Chapter 40
Chapter forty
Turtle
Becky
A few weeks later, a sister I don’t know well, Daphne, stops me in the hallway.
“Carrson left a message,” she says. “He wants you at Ashford House for dinner.”
The words are so unexpected that it takes a minute for them to sink in.
Dinner. At Ashford House. At night.
I try not to read too much into it.
I fail immediately.
That’s not a casual invitation. Not here. Going to Ashford House is reserved for bonded women unless it’s a party or some big event.
Which means…my pulse spikes.
Carrson’s ready to make us public. To claim me. Maybe as a first step toward bonding later. We’ve been talking about it since that first night when he snuck into my room. Discussing the possibility, what a future could look like for us.
A slow, giddy warmth expands my chest, impossible to contain.
I haven’t seen him all day. He’s been locked in meetings. This is the first chance he’s had to reach out for me. And he did.
I’m in a blissful haze as I change for dinner, picking out my prettiest dress.
The turquoise one that sets off my eyes, makes them bluer.
I brush my hair until it shines and slip on my heels, the low wedges that don’t pinch my feet.
I want to look good, not be distracted. There’s nothing I want to miss tonight.
One last glance in the mirror while I dab on pink lipstick, and then I’m out the door.
It’s summer now, mid-June, with one week left of classes.
The air is warm as I step outside, the kind that wraps around like a shawl instead of pressing down.
The sun is low, slipping behind the trees, painting everything in rose gold.
Shadows stretch long across the path between Rosewood and Ashford, the grass glowing green on either side like something out of a dream.
The campus feels different at this hour. Quieter. Slower. There’s a hush to it.
The breeze lifts my hair as I walk, carrying the scent of cut grass and something sweet blooming nearby. Laughter drifts from behind me, coming from Rosewood Hall, but it fades as I move farther up the hill.
Toward him.
Ashford House rises ahead. Warm lights and wide windows, glowing against the darkening sky.
Months ago, I was turned away from this same front door.
Now I’m being invited in.
My steps slow, my chest brimming with a soft ache as I think of Remi, how she would’ve laughed at this, would’ve grabbed my hand and dragged me up the steps.
I wish she could see me now or, better yet, walk at my side.
A deep breath and I start forward again, unable to keep the smile from my face.
The clink of silverware against porcelain and the murmur of conversation washes over me as I enter the dining hall.
It’s different from the one at Rosewood.
More masculine, with stone walls and floors, stained-glass windows, and heavy wooden tables.
Lou had told me about it before, joking it was imported from a medieval kingdom. Seeing it now, I almost believe her.
Far across the room, I catch the flash of Carrson’s dark, glossy hair.
There he is, sitting beside Lou, her boyfriend on her other side, the three of them deep in conversation. Whatever’s being said must be good because Carrson throws his head back and laughs. The sound carries, and my own mouth rises in response, as if his happiness finds a place in me as well.
I weave through the tables, anxious to reach him. Heads turn, curious, as I pass, but I don’t pay them any attention. I’m too fixated on the man in the back of the room.
He doesn’t see me until I’m right in front of him.
I say his name, and Carrson’s head slowly lifts.
I stand there, smiling, my hands clasped in front of me. “Hey,” I say, feeling bashful.
I expect him to get up, to come to me, but instead his brow creases.
“Becky?” He glances around the room, like he’s searching for what he’s missing. “What’re you doing here?”
Uncertainty sets in.
“Uh.” I shift my weight. “You told me to come?”
“No.” He shakes his head.
The people at the tables around us fall silent, chairs scrape, and attention shifts my way.
I’m not invisible anymore.
“Carrson,” Lou says carefully, glancing between us. “Did you—”
“No,” he repeats, sharper this time.
My fingers curl into my palms, nails pressing into skin.
“I—” Heat climbs up my neck. “Daphne said—she told me you—”
“I didn’t,” he says, looking past me, scanning the room like he’s trying to figure it out.
“It was me,” says a voice behind me. “I called you here.”
I turn, already knowing who will be there.
Jackson.
My stomach hits the ground.
“What do you want?” snaps Carrson, irritation clear in his tone. His chair scrapes loudly as he stands.
Jackson doesn’t answer right away. He watches Carrson approach, until the three of us form a loose triangle in the center of the room.
“I thought you should see this.” Jackson holds up a bag, letting it dangle from his bent finger.
At first, I think it’s Carrson’s backpack, the one I last saw at his house back in Ashport, but then I look closer and see the turtle charm that hangs from the zipper.
My stomach plummets. I left that in my room, haven’t touched it in months.
I have a newer bag I use for school now, pink and cheerful.
I only kept this worn gray one to hold all the papers and files I gathered back when I was learning about this place.
It seems like a lifetime ago, another person who sat grief-stricken in the local library, searching for a way to get her life back under control.
I’m not that girl anymore.
But whoever I’ve become is about to be blown apart.
I’m no fool. I know exactly where Jackson’s going with this. It’s laid out in front of me like a goddamn one-way road.
Carrson doesn’t know, though. He tips his head to the side, brows pinched together in confusion.
My stomach knots, tears threatening. I swallow them down. I won’t show weakness here. Not now.
Jackson raises the bag above his head and turns in a slow circle, making sure all eyes are on him. He’s enjoying this. I can tell. He stands tall, chest out, eyes alight.
“This is Becky’s bag,” he announces to the room, brandishing it. “She brought it with her to school. Here at Ashford University, the only college she applied to.”
Carrson’s gaze swings my way, and his brow furrows, but I don’t look back. I can’t watch it, the moment he stops caring about me.
Like he’s in the middle of a stage, Jackson raises his voice, making sure everyone hears. “Let’s see what she brought with her, shall we?”
My head drops, and I close my eyes, already defeated and he’s just started.
Jackson sets my bag on the floor. He crouches down and opens it. The minute he touches the turtle, anger courses through me. I stomp over to him. “That’s mine! Give it back.”
He grins up at me like I played right into his hands. “Glad you admitted that. Now we know that whatever’s in here is yours.”
He pulls out a stack of paper, and a couple of pieces fall out of the pile. They flutter to the ground at Carrson’s feet. He bends down and picks one up, then stares at it.
Jackson shuffles through the rest of the papers. He picks up one and clears his throat, beginning to read. “Senator Ashford vetoes pediatric medical research bill.” He holds the newspaper article over his head for everyone to see.
There’s a shuffling from the crowd, the low rustle of whispers from the back of the room.
He lets that drop to the floor and selects another.
“Ashford University, the future of America. This small southern campus boasts more Congressmen as alumni than any other school.”
The paper drifts to the floor.
The murmurs rise in volume now, overlapping. Competing with one another.
“Designer drugs flood local schools. Are politicians to blame?”
More articles. My past spilling at their feet.
Jackson reads them as I stand there with my head hanging.
“These are interesting,” he says, his voice bright with a sick kind of amusement. Like this is all entertainment to him.
It’s photos he gets out next.
The campus. Ashford House. Rosewood Hall.
Someone gasps. The whispers grow louder now, distinct enough that I can separate the words.
“Why would she have that—”
“That’s not normal—”
“This one is my favorite,” Jackson says, raising it high.
Several people stand so they can get a better view.
I spare a glance and then look quickly away.
It’s a photo of Carrson, grainy and from a distance.
Like a picture the paparazzi might take.
I know that photo. Carrson walking out of this house with his face stern.
I used to stare at it, tracing the contours of his features in ink, before I ever got to touch him in the flesh.
I dart a glance his way, but Carrson hasn’t looked up.
Not once. He’s still reading whatever’s in his hands.
“It’s—it’s not what you think,” I whisper to him under my breath, mentally begging that he looks at me, listens to me. “That’s all from before, Carrson. I swear it. Before I met you I—”
He doesn’t look up or answer.
All he does is hold out a single damning sheet of paper.
Twelve bottles of rum, twenty cartons of champagne, two adult elephants, three bicycles.
The list he read to me in his father’s study. The one I took and shoved into my bag that night after he fell asleep.
“This wasn’t before we met,” he says in a low voice, too quiet for anyone but me to hear. He finally looks at me, and what I see, it guts me, strips me down to my core.
Hurt. Anger. Betrayal.
The same emotions he had when he found me hiding in the basement at his father’s house but multiplied by a thousand. A million.
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes as despair threatens to overwhelm me. “I—I took that to remember those days with you. Because they mattered to me,” I whisper, telling him the truth. “Not to use against you.”
He shoots a glare at me, full of disdain, then wipes his expression clean.