Well, at least until my father found a possession charge from when Leo was eighteen, a single joint, and threatened to have him expelled and blacklisted if he didn’t disappear.
Leo disappeared. Everyone leaves. Except the Judge.
I catch my reflection in the darkened window. My blonde hair is a mess of static and frizz, making me look like a ghost in a designer dress. Pale, wide-eyed, and lost in the in between. It’s pathetic.
“Pull yourself together, Iris,” I whisper to the empty room.
Fix your face,he said.
Shoulders squaring, I go to the bathroom and double cleanse, scrubbing my skin until it burns, trying to wash away the frazzled look he hates. I apply toner, then a tightening serum, then a night cream, smoothing it over the dark circles under my eyes like I’m spackling a crack in a wall. A rigid regimen I’m all too accustomed to.
I brush my hair until my scalp aches, braiding it so tight it pulls the skin of my temples taut. By the time I turn off the light, the tired girl is gone, and only the Judge’s daughter remains.
I get into bed and pull the duvet to my chin.
Closing my eyes, I beg for sleep. More importantly, I beg for mercy.
But the nightmare is always the same and returns on schedule.
I’m standing in the center of a courtroom. My father is on the bench, towering twenty feet above. The jury box is filled with dead, rotting flowers—black roses, withered lilies, brown hydrangeas. They are screaming at me, but they have no mouths.
My father raises a gavel made of bone.
Guilty,he booms.
He brings the gavel down.CRACK.
I spring upright in bed, gasping for air. My sheets are tangled around my legs, damp with cold sweat.
I glance at the digital clock on the nightstand.
2:03 a.m.
It’s just a nightmare. The nightmare. A familiar foe.
It’s not real. None of it is real.
I fall back onto the pillows, staring at the ceiling shadows. My thoughts spin out, the adrenaline from the dream bleeding into reality. The day’s checklist cycles through my mind with feverish intensity.
Tablecloths pressed? Yes. Lighting cues set? Yes. Vegetarian options confirmed? Yes. VIP Study Centerpiece? Yes.
I frown into the darkness.
I wanted the VIP Study to be masculine but striking. Senator Caldwell and my father are having a private scotch tasting there before the speeches. It’s a small, intimate room with dark mahogany walls and no open windows, the air controlled to protect the books. I needed something that would pop against the wood.
So I chose lilies.
Asiatic Lilies. Deep orange, bordering on rust.
A cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, the blue light blinding me for a second. I unlock it and open my email, searching for the updated guest dossier sent by the Senator’s team just this afternoon.
Caldwell. Senator. Dietary Restrictions.
I scroll past “Gluten Sensitivity” and “No Shellfish.”
My fingers halt on the screen.
Nausea twists my stomach.
