Chapter 2 Mara #2
Translation: The First Daughter wasn’t ruined, she was just unwell.
Now, they just need me smiling in a dress to prove the meds are working.
I blink at her. “Wait, wait...” I press. “Am I allowed to even attend anything? Could I at least skip one event? Something small?”
My mom tilts her head and gives me a sweet look, the kind that says, You silly child. “Your safety is our priority, you know,” she says, the corners of her eyes crinkling just right. “But really, Mara, please. This isn’t just about you. This is about the country.”
It took one press conference and a fake diagnosis to make my gang bang a mental health episode.
Now, I’m their recovery narrative. The broken girl they glued back together with pearls and pills.
I inhale slowly, trying not to boil over.
I want to spit something back. Like how it’s really about photo ops and how she looks with a compliant daughter by her side.
Instead, I bite my tongue. If I push any harder, she’ll crack a smile or something, and god forbid there’s cracks in her perfect facade.
“Of course, Mother,” I say, trying not to let the sarcasm bleed through. “I wouldn’t want to put national security at risk by insisting on, I don’t know, actually being present in class.”
I pause before adding, “Do I get a sash that says ‘mentally stable now,’ or is that too on the nose?”
She smiles again. Nothing hangs in the air, just the sound of my own heart thumping angrily.
We don’t speak for a moment. She’s got my schedule, my upcoming life, all pinned down.
All decided on that glowing screen between us.
I feel trapped under her flawless gaze, and it takes every ounce of me not to fling that iPad across the room.
Later that afternoon, I locked myself in my bedroom with my laptop, trying to do some assignments that I know I’m missing.
But the screen blinks with error after error. The school portal is overloaded, and when I click on the discussion board, it boots me back out. Every link gives me a 403: Forbidden.
I call IT support, and Jake from IT picks up on the first ring (I’m too desperate not to be impressed).
But after a minute of silence, he gulps. “Ma’am, I... uh... do you still have access? Because your login’s been... disabled?”
“What?”
“Yes. It seems you are no longer a student at Ashen Grove. Now, have a good day.”
Click.
I sit in silence.
Chase must’ve done something. Or my father.
The door opens without warning, and Chase walks in. “Hey! Hiding from the world in here?”
His tone pisses me off, causing me to slam my laptop shut so fast it clicks hard against itself.
He raises a brow. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” I snap, standing. “You un-enrolled me.”
His expression doesn’t flicker. “Oh, that.”
“That?” I step toward him. “That was my life, Chase. My classes, my work. My future. You just deleted it.”
He sighs, like I’m being dramatic. “You weren’t attending anyway. And your little campus reputation didn’t exactly scream ‘academic focus.’”
I freeze. “You mean because I was leashed?”
He tilts his head. “Among other things.”
“You son of a—”
“Don’t. I’m not the one who dragged my name through the tabloids.”
“You mean when your friends helped my father force me into this fucking engagement?”
His jaw tightens. “If you’d behaved like a normal daughter of a presidential candidate—if you hadn’t whored yourself out to that circus of degenerates—your father wouldn’t have had to get involved.”
I try to shove past him, but he grabs my wrist.
“Let go of me.”
“Don’t walk away when I’m speaking to you.”
“You don’t get to do this,” I hiss. “You don’t get to erase everything I built and then pretend it’s for my own good.”
“You’re lucky you’re not rotting in some summer house on an island, Mara. You should be thanking me.”
I laugh, sharp and bitter. “For what? For babysitting me? For pretending you’re better than—”
“Don’t say their names.”
“What? Jasper? Talon? Dredyn?” I say, shoving each syllable in his face.
His eyes darken. “Do you think I want this? Do you think I enjoy being paraded around with someone the media calls mentally unstable? Every paper’s running headlines about my fiancée being ‘unfit,’ ‘erratic,’ ‘a bipolar slut with no self-control.’ You think that’s good for my image?”
He scoffs. “I had to sit across from my father while he explained why I’d have to marry you anyway. Why it would look worse if I backed out. Do you know how humiliating that was? I’ve spent weeks cleaning up your mess.”
“Maybe you should’ve said no,” I snap.
“I tried,” he says coldly. “But your daddy was very persuasive. And mine cares too much about political optics to let me walk away. So, here we are.”
I stare at him. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“No,” he snarls. “You just made it inevitable.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I should throw you over that desk and fuck the humiliation out of you. Wouldn’t be the first time you opened your legs for a lesson, would it?”
“Go ahead.” I raise my chin. “Prove what kind of man you really are.”
We stare at each other, and his hands twitch like he wants to hit something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he exhales, then smiles—a slow, poisonous thing.
“You want to finish your degree? Sure. Once you’ve posed for Vogue. Once you’ve kissed me at the altar. Once you’ve smiled enough to make people forget the word ‘bipolar.’”
I shove his chest, but he doesn’t even flinch. “You think you’re winning? You think this is control?”
“I think,” he murmurs, brushing hair off my face, “you don’t get to want anything unless I say so.”
He plants a kiss on my temple, the same sick ritual he uses to end every argument. Then, he turns off my desk lamp with a flick of his fingers.
“Dinner’s ready,” he says over his shoulder. “Don’t be late.”
I wait until he’s gone, then I slam my fist into the dresser so hard the lamp rattles. He wants me small. They all do.
But I’ve learned something valuable.
Cages make you memorize every bar. Every seam. Every flaw.
And glass... glass shatters beautifully.