Chapter 25
A few hours later, Mia showed up like a glitter bomb with heels. Her golden blonde hair was straightened, looking as cutting as her narrowed eyes, which took in the room like she was examining a prison cell.
In a way, she kind of was.
I’d cracked my eyes open mid-nap to the sound of a voice shouting down the hall, “Evangeline Vale, if I don’t see you in the next ten seconds, I’m committing a felony.”
I swore, for a second, my heart actually stuttered.
I jumped out of bed, rushing to my bedroom door as Mia swung it open, wearing oversized sunglasses, fierce black knee-high boots, and a sequin mini skirt that hinted at her slight party-girl nature.
Her hip was cocked, and she aimed a glare back at Jules, who stood sullenly behind her, lips twisted like he’d tasted something sour.
In less than a minute, my best friend managed to look like she owned the place.
“Mia?” I breathed, part of me unconvinced that I hadn’t dreamed her here. It’d been over two weeks since we’d called, texted, or seen each other, which was forever in girl years.
Mia looked up, grinning like she’d found buried treasure, and ripped her sunglasses off. “There she is. God, you look like a Victorian ghost. Is there no self-tanner in this castle?”
I laughed for the first time in days, the sound bursting out of me before I could stop it. Jules, who still hadn’t taken that aggrieved look off his face, softened a little, his eyes darting to me. “You’re okay with company?”
“Of course she is,” Mia scoffed. “I’m her best friend.”
I smiled softly and nodded. Jules let out a relieved breath, eyes flicking between us, clearly running through worst-case scenarios at lightning speed. “Stay on the property. I’ll be around if you need anything. And please, Renford, don’t break anything.”
Mia saluted. “Yes, Daddy Warbucks.”
The moment Jules disappeared down the hall, she grabbed my wrists and dragged me across the room. “Okay, you are not spending another second moping in this mausoleum.”
“I wasn’t moping,” I protested weakly.
“You’re surrounded by knick-knacks dustier than my great-grandma’s ashes, and you’re not watching any reality TV,” she shot back. “You’re definitely moping, and that stops now.”
“I really can’t leave the property, Mia. I don’t want to make him angrier.”
“I know. We won’t leave, but we’re going to make this place a hell of a lot less depressing.”
Mia turned my room into chaos in under three minutes.
She threw the wispy pink curtains open and began to blast pop music from her phone.
My neatly folded clothes were dumped onto the floor, and all my blankets were shoved into their place on the bed.
She turned on the twinkling lights and shoved me onto the bed before getting onto her phone and furiously typing on it.
“We’re doing a girl’s day,” she declared. “That means face masks, bad movies, sugar, and gossip. You look like you haven’t eaten or made a bad decision in days.”
“That’s because I haven’t.”
She paused, bright eyes flying up from her screen, studying me more carefully now. “Okay. The decision thing, I get, because you don’t have a bad bone in your body. But the eating thing?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “I mean, I’ve eaten some.”
Like once a day. My body just didn’t want any more. It didn’t want anything but Alek. Not even food.
“So something’s wrong-wrong.”
I swallowed and didn’t answer.
Mia waited a few minutes, making sure it was completely silent in the hall and that Jules wasn’t lurking in some dark corner, before leaning in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Is this about him? Is it about Ale—”
“Shhh.” I slammed a hand over her mouth, my stomach flipping at the thought of him. “You can’t say his name, Mia. Jules will go ballistic if you even mention him.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God. It is about him. I knew something was wrong when President Buzzkill called me and asked me to come over.”
I sank onto the bed with a sigh, grabbing a fluffy pink pillow and slamming it over my face to keep from crying anymore. “It’s bad, Mia.”
“What happened? I thought you guys were doing great.”
“We were.”
I told her everything. Well, not everything—there were some details that should remain between me, Alek, and the things he made me feel in the shadows—but enough.
I told her about all the flowers, the dates, and the protectiveness.
I told her about Alek calming me down after my mental illness threw me into a spiral and how he took me home.
And I was pretty sure that by the raised eyebrow she was giving me, she knew enough about what happened there.
But then I told her about the dinner, the feud I had no idea about, the grief Alek had been carrying for seventeen years.
I told her about the guns and the bullet and the pain.
Then, I told her about how Jules forced Alek away and locked me inside his home to force me to recover and get over my love for him.
My voice cracked when I told her about the two weeks of silence that felt like a slow suffocation, being buried alive as I watched more and more dirt shoveled onto me.
Mia listened without interrupting, ripping open two jelly face masks and applying them to both of our faces, her expression focused like this was one of Madame Germaine’s debriefs.
“It’s over, Mia,” I sniffled, tears welling, and my nose clogged with gross snot that I wiped away with the tissue she handed me. “He’s gone.”
“He’s not gone. That boy is obsessed with you. You are that man’s personal drug, and he is addicted with a capital A. I saw the way he looked at you at the club. He’s tweaking without you. I’m guessing he’s doing everything in his power to get you back.”
“But—”
“No buts, Eva. Trust me: I know men. And this one is starving without you. He’s probably planning on how to steal you from your room and take you to his sex cave where he’ll fuck you through all the positions in the Kama Sutra!”
Heat crept up my neck. “Mia.”
“I’m serious. And second—” She glanced toward the door, then leaned in again. “Your brother taking your phone? Keeping you in this house? That’s a problem.”
I sighed. “I know. But he thinks he’s protecting me.”
“Yeah. From joy.”
“And anyway, it never hurts to reduce my screen time,” I said, ignoring her frown, my hands fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “I know Jules’s methods are unconventional—”
“They’re barbaric.”
“—but he’s my brother, and you know I can’t stay mad at him. Maybe one day, things will go back to normal.”
My normal before Alek.
The thought made me feel small.
Mia shook her head. “Don’t worry. I already chewed him out for potentially ruining your dreams. That’s what he gets for waiting weeks to call me and tell me you’re sitting in this pit of sadness. He said you can go back to rehearsals on Monday.”
Everything inside of me shot to attention, my heart picking up speed and my eyes widening. “He did?”
“Yup. I don’t know how much you’ll be able to dance without your arm, but he said you can at least come and watch.
Madame Germaine has been letting the understudy train, but I think she still wants you if you’re able to come back soon.
So the good news is there’s at least that.
All you’ve gotta do is rest that arm up, and you’ll be on the stage before you know it! ”
“Yeah,” I sighed, testing my arm. I could lift it a little—about shoulder height—but that wasn’t enough to dance. My stitches had been removed a few days ago, so there was no worry there, but the tenderness of the area was my biggest concern.
Still, I could do it. Ballet was pain, after all.
I’d lived my life in a love-hate relationship with ballet.
Many nights, my toes bled until I couldn’t walk, and my feet were covered by calluses.
Leaps and turns had the potential to ache me for days…
yet I loved it. I would kill myself over and over for the dance.
I would shove the knife in my own heart if it meant standing on the stage.
I was pretty sure most ballerinas felt like that.
Mia and I spent the rest of the day sprawled across the bed, whispering like teenagers to each other.
She repainted my nails a soft ballet pink and fed me lots of candy and diet sodas she had delivered to the entrance, much to Jules’s chagrin.
We watched a terrible rom-com with the volume high, laughing so loud my brother came in four times to ask us to stop “cackling like witches.” And when we finally heard his footsteps disappear down the hall, Mia would turn to me and ask me for more details about Alek.
Like a lovestruck teenager, I happily handed them over, both of us squealing with every remembrance.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been focusing on him, but to be honest, I was so happy to feel normal again that I let myself bask in the moment.
“What’s the name he calls you? Sol-what?” she murmured.
“Solnyshka. It means little sun.”
“Oh, like what the card had!” At my nod, she sighed dreamily. “That’s so romantic. I hate him.”
“You hate him?”
“Duh. I know he’s going to end up stealing you away and whisking you off into the sunset with sex so mind-blowing that you completely forget about me.”
I coughed on my drink. “I- I-... um… I mean…”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me so tight that I could barely breathe. “I would say I’m kidding, but I’m not. That man is hot as hell.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You’re so innocent. It’s adorable.” Mia pinched my cheeks. “It means he’s going to break you on his dick. Split you apart like a pomegranate and feast on your forbidden fruit. But from the way you’re blushing, I’d say he has already.”
“Oh my God.”
“I know. I want to hear every single detail.”
“No way.” I giggled.
I took the pillow I was hugging and lightly hit her with it, making both of us erupt into a fit of giggles that were so strong, my stomach began to burn, and my cheeks ached from smiling.
For the first time since the dreaded night, the house felt less heavy.
Less like a cage and more like a temporary pause in my life.
“I love you, Mia,” I said, curling into her chest.
“Aw, I love you too, Evie!”
“Can I be honest?” I bit my lip, and Mia nodded. “I really don’t like that nickname.”
She gaped, her hand flying to grip mine. “Eva, I had no idea! Why didn’t you tell me? I would have stopped a long time ago.”
“I don’t know. It didn’t feel important enough to say. You liked calling me that, and for a long time, I was fine if it made you happy, but lately… I don’t know. Lately, I’ve been remembering how Alek has been trying to get me to stand up for what I want. I figured I’d start small.”
His words from before bounced around my head, echoes of a life long since gone.
It’s okay to ask for what you want, Evangeline. Demand it, even.
There’s nothing wrong with being kind. But you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for everyone. Anyone who deserves you won’t ask that of you.
I am not frightened away. I am not leaving. I never will, Eva. You are mine. Nothing can keep you from me. Not even you.
A tear slipped down my cheek, but I wiped it away before Mia could notice.
She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and tugged me close. “I’m proud of you. And I’ll stop calling you Evie if you promise to always tell me when you don’t like something. We’re besties. You can tell me anything.”
I hugged her back, nodding into the embrace. “Okay. If only I could do that with Jules. But I can’t… I don’t know. I just can’t.”
Mia stroked my hair and sighed. “If only.”