because why would a victim marry her rapist? Why would she stay with her rapist?
I shouldn’t have gone online. That was the worst mistake. I wanted to know how far it had spread, and instead…my fairy tale slammed back in my fucking face.
It’s over. Grayson could never love her after this. Why would she do this?
They were in my head—everyone who thought they knew me, who thought it was their right to use my life as their story—they were in my head.
A few feet beyond, visible through falling nighttime petals, the garden’s tall hedges separated.
The ocean.
I covered my head with my hands, ducking through whispers that built around me like small spider bites on my skin.
She could have run to a prince, instead she ran to her fucking rapist.
It wasn’t the people calling me a liar that made knives form in my chest. It was the ones who’d previously appropriated my story as their fairy tale. They knew enough to yell the fears I whispered to myself.
I was Team Story, now I’m Team Fuck Her.
I fell against a hedge, grasping my chest until I twisted it into tight rosettes.
It was darker here. Silky petals fell in the shadows, catching the moonlight. The salty, soft smell of the ocean was a siren’s call. Shadowed beneath tall hedges on the edge of the garden, with everyone at least a few feet away, I felt safer—then two women in pink and orange cocktail gowns stepped in my way.
“Called it.”
Aundi and Pipa. Pipa held a plate of the small cakes Tansy had prepared for the party, filled with various frostings and jams.