23. White Knight
23
White Knight
Sophie
It’s a strange feeling, being awake in a nightmare.
Not just a nightmare: my worst nightmare.
My vision is blurred, every face and body around me obscured, Maximilian’s face distorting into a clownish mask.
My hands shake as I reach blindly for the bar, feeling around to put them down, sticky alcohol splashing over my fingers.
My dress, which I’d put on like armour all night, now feels like a straitjacket, constricting my movements, my breathing, which comes out too short, too fast.
What am I going to do?
I can’t deny the donation, not like this, not in front of everyone.
But if I accept it, then I won’t have the money for it.
I’ll have to admit that I lied, or that I can’t afford it.
My thoughts clog, gluey and thick with humiliation.
Whispers grow louder as people wonder what I’m doing, why I’m not saying anything.
I try to straighten myself, but I wobble, knees buckling, too weak with panic to support me.
I feel like I’ve just been wounded, a cut somewhere far beyond flesh, a knife plunged directly into my soul .
And there’s nothing I can do about it, the fight bled right out of me.
A warm hand settles on my back; a solid presence locks into place at my side.
Evan Knight appears as though caught mid-laughter, a flute of champagne in his hands, his brushed-back hair painting the picture of the debonair, careless New York scion.
His hand presses against my back, steadying me.
For a split second, his eyes meet mine, hesitant, almost questioning.
Without thinking, I reach out behind me, grasping his sleeve so hard I feel my fingernails dig into my palm even through the fabric.
My breath is still short and hectic, my heartbeat a frantic staccato.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry—” His voice sounds so normal , so amused and unbothered, the apology boyish yet sincere, that it makes my own silence feel almost grotesque in comparison.
“In my hurry to enjoy the excellent champagne, I must’ve forgotten to include my name on the pledge card, but I’m incredibly proud to stand by Sophie’s side in supporting this cause.”
His eyes sweep the crowd, which begins clapping once more.
I know the exact moment his gaze finds Maximilian’s because his entire body stiffens at my side, and his fingers tighten on my back.
Maximilian gives a tiny shrug as if to say so what?
and I feel Evan’s muscles clenching against me like his entire body is tensed for a fight.
“And to match that generosity,” Mr Knight adds, dissolving the moment; his arm is around Mrs Knight’s waist, his voice reaching with ease and command through the room, “Eleanor and I would like to double the donation on our own behalf.”
More applause, mingled with impressed murmurs.
The host in the sparkling violet dress concludes the announcement of donations, makes a brief speech full of self-aware sarcasm, and introduces the band that’s already stepping up on stage behind her.
The crowd has moved on, but I remain frozen and insensible as Evan gently guides me through the ballroom, one hand pressed to the small of my back.
I know he’s just saved me.
Not just him—his family, too, his parents stepping in to swipe my humiliation from existence with a carelessly generous hand.
But I don’t feel saved.
I feel wounded down to my soul, frozen in horror, trapped—a butterfly pinned to a board with a one-hundred-thousand-dollar needle.
Evan leads me away; I let him.
How could I deny my own rescuer?
I wasn’t even strong enough to fight back against my enemies alone.
We pass the donation table on our way out; Maximilian, Dahlia and Anthony are long gone.
I barely notice my surroundings: my vision is just blurry hallways, colossal palm leaves, gleaming elevator doors, buttons lit up in amber, grey carpeting and dimmed gold sconces.
Evan opens a door, leads me through.
A large room, white bedding, a bucket with champagne cradled in ice, bouquets of white carnations.
Evan tries to say something, but I push away from him, making my way shakily to the bathroom.
I feel along a wall, push over a door.
My heels click over smooth tiles, I see my image gliding ghost-like past a mirror framed with lines of silver light.
I fall to my knees in front of the toilet and throw up a stomachful of champagne and caviar.
Evan crouches at my side, fingers brush my temples as he pulls back loose strands of hair, tucking them behind my ears.
I try to push him away again, but he ignores me, big hands steadying my shaking arms. I don’t want to cry in front of him.
I hate crying in front of Evan, because it feels like spilling my guts at his feet for him to kick through in disgust. But what’s there left to spill?
What’s there left to kick?
I melt into tears, crying right into the toilet, forehead pressed into my arms, which are propped on the seat.
Evan murmurs something at my side, but I can’t hear him over the hard, silent sobs shaking my entire body.
He strokes my back and I can’t help but feel like a pitiful dog cringing away from its master’s hand.
I let myself cry until there’s nothing left, until my chest cavity feels like an empty coffin.
It’s the only way I can make it out to the other side of this.
The only way I’ll calm down is by getting through the crisis, not avoiding it.
When my sobs have finally faded, I sit up.
“Sophie,” Evan says.
“Are you alright? Speak to me.”
I can’t do that yet.
I don’t trust my own voice.
I pull away from him and stand shakily to my feet.
I flush the toilet, go to the sink, splash water over my face, my eyes.
My eyeliner is still in place, delicate flicks at the corners, but my mascara is a shadowy smear beneath my eyes, clean streaks crossing through where tears left their mark.
I pour myself a glass of water and drink.
I need to calm down.
I need to calm down and think.
“Sophie, you’re scaring me.” Evan takes the empty glass from my hands, sets it aside, and turns me towards him by my shoulders.
“Speak to me. Please.”
“I’m fine.” I pull away from him and leave the bathroom.
He follows me and I can practically feel his distress and concern pouring out of him, sharpening my own panicked dread to a deadly point.
I whip around, facing him.
“How am I ever going to pay you back?” My voice comes out high and brittle with fear and anger.
The skin around my eyes feels stretched thin, and my throat still burns.
“Do you know how many years it’s going to take me to—”
“Don’t do this.” He steps into me, jaw clenched, eyes darkening.
“Don’t even start with this bullshit, Sophie. Fifty thousand is nothing—I don’t want to hear it.”
And there it is, the crack that stretches far and wide between Evan and me.
It’s always been there, and if I ever allowed myself to forget about it, then it was only ever out of sheer delusion and foolish hope.
The crack is a gaping canyon, stretching ever wider, an impassable black chasm.
“Fifty thousand will never be nothing to me.” My voice comes out dull and heavy.
“Yes, it will,” he snaps, surprising me with the harshness of his voice.
“Yes, it will, trust me. You’re going to graduate with honours from Harvard, you’re going to start your career with all the power and influence of Spearcrest and Harvard behind you. One day, fifty thousand will mean nothing to you, just like it means nothing to me now. So don’t bother talking about it, because I don’t care. I do not give a shit .”
Anger flares through me, and I grab onto it, I hold tight, because anger is so much better than the pain and horror of what just happened, the pain and the horror of the yawning black gap deepening between us.
“ I give a shit,” I tell him.
“I don’t have a choice but to give a shit.”
“Yes, you do ,” he bites out.
“I’m telling you right now, we never need to talk about this ever again.” He sounds angry too now: his cheeks are flushed, the blue of his eyes electric.
“If you keep bringing this up, Sophie—if you want to fight about this, then it’s because you choose to. ”
“I didn’t choose for you to step in!” Tears spring to my eyes anew, hot and mortifying.
“You should’ve—you could’ve—”
“I should have what, Sophie? I could’ve done what exactly? Watch the woman I love suffer and do nothing? Sit by and let some spoilt asshole humiliate the person I care the most about in this world? Stand by and let you get hurt on my watch like I spent years doing, like I swore I’d never do again?”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”
My voice trembles as it rises.
The tears fall from my eyes.
My entire body feels too hot and too tight, and my heart feels like the ever-contracting singularity of a black hole, pulling everything into the black vortex of my pain.
“I’m not fighting your battles for you. I’m helping you because I love you, helping you the only way I can.” He shakes his head with a hollow laugh.
“Trust me, Sophie, I know all too well you don’t need me. I know it better than anybody else, so you don’t need to remind me.”
The naked hurt in his hoarse voice is enough to send a flood of heat into my cheeks.
I shake my head.
“You can’t solve a problem by just throwing money at it.”
He scoffs, an ugly sound coming out of his handsome mouth.
“That’s exactly how people like me solve their problems, Sophie, don’t you know that? Isn’t that why you get to look down at me every day of your life?” I open my mouth to reply, but he doesn’t let me.
He doesn’t even raise his voice, his tone so raw and harsh and commanding it shatters the words right out of my throat.
“I’m not responsible for the way the world works. Throwing money at problems does work. You just saw it. So that’s what I did, I threw money at it. I won’t even apologise, because the truth is that it felt good to do this for you, to help you by doing something other than fucking the sadness out of you for a change. ”
I recoil, taking three steps back.
Evan doesn’t follow me.
He’s the angriest I’ve ever seen him, a writhing, blazing heap of hurt pouring right out of him.
“What I did down there was the right thing, and you’re punishing me for it. Just like you’ve been punishing me for my surname, just like you’ve been punishing me for who my parents are. And I’ve—” His voice breaks.
He swallows thickly, throat shuddering.
“I’ve taken it all, haven’t I? Haven’t I let you punish me? Haven’t I allowed myself to be your dirty secret? Don’t I debase myself for your amusement, your satisfaction? Don’t I do everything you ask?”
He pauses as if expecting an answer, but I can’t manage to cough anything up.
He lets out a sharp exhalation.
“Right—exactly. But we all have to draw a line somewhere, and this is where I draw mine. I draw the line at watching my girlfriend get humiliated for the sake of some stupid fuck’s power play. I draw the line at letting you suffer in the name of your independence and strength. A relationship isn’t two people fighting their own corners and meeting every other month to fuck, Sutton. A relationship is two people fighting their corner together.”
I catch my breath, steeling myself for what I’m about to say, for what I know I have to say, what I’ve known all along I should do.
What I should have done, if I hadn’t been selfish and weak.
But I don’t want to.
Standing on the edge of the precipice, knowing what needs to be done, my courage falters, as fragile as the flame of a candle.
Evan watches me, his eyes dropping to my mouth, watching the words trembling there.
He lets out a noise from deep in his throat, something between a laugh and a sob.
He shakes his head and wipes a tired hand over his face .
When he lifts his eyes back to mine, they’re wet with blooming tears.
“Yes,” he says. His voice is low now, soft and hoarse.
“Alright, Sutton, yea.”
My heart lurches horribly, like he’s reached straight into my chest and dug his finger deep in the red tissue and yanked .
A wave of panic rises over me, dwarfing me, and I feel impossibly small, so tiny I know the wave will obliterate me the moment it falls.
I stare up at him, blinking away the tears in my own eyes.
“Yes, what?” I rasp, my voice as small and pitiful as I feel.
“Yes,” he breathes, sounding utterly defeated.
His shoulders slump suddenly, like a fighter that’s given up protecting himself, his arms limp at his side, knuckles still white from being clenched into fists.
A tear falls from one of his eyes, leaving a glimmering trail over his flushed, carved cheek. “Let’s end this.”