Chapter 20 #2
You don’t get to where she is, don’t have people orbiting you, deferential, attentive, by being the good guy.
“Why are you telling me this?”
A small pause.
“I know him a little better than the others,” she says.
Her gaze drifts across the room, unfocused, as if she’s seeing through it instead of at it.
“My mother…” She hesitates, then exhales quietly. “She had an affair with his dad.”
The way she says it, the small break in her voice, the way her fingers worry at the edge of her napkin, the color rising in her cheeks, tells me this isn’t common knowledge.
For the first time, her polish slips. And again, I wonder why she’s trying so hard with me. Why she’s showing me this more vulnerable side of herself.
There’s only one answer that makes sense.
She really does care about Carrson. Wants the best for him.
The thought that I could be that person hits harder than I expected because, until now, I’ve mostly seen him as a means to an end. But today in the woods, when I thought he might kiss me, when I desperately wanted him to, that wasn’t me seeing him as a tool.
That was me seeing him as a man.
I’m not sure what to do with that.
“It lasted a few years,” she says. “Mother used to take me over to Carrson’s house. Drop me off with him, then disappear.” A faint, humorless smile touches her mouth. “We were about ten when it started.”
I don’t interrupt.
Her eyes lower to her plate, her fork tracing a slow line through food she’s not eating.
“My mom was always a little…unpredictable,” she says. “But even she knew to walk away from Carr Ashford.”
That name rings like a bell.
How many times have I seen it in those articles? A hundred? A thousand? Before he died, Carr Ashford had a hand in every important committee and commission in Washington, D.C., and even more influence down here, in the South.
He wasn’t just a man.
He was a legend.
When she faces me again, her expression is clearer.
“I’ve seen Carrson his whole life,” she says. “He deserves to be happy.” Her eyes meet mine. “He’s earned it.”
She’s about to say more, but a girl a few seats down asks Lou to pass the potatoes.
The brunette next to me leans in, asking about the weather in New York, and the moment dissolves.
Soon I’m talking, answering questions, asking a few of my own.
Laughter comes quicker than I expect, slipping out like it belongs to me, as if I do it every day.
For over a year, it’s been me and my parents, the three of us moving carefully around each other, everything shaped by grief. I’d forgotten what this was like, being part of something bigger, that keeps moving. That makes room for me without asking.
I used to have a sister.
Now I’m sitting in a room full of them.
They even call each other that. I hear it all around me, Sister Evelyn, Sister Lucy, Sister Sophia, the word passing between them like it’s second nature.
It should be awkward. It should make me envious, seeing how effortlessly they fit together.
Instead, it feels natural. Comforting.
I could get used to this.
Maybe too easily.
As Lou reaches across me to hand a dish down the table, I catch sight of a long, deep scar across her palm. A raised slash of pale skin. It twists across her hand like a vine that’s taken root, grown instead of healed.
“Ow,” I say as I reach for her hand, capturing it in my own. “That must’ve hurt. What happened?”
I expect her to pull away. To laugh it off. Instead, she turns her hand over in mine, studying the mark with an expression that’s almost fond.
“It’s from my bon—boyfriend,” she says, correcting herself with a small smile. “He lives over at Ashford House.”
I drop her hand, and she tucks it into her chest, fingers curling.
“We have this ritual,” she continues. “Between the fraternity and the sorority. When a couple gets serious.” She smiles gently, as if she’s telling me a sweet story, romantic. A fairy tale. “We cut our palms. Both of us.”
She lets out a light laugh, but her eyes dart to mine, searching for my reaction.
“You mean a blood oath?” I ask. The words sound strange out loud. Out of the past. As if the room should be lit by candles. Lanterns, not electricity.
She shrugs casually, smiling. Opens her hand as if there’s nothing to hide. “I guess you could call it that.”
I examine the scar again. The depth of it. How straight the line is. How deliberate. That’s not something you do on a whim or for fun. It reminds me that this place isn’t just traditions and dinners and pretty rooms. It’s legacy and the secrets they hide.
Lou with her open smile. Carrson with his long silences.
And Jackson.
“You don’t like Jackson either?” I ask, glancing at her. I remember the way her expression changed when Carrson said his name, how quickly it soured.
She drops her hand, her expression hardening. “He’s awful.” Her gaze sweeps the room before she leans in, lowering her voice. I move closer to catch it.
“At the beginning of every year, he picks a couple of girls,” she says. “Freshmen. The ones who still believe what they’re told.” Her lips flatten. “He chases them, makes promises, then leaves them wrecked.” A pause. “A few have even dropped out.”
The laughter around us feels farther away.
“It got bad enough that I added a warning about him to my welcome speech,” she continues. “Told them to stay away.”
She exhales quietly, as if the memory bothers her.
“He and Carrson have always hated each other,” she says. “The rivalry between the Ashford’s and the Beaumont’s goes back generations.”
Her eyes lock onto mine.
“It’s no question. If Carrson shows any interest in you,” she says, “Jackson will come after you.”
Her hand closes around my wrist, firm enough that I feel the raised line of her scar against my skin.
“Be careful,” she says. “Please.”
Lou glances around the room one more time before speaking, making sure no one is close enough to overhear.
“Ashford House is unstable right now,” she says in a quiet voice. “More than people realize.”
I frown. “Because of Jackson?”
“Partly.” She folds her napkin in half, then in half again. “But mostly because Carrson hasn’t fully stepped up.”
“Why not?”
Lou’s eyes lift to mine. “Not because he’s weak,” she says, guessing where my mind went. “But he wasn’t raised for it the way he should’ve been.”
She stares out the window, toward the stretch of dark lawn beyond it, as if Ashford House might rise out of the shadows if she stares hard enough.
“Now those boys are restless,” she says. “They’re watching. Waiting.”
I get a chill at the ominous way she says that.
“Jackson knows it,” Lou adds. “That’s why he keeps pushing. He wants chaos. A crack big enough to force his way through.”
I think of Carrson in the woods. The knives.
The bag. The way he moves like being out there is the only thing keeping him going.
There’s more at stake. I see that now. A reason beyond himself that drives him out there, day after day.
He’s the only thing standing between a world where Jackson rules, where anyone smaller or weaker becomes collateral.
I turn back to Lou. “You’re worried.”
“Of course I am.” The words snap out before she reins them in.
Her fingers twist the napkin in her lap, creasing the fabric.
“The conflicts of men always spill over into the world of women.” Her gaze drifts around the room, lingering on the sisters.
“The more tension there is at Ashford House, the more it shows up here. The men’s hands get rougher.
Their words…” She exhales quietly. “Crueler.”
I picture that. A house full of men circling, testing each other. If things didn’t work out the way they want, who would they take that frustration out on? Who’d suffer?
Lou waits, lets me follow that thought until I reach the end.
“It’s my job to protect the women here, and, for that, I need Carrson.” She releases the napkin, smoothing it once before folding her hands on the table. “But he was never taught how to lead people. Only how to survive them.”
She inches closer. “He listens to you,” she says. “More than most.”
I blink, surprised.
“I just…” She trails off, then shakes her head slightly, like she’s already said too much. “I think he could be different. If he wanted.”
Her gaze holds mine, and she doesn’t have to say it.
She thinks it’s me. That I could change him.
She’s wrong.
I don’t want to change him.
I want to be him.