head throbbed as that shot through her brain, piercing through
her like a pitchfork with its tines of straight agony.
“No. Wait. We need to talk about this.” She reached out but
stopped as Giana stepped back. She raised one eyebrow,
haughty and condescending. Her face was a blank mask again,
but the edges had peeled back, the depths of her eyes revealing
all the truth of the motion she couldn’t hide. The ice queen had
returned in full force, but she wasn’t the same as before. That
façade had been diminished somehow. Still, it was unnerving
how her warm jade eyes could go so cold so quickly. “I can’t
just leave. Giana, please.”
“Talk? Now you want to talk?” Giana shook her head, but
there was something, a wrinkle at the corner of her mouth,
when Coralyn begged. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing. Giana
looked like she wanted to throw a hand over Coralyn’s mouth
to stifle what she could only think of as lies. She might have
been willing to talk earlier, but her good will had been all but
erased.
“Fuck that. Your little storybook fantasy is over.” She made
a shooing motion, which humiliated Coralyn and stung her
further. “Go. Drive home in those pajamas in your shitty car
for all I care. Drive back to your horrible little apartment, to
your broken little life.”
Coralyn felt like she’d just been hurled against the wall by
the force of her astonishment, but this time being pressed up
against that wall was sheer torture. Giana’s words hit her so
hard, and she wasn’t quick enough to dodge them.
“You’re being so cruel.” Coralyn still couldn’t believe she’d
heard right. Where was even an ounce of that woman from
before. That woman who Coralyn had needed and appreciated