Chapter Thirty-Six
QUINN
Later that morning, I sat on the floor in front of the couch with Gia, soothing the pain of everything that had happened with a carton of ice cream. “Gia, I can’t believe we thought that was a good idea.”
She pushed the tub of Ben & Jerry’s back toward me, frowning as she ate, and I dug in for a heaping spoonful of comfort. I’d finally stopped crying—that was a plus. But I couldn’t get past this obnoxious follow up stage where I went back and forth between questioning my decision to join The Quest in the first placeandfeeling like I’d failed miserably.
Gia grimaced. “To be fair, at the time we had been drinking boxed wine. No girl makes good decisions after a few glasses of the cheap stuff.”
I laughed and ended up snorting because my nose was clogged with all my pesky emotions. “Oh, gross.” Wiping my nose with my napkin, I tossed it into the empty bowl of ice cream I’d been using before I swapped it out for eating straight from the carton. “I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do now.”
Getting the shit kicked out of me had really thrown me. When Vivian had said what she did about Landon, it felt like pieces clicking into place, even though my brain had been occupied with fighting for oxygen at the time. His hesitation every time I’d pushed for more finally made sense.
It also left me with a million questions and a storm of conflicting emotions.
Questions I hated because it meanthehadn’t shared things with me. Feelings I couldn’t stand because I’d acted on them impulsively.
Maybe I should’ve given him a chance to explain. Maybe I should’ve demanded the truth. Maybe I shouldn’t have fled from his room.
But as Gia put it, I had just been waterboarded by some basic bitches and flight mode seemed like my safest bet. I was trying not to be too hard on myself. And sitting there with my nervous system calmed down, I still felt…
Stupid.
Naïve.
Overly trusting when fed lines from hot dickheads.
I still didn’t know what it all meant, being the King’s Maiden, and why it had anything to do with what happened between me and Landon. But as much as I wanted answers, a part of me wanted to leave that place and never look back.
Leaning back on the couch, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, thinking through my options.
So, Landon had lied to me when he said he was mine. So, Kingston might’ve had a hand in that. So, Max was still…Max.
And yeah, maybe I’d made some questionable life choices in the heat of the moment, seeking help from someone I wasn’t sure I could trust and making moves I couldn’t take back.
Big deal. I wasn’t going to sit here and cry about it.
…Any more than I already had.
I still had a pile of bills to pay and no incoming prize money from The Quest. The time for questionable life choices had passed. I needed to figure out a plan and get myself out of debt.
Selling a kidney on the black market was shaping up to be my best bet.
Gia’s hand covered mine. “Are you sure you want to quit?”
My head whipped to her. “It’s a house full of entitled sociopaths, Gia. A bunch of hot narcissists on power trips using girls like they own them. And a bunch of spoiled, lying brats that hate me for being an outsider. Not to mention they’re all liars. I wouldliterallyrather light myself on fire than go back there.”
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
I elbowed her.“Youknow what I mean.”
“I do know. And that’s why—don’t kill me for saying this—but I know you’re hurt right now, and I’m worried you’re not thinking this through all the way.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head, and I opened my mouth to defend myself.
But Gia put her hands up and beat me to it. “Hey, you know as well as I do that the only time a girl makes worse decisions than boxed-wine decisions is when she’s reeling from catching feels.Especiallyif the guy was a grade A fuckboy.”
That was true.