Mad Love (Slateview High 3)

Poppy had stayed with me the entire time, arranging my hair in an elaborate style and doing my makeup before helping me slip into the dress mother had chosen.

It was a routine I was so accustomed to I knew it in my bones, and my body went through the motions even as my mind slowly sank into a thick, sludgy morass.

Every blink of my eyelids seemed to happen in slow motion, and I was strangely conscious of the edges of my periphery, as if I were peering through a window at the world around me.

Anger still sat heavy in my heart, but with the sedative clouding my mind, I couldn’t quite feel it anymore.

It was there. I knew it was there. And I knew why it was there.

But it was as if it was no longer my own.

“Are you ready?”

Mom’s voice was curt, anger simmering in her tone. She had a small pink line down the side of her cheek where one of my fingernails had scratched her, and I could tell she’d tried to cover it up with makeup. Poppy had put extra concealer on my cheekbone too, where a small bruise had formed from the stinging force of my mother’s palm.

We would both be going downstairs with battle scars, wounds we had traded with each other—but as long as they were covered up, I supposed nobody would care.

“Yes.” I nodded dully, then glanced over at Poppy.

She looked like she was trying to keep her expression carefully neutral, but she didn’t quite succeed. I could see worry and horror in the tight lines of her face, and I wondered what she was thinking. Was she horrified for me? Or because of me?

My dulled mind wasn’t in any kind of shape to even guess at the answer to that, so I let it drift out of my mind as I followed Mom down the hall. The hubbub of voices floated up to us before we even reached the stairs, and I was certain that the ballroom would be full of guests. Just like always, my arrival had been carefully timed and coordinated for the maximum effect, and the buzz of conversation faded as I descended the steps, looking for all the world like a queen.

Still on autopilot, I made my way through the gathered crowd, smiling and kissing cheeks and accepting congratulations. My mother’s hand stayed on my elbow, a constant, silent warning not to step out of line. Maybe she was also trying to make sure I didn’t stumble or weave as I walked—that I didn’t do anything to give away the fact that at least half of me was missing right now, snuffed out by the drugs.

The half that remained was a dutiful daughter, a practiced hostess, and a perfect lady.

Minutes ticked by as the party wore on, but I could hardly tell. I wasn’t sure if the whole thing was going by in a rush or dragging out endlessly, but when I caught sight of Barrett coming toward me, something inside my numb heart and mind tried to rouse itself. Tried to tear through the thick veil that’d been wrapped around me.

No.

No, this isn’t right at all.

“Ah, there she is!”

Barrett beamed at me as he reached me. He had the same smarmy smile I remembered, and his father stood just behind him, an identical smile on his face. They both gave me appraising looks like I was a particularly valuable piece of art, but not like I was a person.

When Barrett leaned forward to press a kiss to my lips, I jerked in surprise, yanking my head back and to the side so that his lips brushed the shell of my ear. Even that slight touch was enough to make nausea roil my stomach and my skin prickle unpleasantly. Not just because of the touch itself, but because of what it meant—what it stood for.

No. This is all wrong.

I stepped back clumsily before he could try to kiss me again, and my mother’s hand tightened on my upper arm, her nails digging into my skin.

Warning me.

Barrett’s eyebrows furrowed for a second, and he shot me a look that was much less pleased than the first one he’d given me. There was an assessing quality to it, as if he were sizing me up. As if he’d realized for the first time that I was a human being with agency, not just some prize to be bartered for and won.

And he didn’t appear to like that realization one bit.

He gave me one last hard look, then slipped his own mask back on, turning to greet several prominent Baltimore businessmen who’d no doubt been invited by my father.

We barely spoke for the rest of the party, and after one more rebuffed attempt to kiss me, Barrett kept his distance entirely.

But that wouldn’t be the end of it. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because I had shown I had no interest in him, that would mean this thing was over. His father had a deal with my father, and that meant even if Barrett decided he had no interest in marrying someone who didn’t even like him, it would make no difference.

Both of our fates were sealed.

Dad barely looked my way for the entire party, spending all of his time and energy schmoozing with people who had once been his equals. I heard him talking loudly at one point to a group of them about Barrett and me, and when he attributed our upcoming marriage to “young love,” my stomach clenched uncomfortably.