CHAPTER 53 #2
Slowly, Dickie’s finger lifts, shaking so much he can barely point. “So, Ed was right about you, then. You’re really not a lady.”
He spins on his heel and chases after Jack. The door rattles in its frame as it slams, loud enough to make me flinch.
I turn to Charlotte, and she raises a hand in front of her face, the same shield she uses when she won’t let me see the worst of her. Her shoulders hitch as she stumbles past me, as if I’m just another piece of furniture in the salon, then she disappears into my bedroom.
And I stand alone in the wreckage, the echoes still ringing off the walls.
With so many thoughts racing through my mind, I can’t stay still.
I pace up and down the salon, each pass faster, my pulse pounding so loudly it drowns out the clock.
I know Charlotte mentioned she was looking for a way out of her relationship with Jack, but why did she use Edmund as an exit?
Didn’t she realize how much coming onto Edmund would hurt Jack?
Didn’t she understand she’d make an enemy of Edmund forever?
There must be something I’m missing. There has to be, because it’s Charlotte. And she always has a reason.
I stop pacing long enough to sink onto the sofa, then shoot back up when my muscles constrict as if in revolt. I turn toward the bedroom door, tempted to force my way in and see if Charlotte’s okay. But my feet stay rooted. She’ll come out when she’s ready.
An hour later, when she finally emerges, her movements are so quiet I hardly hear the latch click. Her cheeks are blotchy, with dark hollows under her eyes that make her look older than me for once. She stops short when she sees me.
“Lore. You’re still here?”
“Of course, Char. I’m not going to leave you.”
She sniffs, then points to the table. We both sit. Charlotte pulls her mom’s emerald-studded lighter from her pocket, gripping it as if to ground herself, and gives me that look. Go ahead. Ask.
“Why, Char?” I ask gently. “Why Edmund?”
Charlotte sighs and wipes her nose with her knuckle.
“Because I needed a way out. And it had to be permanent. I knew that if I just left, I’d go back to Jack the moment I got lonely.
I loved Jack too much for that. I couldn’t trust myself, so I did the one thing that would make it impossible for me to return. ”
“So, you planned to make a pass at Edmund?”
She shakes her head. “No. I didn’t plan any of it.
I only knew I had to end things with Jack.
That night at the Royce Club, I’d taken Bliss.
People think it just makes you happy, but it doesn’t.
It turns up the ugly parts of yourself. Every petty thought, every jealous piece of me, got loud.
Jack getting the hovercar from Rosamund, and seeing him so happy about it, made me snap.
” She exhales, a dry, brittle sound. “Edmund never told Rosamund or Dickie what happened. I think the only reason he told Jack was because he had to.”
I nod. Edmund probably kept the secret for Jack’s sake.
“The idea came because I couldn’t stand that Jack looked at Rosamund like she hung the moon, while my stupid little gift—” Charlotte exhales once more, and the sound is coarse, like something dead rattling in her chest. “I waited until Edmund went to his room, then I went after him. He didn’t know why at first. He just smiled, like I was his sister asking a favor.
I wasn’t trying to have sex with him, like Jack claimed, but I guess that’s what it looked like.
I just kissed him. I reached up as high as I could and pressed my mouth to his because the Bliss made my mind shout: do it, he’s right there, end it all in one blow.
Edmund pulled away so fucking fast. He looked at me like I’d gutted him.
Then his shock flipped to rage. Real rage, Lore.
The kind I’ve never even seen in Rosamund. ”
Charlotte tightens her grip on her mom’s lighter, forcing the next words out through gritted teeth.
“I knew I’d made the worst mistake the second I saw that look.
Even drugged, I knew. And Edmund’s anger—shit, Lore, it scared me.
I thought he might… I don’t know. So I ran.
Right out of the Royce Club. I didn’t wait for Jack to find me.
I didn’t answer his calls. I left it all to rot. ”
Her eyes lift to mine, broken yet resigned, as if there’s nothing left to defend.
“I ruined Jack and myself. If I could take one thing back, it wouldn’t be that we broke up, but how we broke up. How much I… hurt him.”
She leans back in her chair, staring past me at the far wall as if she’s ready to shove the truth into a box and lock it away forever. But I wonder if that will work. For the first time, I see how deep the wound runs and how it will probably never close, no matter how far she runs.
My voice barely makes it past my teeth. “What happened after?”
Charlotte drags the back of her wrist across her eyes, though there’s hardly any tears left to dry.
“I made another mistake. I ran straight to my dad and told him everything. He lost his shit and cut me off that same night—funds, support, everything. He said he’d be damned if my mess stained his standing with the Blues.
” A weak huff escapes her, more sad than bitter.
“I wanted to call you. I didn’t want to be alone.
But I couldn’t choke out the words about what I’d done. ”
I can almost picture her dad’s face when she told him. He’s always groveling for the Blues’ favor, especially when he thinks it’ll win him an extra square foot of power. But kicking Charlotte out onto the street feels unreal, even for him.
Charlotte tucks a loose curl behind her ear. “Dickie called me every day for weeks. He didn’t know why I left and kept begging me to pick up, over and over. And when I finally did, he told me—” Her voice snaps.
“Told you what?” I ask softly.
Her shoulders curl inward as if she’s trying to fold herself around the memory to make it smaller. “Dickie said Jack was going to propose. He already had the ring. He’d planned where and when. He was going to ask me that weekend, the same weekend I threw it all into the fire.”
Her eyes flutter, then go still. “And the worst part… the worst part is selfish, Lore. So selfish it makes me sick. What eats at me most is seeing the life I could’ve had and knowing it’s gone for good.
I’m done with Jack. Truly done. But the wound will never close.
Even if I marry someone else. Even if I’m happy. I’ll carry it forever.”
I lay my hand over hers and feel how cold her fingers have grown. “Is that why you’re leaving Edmund’s entourage? Because you think Jack and Edmund won’t forgive you?”
She nods, flipping her lighter open and shut. “I think Jack forgave me a long time ago. I think he still loves me—some stubborn part of him, anyway. But we both know that doesn’t mean anything now. He can’t look at me without remembering what I did.”
She rubs her palms together as if trying to warm old blood.
“And Edmund…” She lets out a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh.
“Edmund is different. He’s a Blue. He’ll never touch disgrace with his bare hands.
Not for me, not for anyone. I didn’t understand how deep that runs in him until I kissed him.
He was good to me, Lore—gentle, polite—but there was always a line.
The only time he ever laid a hand on me was when I tripped on a tennis court, and Jack was too slow to get there first. Edmund pulled me up like I was a glass vase he hated to break.
And that kiss—the look on his face. I think it would’ve been more forgivable if I’d stabbed him instead. ”
A tremor runs up my spine. I think of every time Edmund’s hands drifted across my skin, the way he pulled me to him by the waist, the way his mouth claimed mine, deeper each time, surer, as if I were as Blue as he is.
The memories are jarring because they don’t match Charlotte’s version of Edmund at all.
Charlotte’s eyes are dry now, but they’re downcast and cloudy-looking. “I’m sorry, Lore. I know I disappointed you, too.”
I shake my head before she finishes. She didn’t betray me at the Royce Club. Forgiveness isn’t mine to give. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and hold her close. “You’re my best friend, Char. I love you no matter what.”
A single sob escapes her, and she melts against my neck.
I hold her for a moment, brushing her curls as I try to make sense of everything she told me.
There’s so much I didn’t understand over the past year about the tension between Charlotte, Jack, and Edmund.
Now that I do, I find it hard to pin the blame entirely on anyone.
In a way, I understand everyone’s point of view.
“Did Edmund accept your request to leave his entourage?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What will you do now?”
Charlotte pulls back and sniffles. “I don’t know.
The only thing I know is that I’ve waited too long to be protected, Lore.
No one’s coming to save me. I accept that now.
” Her voice steadies. “It’s time for me to save myself.
And if everything goes to hell anyway, I’ll find a way to take the spider down with me. ”
“It’s not going to come to that,” I say. I hate the defeat in her voice, the way she speaks as if the ending were already written. I smile, trying to look encouraging. “You still have me, Char. And I’m not going any—”
“Miss Waldsten,” my Pinkie interrupts.
I turn to see the robot standing in the salon’s doorway, hands folded around a small box. “You have received a package.”
I stagger out of my chair, my feet moving before my mind does. I knew the package was coming—I’d arranged overnight delivery from home—but knowing and feeling are different.
“Oh, Lore…” Charlotte breathes as the Pinkie lifts the lid and offers me the box.
I draw a ragged breath, my hand trembling as it hovers over the saber hilt inside. It’s gold, etched with a C to mark my fencing level, and the grip is worn smooth where my palm once claimed it. The blade lies dormant, retracted, waiting for permission to awaken.
For a long, dizzying moment, I hesitate, swallowed by memory.
This isn’t how getting my saber back was meant to be; I was supposed to be at home with my family, wearing Coquette.
But when my fingers close around the hilt and it seems to recognize me, fitting into the hollow of my palm as if it never left, all hesitation falls away.
The trembling in my hand stops, as do the thoughts about how the moment should’ve been.
None of it matters because, for the first time since Charles Blackwell attacked me, I’m no longer pressed against the window, watching the world pass me by.
The door is open, and I’ve stepped inside.
At last, I’m home.