Chapter VII
VII
EDEN
Ican’t feel my legs.
I’m walking—maybe floating—but I can’t feel myself moving. My hands are cold, my chest tight, and my heart…
It’s hammering in a way that doesn’t even feel real.
None of it feels real.
I’m caught in a cruel loop. Lucian’s angry voice keeps repeating itself in my head, each time more accusatory than the last. He was seething, and even though he had obviously just been in a fight, he looked more broken on the inside than out.
His words cut me like glass.
And the worst part—I deserved it.
I try to blink away the tears, but they come faster than I can catch them.
They streak down my face, hot and humiliating.
I wish I could cut open my body and show Lucian how I really felt, how I didn’t mean to hurt him.
How I hid my engagement because I was unsure if I wanted to marry Silas anymore after how honest we were with each other.
I wrap my arms around myself as I pass the chapel steps.
I’m trying to hold what’s left of me together—but it isn’t much. Inside, I’m collapsing, crumbling, assaulted with a thousand feelings. All of them too big to hold, all of them too complex to think through.
I was honest when I told Lucian he was my safe space.
But now, I’ve gone and ruined it all. I’ve lost the last person at this place who truly cares about me—and I don’t know where to put the pain.
One part of me screams that he’s right, that I betrayed him.
But the other? It’s whispering that I didn’t want any of this to unfold this way, that I was scared, that most of all, I was just trying to survive.
I said yes to a boy I don’t think I love, because I was afraid.
Because I’m desperate for my mother’s approval, because somehow I felt like this was the right thing to do.
Now?
I don’t know if I’ll survive this.
This isn’t just heartbreak.
It’s obliteration.
The lights in the hallway are too bright, too sharp. Every sound is too loud—the echo of my footsteps, the creak of the floorboards. Even the hum of fluorescent lights suddenly starts to get on my nerves. I’ve never even noticed them before.
My thoughts get more tangled with each step I take.
Lucian hates me.
Everyone hates me.
I deserve to be hated.
I’m choking cause there’s no air in the hallway. Ducking into an alcove, I lean against the cold stone wall. I end up on the floor somehow, pressing my forehead to my knees.
Can I make myself small enough to disappear?
My chest hurts so much I feel like I’m dying.
Did I just ruin everything?
Did I manage to destroy everything I care about—again?
A sob slips from me before I can swallow it.
Soon enough, I’m wailing, clutching at the sleeves of my rumpled uniform, trying to feel something, anything that will tether me to reality.
But it doesn’t work. Every organ in my body feels like it’s turning to dust, rotting from the inside out. It’s all too much.
Too much.
Too much.
Too much.
When I make it back to my dorm room, I’m half-blind and half-numb. As soon as the door closes behind me, I fall to my knees again, heavy breaths wracking my body. Moving my limbs feels like slugging through quicksand.
My roommate isn’t around.
Thank God for that.
But then a wave of grief crashes into me—I miss Vivienne more than ever. She would have known what to say. She would have helped me deal with the emotional fallout of all of this, even if she thought what I did was absolutely stupid.
She was an anchor in my life.
And I’m so stupid she had to die for me to realize.
I crawl over to my bed, a tornado of embarrassment and shame sucking the air out of my lungs. Despite it all—I know one thing that would make me feel better.
Lucian.
His steady hands.
His composed and calming voice.
The way he always looked at me like I was worth something.
But I pushed him away, the way I always manage to do with people I love, one way or another. I’m the one who keeps ruining my own life, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I curl up in my bed fully dressed.
My shoes are still on—if my mother could see me now, she’d call me uncouth. Yet I can’t bring myself to care. Why is she always in my head even though we’re hundreds of miles apart? I don’t want her in my head.
I want myself in my head.
But all I can hear myself saying is—
Please come back.
Please don’t leave.
So I lie there, the dark storm in my mind growing harsher, louder, crueler. I don’t even know whose voice it is anymore, just a culmination of every terrible thing everyone has said to me over the years.
Did you really expect anybody to stay?
No one ever stays.
I always manage to screw things up.
I’m a balloon full of excuses, and the day I pop—I’ll finally be happy.
The pillow swallows my screams, but it doesn’t help the sharpness ripping through my brain. Blood-soaked thoughts trickle down my cheeks, masquerading as tears.
You’re so stupid, Eden.
You ruin everything you touch.
He hates you and he’ll never come back.
And you deserve every bit of it.
I’m locked in this nightmare for what feels like forever. Whenever the pain and tears ebb, I try to get myself out it—only to get pulled in again. I pull open the drawer on my nightstand to take some anti-anxiety medication.
I take one and wait.
The feelings ebb again, so I take another.
I’m six pills deep before the feeling finally dies down enough for me to regain some semblance of control. So I get out of bed, pacing around while I scratch my arms, hit my thighs and bite my tongue.
The pain grounds me somewhat.
Enough for me to remember that splashing cold water on my face could help.
But when I get to the sink, the person staring back at me scares me.
I don’t recognize her.
Her face is puffy.
Her eyes are wild, pupils blown.
She looks like someone losing her mind.
And maybe she is.
I wish I were someone else.
It takes me a day to compose myself.
By then, Anastazya is back—I can’t stay here with her.
Emotionally, I’m still a wreck, but this isn’t the first time that I’ve had to pretend I’m fine when my entire world is falling apart. The pale light streams through the window that Anastazya refuses to close, even at night.
I take a shower hotter than Hell, getting rid of the last bit of my tears.
By the time I’m at the closet, slipping on my button-down and adjusting my skirt, I feel more like myself.
My light makeup is perfect, my lips are glossed, my hair is cornrowed at the front, the rest of it falling down my shoulders is tight coils.
After I’m finished getting dressed, I sling my Birkin over my shoulder—it’s my first time wearing this bag to classes, but I need every bit of courage I can get, and it just so happens to cost ￡75,000. Then, I turn to my nightstand.
There, partially obscured by the antique lamp, is a velvet box. I know what’s in it, yet I walk over to it all the same, my heart pounding in my chest. I’ve had time to think.
Lucian doesn’t want me.
He may be right—but I also can’t just let go of my plans for the future for a man who didn’t even want to hear my side of the story about what happened. Pushing thoughts of the night we shared out of my mind, I pick up the box.
I hesitate.
Then I open it.
Sitting in it is a fourteen carat oval diamond ring, set in yellow gold. I slip it on, my stomach churning as it bring back memories of how Silas slipped it on my finger by the lake. I had taken it off before I went to see Lucian.
I guess a part of me always knew he would hate me for saying yes.
Doesn’t stop it from hurting any less though. Blinking quickly, I get the tears off my lashes before they can ruin my mascara. I’m smoothing down the edges of my skirt when I’m reminded that someone else is in the room with me.
“You have energy today,” Anastazya says, looking me up and down. She’s dressed for school herself, though there’s something off-putting about her that I can’t place.
Maybe it’s the thin brows that don’t really suit her face.
“Yes,” I say matter-of-factly.
She takes a step closer, enough for me to feel like I’m choking on the scent of her jasmine perfume. “Why were you so sad yesterday?”
I make a face. “Why are you questioning me, Anastazya?” I can’t help the irritation that slips out in my tone. “We are not peers, don’t forget.”
She chuckles lightly to herself, then her eyes land on my finger. There’s a shift in her expression that I can’t place. For a ‘Grand Duchess,’ shouldn’t jewelry like this be normal to her? After a few seconds of awkward silence, I turn to make my way out the door.
“That’s a beautiful ring…”
I clear my throat. “I know. That’s why I said yes to his proposal.” My tone comes off so severe, it makes me feel like I’m not the one talking.
Like my body has been possessed by someone else.
My mother.
“Who is he?”
I pivot on my heel to look her square in the eye. She’s much taller than me, but I still manage it. “Everyone on campus knows that I am being courted by Silas Peregrine-Ashford IV, the next Duke of Surrey.”
Anastazya gives me a terse smile. “He must love you very much.”
I catch her cold eyes lingering on my ring again. Not admiring it, not curious—no, she’s studying it, like she’s trying to divine something from the ring on my fingers.
“Yes, he does,” I say.
My answer stirs something sharp in my stomach. I try to brush it off, but unease crawls up my spine even as I exit the dorm room and head to my class.
This is the life I chose.
Reminding myself of that does little.
I slip my phone out of my bag. I have no notifications—I haven’t heard from Silas since he proposed. I might be emotional but not stupid. Now that the storm clouds have cleared, I’ve pieced it together.
Lucian must have confronted him.
They must have had some sort of fight.
And that’s when Silas told Lucian that I had accepted his proposal.
The uneasiness grows.
Radio silence from Silas never bodes well.