Trips
Breakfast is torture. It was always going to be torture, but I didn’t imagine it like this, the weight of the ring box like Sisyphus’ boulder pressing against my thigh.
I left the tape across my knuckles, not worried about appearances anymore. What else can Father possibly take from me? He’s taken my freedom. He’s taken the freedom of everyone I care about, save Mattie. I will lose my friends over this.
I’ll lose Clara if I haven’t already.
So many plans, destroyed. So much hope shattered like a pile of plates against the wall during Sunday dinner. My father always painted me as a psycho. As a dangerous player. I might as well play the part.
Clara, meanwhile, looks sweet as cotton candy, even if she’s one of the only women in pants. It suits her more than a dress would. She looks stronger, more composed than earlier, whentears leaked out of her eyes while her face stayed locked in a state of disbelief or grief—I couldn’t quite tell which.
Either way, she’s got that demure smile on, chatting with a group of women about their horses, like she’s been visiting the stable since she could walk, and the women are eating it up. If they paid attention, they’d realize she’s only asking questions, saying nothing about her own experiences. I’d bet she has close to zero of them. There aren’t a lot of horsey options for people with a net worth under a million.
Trevor sneaks up on me, slapping me on the back hoping to make me stumble. “You disappeared early last night,” he says, by way of hello.
“Father wanted to speak to me.”
He glances at me, something dagger-sharp in his gaze. “If you two are keeping secrets, I’m going to be very upset.”
“Father will do what Father does. And this secret won’t be one for much longer, so fuck off your high horse.”
He slaps me again, the hit stinging even through my sweater. “College hasn’t cleaned you up an ounce, has it? What is Father going to use you for if you can’t even make it through three minutes without cursing?”
I hold up my bandaged fists. “The same thing he’s always wanted from me, Trevor. No surprises there.”
He tsks, like a little old maid, and his fiancée takes that moment to duck under his arm and into our conversation. “Hello, Archie. Have you tried the almond croissants? My dad flew them in especially for today.”
“I’m not really a pastry person,” I say, not wanting to waste energy pretending to enjoy Olivia’s company. The damn womanlikes cats, so now I’m being forced to propose to my roommate and explode my whole damn existence.
Yeah, maybe I’m not being fair to her. But nothing about this shit is fair.
“Oh, well, there’s wagyu, bacon, and a variety of eggs, free-range duck and goose included, being prepared by the chef as well,” she says, eager to make sure I’m happy at her party.
This girl was made to be a politician’s wife. I get why my dad forced this match. Poor thing got stuck with my brother, but that’s not my fucking problem either.
“I’m not really a breakfast person,” I say, my stomach in bloody knots over what I have to do.
Olivia looks to my brother for help, and his hand clenches around the back of my neck, his nails digging in. He doesn’t like that I’m being rude. Or more likely, he doesn’t like that I know something he doesn’t.
I debate throwing him off me, but my father catches my eye across the room, and even though I know it’s impossible, it looks like he has even more things he can take from me. So I let Trevor’s nails break my skin, the sting almost welcome after the last twelve hours. “Sorry,” I choke out.
Then I twist out of Trevor’s grip and march away down the hall, then outside. Back into the snow that almost killed Clara. The snow I almost killed Clara with.
How many ways can I fuck up? How many times can I see a way to escape and then fumble the landing? Why do I even try when it always lands me right back here, at my father’s mercy, a worse fuck-up than when I started?
A cloth napkin appears in my peripheral, followed by Clara. “For your neck,” she says.
She’s always watching. Just another morsel in support for her being a natural at all this shit.
“Thanks.”
She tucks her hands into her armpits as soon as I take the cloth to blot my neck. It comes back with smears of red.
“Why outside?” she asks.
“There are a lot fewer microphones and cameras out here.”
“But still some?”
