35. Cassie
CASSIE
Myra carries the conversation without much help for a few minutes, then she says it’s time for dinner. Carson leads the way with her right on his heels, absently catching his hand as they walk, the same way Tor catches mine.
Tessa follows, staying closer to us. She glances between us, maybe faintly curious, but she doesn’t say anything as we all walk to the formal dining room. It’s like a funeral procession, and frankly, just as joyful.
Myra’s pleasant smile falters when we enter the dining room, and her gaze lands on the table.
The table has seats for six, but only five places have been set. My stomach sinks when I look at the empty chair, highlighting Tim’s absence.
Carson moves past it and takes his seat at the head of the table. Myra sits to her husband’s left, right next to her daughter, and I sit across from Tessa with Tor next to me.
“Tor tells me you had a lovely time in New York,” Myra says, glancing at me across the table as Paula comes around, filling clear glasses with ice water.
“Oh yes,” I say, offering a tentative smile. “It was amazing.”
“What did you do?” she asks, opening a white linen napkin and laying it across her lap.
“We did some shopping—lots of shopping—and saw a Broadway show. The Great Gatsby. We loved it,” I say, glancing over at Tor, who nods his agreement.
“Oh, we haven’t seen that one,” she says, looking at her husband. “We’ll have to go soon.”
“I saw Six in London,” Tessa announces. “I went with a few girlfriends. Definitely worth seeing.”
“Tessa is studying in Paris,” Myra tells me, “but travel in Europe is so different. They pop over to London whenever they want. Have you been?”
“To Europe?” My eyebrows rise. “No.”
“We’ll have to get you a passport,” Tor says, his gaze flickering to Paula as she comes back in with two shallow white dishes.
“The first course is a lobster bisque,” Paula announces, putting the first dish down in front of Carson and the second in front of Myra.
“Oh, it looks wonderful. Thank you, Paula,” she says.
Paula returns carrying three dishes much more carefully, then places them down in front of the rest of us.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling a little awkward being served in someone’s home.
I’ve never had lobster bisque, but I have a taste of it while Paula is making the rounds with a wine bottle, pouring some into a glass for each of us. It’s rich and creamy and makes my taste buds sing.
The next course is a mixed green salad, each one served with a cup of dressing on the side.
Tessa drizzles hers over her salad, while Myra dips her fork in her cup before stabbing the greens.
I’m not sure what the dressing is and want to taste it before I dump it all over my salad.
Typically, I would just ask for ranch, but I don’t want to be difficult.
I decide to land somewhere in the middle, stabbing a manageable piece of lettuce on my fork and lightly dipping it in the dressing to give it a try.
As soon as the flavor hits my tongue, my taste buds explode.
The vinaigrette tastes like nothing I’ve ever had before.
Nothing that can be bought in a store, I’m guessing, which is unfortunate because now I want a bottle of it.
“This is amazing,” I tell Paula as she puts a basket of bread on the table.
She flashes me a smile. “I’m glad you like it.”
While we eat our salad, Myra keeps the pleasant conversation going, and I find myself impressed that someone can talk so much and end up saying so little.
I don’t even mean it as an insult. She’s just an absolute master at shallow, meaningless chitchat that makes you feel as if you’re having a lovely conversation—even though nothing of substance is actually being said.
When the entrée comes out, we don’t know a single additional thing about each other, but we exchange smiles like old friends instead of the old enemies we actually are.
The gears in my mind start turning as soon as I realize I’ve been caught up in her web, and I try to make sense of how crazy this all is.
I know the Walters family is rotten to the core, but I feel like I’m dining with royalty instead of monsters.
I feel honored and special when Myra speaks to me, as if she didn’t clutch her rapist son tight with happy tears shining in her eyes when she found out he would never have to pay for what he did to me.
I feel the weight of Carson’s quiet intimidation every time my gaze accidentally meets his, and somehow I’m the one who always looks away even though he’s the one who should be ashamed.
But he’s the king of this town. I’m just some commoner who had the audacity to complain about getting caught beneath the wheels of the royal carriage.
More than anyone else in Holbrook, I know they’re bad people—and even I don’t feel the weight of that sitting at their dinner table.
I realize as Paula comes around to collect our dinner plates that I was right earlier in my observations about this place, comparing it to a twisted fairy-tale land.
Reality has no bearing on the Walters household.
One dinner with these people has helped me see what an entire year of being at war with them has not.
I get it now.
They do have a certain charm that I never could.
If I didn’t know better, I’d want to believe they’re good people, too.
It doesn’t justify anything, but it does help me understand it. All year I’ve felt like I was going crazy because I knew my expectations were sane. The response was what was crazy.
And it is.
But crazy is the lifeblood of this household. Crazy is perfectly normal here.
They didn’t like the notion of the reality I put forth, so they simply ignored it and wrote over it with a version they liked better.
Now, Tor has recast all of us and submitted a new script, and Myra is doing what a Walters always does. She’s playing her part.
Carson is more resistant. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel it. He doesn’t try to hide his dislike of me. He just allows us all to ignore it and allows Myra to represent both of them in accepting me.
I have a hunch he and I are the most realistic people in this room, the two most aware of it being a fucked-up counterfeit reality, he just doesn’t find it shocking anymore.
He likely helped construct the stage and approves every performance himself.
He likes living in his twisted kingdom with his kidnapped princess bride and his untouchable sons, whereas I’ve spent a year railing against their reality-denying bullshit.
I also made it clear that his sons weren’t as untouchable as he thought, even if he doesn’t know about my direct involvement in Tim’s death. Even if he believes Tor’s story, it was still my ex-boyfriend who killed him. It was still because of me.
He has his perfect counterfeit reality set up here and running like a well-oiled machine, and I’m a glitch in the system that threatens all of it, so of course he doesn’t like me. I’ve ruined everything.
I’ll never like him either. I think he’s the most evil of all of them because I know he can see the situation for what it really is, and he’s decided not to care.
He isn’t delusional; he’s indifferent. I doubt Myra has the capacity to see reality anymore.
As Tor says, she’s fully occupied maintaining this world for her husband.
She’s spent so long wrapped up in it, it probably all feels real to her.
Carson lifts the linen napkin from his lap and drops it on the table, the decisive movement breaking the spell we’re all under and tearing me from my thoughts and observations.
I thought the entire night would pass without another word from him, but he speaks up now.
“Torrance and I spoke about your lost application,” he says to me, and my heart nearly stops at having him address me directly without even the buffer of Myra’s involvement.
My face flushes because I don’t know what he’s even talking about. “My… lost application?”
“To Calhoun University in Boston.”
Confusion takes over, my jaw inching open. “I… I didn’t apply to Calhoun University.”
I would never apply to Calhoun University. It would be easier to get into Harvard, and even if I could get in, I could never afford to go there. I’m sure they offer academic scholarships, but with my senior year grades… I wouldn’t qualify. I also wouldn’t get in.
Watching me as if my insistence on speaking is a mild annoyance, he goes on.
“I have influential friends at Calhoun. It’s my alma mater as well.
I spoke with them and told them that the application you turned in seems to have been lost and you’re worried about being able to attend in the fall.
They assured me that as long as you fill out a new application and submit it along with a copy of your personal essay so they can get everything filed, it won’t be a problem.
Of course, it’s too late to submit anything through the usual channels now.
You’ll have to deliver a physical copy in person.
” His gaze flicks to Tor. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. ”
“It won’t be,” Tor confirms. “Thank you for handling that for us.”
Carson nods, but I’m so confused.
“I can’t get into Calhoun,” I say, my gaze jumping from Tor to his dad. I’m getting that ‘am I the one taking crazy pills?’ feeling again. “My high school transcripts… Senior year was a disaster for me. I don’t have the grades to get into Calhoun anymore.”
“We’re fixing that as well,” Myra assures me with a kind smile.
“You’ll want to stop by the high school and pick up a fresh copy of your transcripts before you go,” Carson says.
Then, before I can list more problems, he adds, “I understand you may not be able to afford tuition at Calhoun, but with the death of his brother, Torrance’s trust fund has doubled, so…
I’m sure he’ll be able to absorb the cost for you. ”
My jaw is practically on the floor.
I feel Tor tense beside me at his father’s last remark, and when I look over at Tor, I see that glint of cool irritation in the eyes he clearly inherited from his father.