“Why did the Horsemen want it?”
She shrugged. “They don’t tell you that.”
Gemma had her hair cut cleaned up, and now it sat just above her shoulders. It was all at once chic and grunge, totally in style. I tried not to be jealous, because we were trying to be better about that.
I fell to my back, head landing flat on her comfy sheets. “The more truth I learn, the more I don’t understand. The lie was easier. It made sense.”
Gemma had a pretty ceiling with gilded molding and a crystal chandelier. The crystal drops refracted soft, yellow light. I wanted to know everything that led Grim to be in our house, but I knew Gemma wouldn’t tell me anything.
Of all the people to have it, he was the worst. The one person that couldn’t be bribed. The one person neither beholden to law nor above it, but below it, untouchable in its seedy underbelly.
“You’re not really going to end up dead? Right?”
“No.” She laughed. “That would be too easy. I’ll be fine…”
The way she trailed off had me staring at her.
She cleared her throat. “I’m Gemma Crowne. There is no one scarier than me.”
“I’ve kicked your ass a couple times.”
“You wish.”
My phone buzzed with a notification, a new email.
Dear Abigail, we are pleased to inform you you’ve been accepted…
An acceptance letter to the college of my dreams, for this fall semester. Except, I’d never applied to college. I didn’t know what to do with this information, or how to process it.
When my mother had thrown all the pamphlets in the trash, a part of me accepted my dream had gone with it.
There was only one person who knew enough to apply for me, and would do something like this for me. My heart cracked with the knowledge.
I left Gemma, my head swirling too much to continue talking. I kept thinking why? I was sandwiched between Theo’s cruel deeds and sweet actions, jagged on one side and pillowy soft on the other.
I went to my room and dragged my box out from its spot. I had one secret left, one neither Mother nor Theo knew about. Inside were pastel beads, beads I should’ve left abandoned like he’d abandoned me. Instead, in my ruined dress, I climbed on the floor, grasping into the shadows, until I’d recovered every last one… well, except for one. I couldn’t find the F for forever.
And it still ate at me.
I carried my box to the balcony, swinging my legs over the edge, looking at the pastel pieces. They were all broken apart, but they were still there. That was how I felt. Broken apart, but impossibly in love with him.
AC + TH
I traced the letters. I was pretty sure I knew what happened. Theo did what he always did—he protected me. He protected me in the only way he knew how, like the time he tried to get Gemma to tell him he wasn’t good enough for me.
Theo sacrificed himself.
When would he trust that he was more than good enough for me? That he didn’t need to keep leaving me? I was the one who didn’t deserve someone like Theo.
I still didn’t know how he’d protected me, and what made him leave me… again. I pushed the beads around, and they rolled to the unevenly weighted corners.
There was something that’s been bugging me, something Theo said that has been sticking like a thorn in my side. He said I abandoned him. I would never do that…
But I knew somebody who would, and seeing her at the beach pushed the thorn deeper. I still wanted to believe my mom loved me, and that love meant she wanted me to be happy.
Another bead rolled, and I caught it in the middle, holding the square pastel piece between my fingers.
Of all the things that hadn’t made sense—Theo sleeping with Gemma, Theo stabbing a knife in my open wound, Theo leaving, Theo lying about it all—my mom being the cause fit perfectly.