Page 89 of Wild Card

Leo pulled him out of the room and pushed him toward the door. I knew Decker could fight him, but Leo was a Mack truck. There would definitely be some work involved, and maybe he understood that with me calling Leo, it wouldn’t be worth it. I didn’t want to talk anymore. It was too painful.

I focused on my breathing while bringing my hand to my chest, belatedly realizing I was standing there in just my bra and yoga pants. My heart was beating so hard I worried it would just burst through my rib cage.

“Mal?” a soft voice asked behind me.

I couldn’t breathe. What if that was it? What if that was the last time I saw him, and his last image of me was getting told that I was marrying someone else? I’d never see him again. I had said yes to my father because it was the right thing to do, and I knew Taylor wasn’t telling me something. She couldn’t get married to a stranger.

“Mallory, you okay?” Taylor came up and rubbed my back.

I finally turned and buried my face into her shoulder. “He’s gone, Tay.”

She rubbed soothing circles into my back while making soft sounds. “He won’t give up, Mal. If it’s meant to be, he’ll be back. If he loves you then he won’t give up.”

“It’s better if he does. I can’t be with him.” I wiped at my eyes, needing to put this behind me.

Taylor made a sound in the back of her throat. “Mallory Shaw, stop it right now. That marriage clause is for you to marry someone—anyone. You can marry a homeless guy off the street and they wouldn’t care. They just want you to be married, and I know Decker James would—”

“No, I couldn’t do that to him. He has his whole life in front of him…” I hiccupped on a sob, even though he had said those words to me.You’re not marrying someone, Mallory, unless it’s me.

Still, I couldn’t do that to him. It was too final, and we were only temporary…from the very beginning, he was never going to be mine. It wasn’t like I could cheat destiny and steal from a deck that didn’t belong to me.

I turned into her arms and hugged her. “I’ll be okay, Tay. I know it. This is better.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you better than anyone, even if it doesn’t seem that way. I’m your sister, Mallory.” She continued to rub my back, which only made my tears fall harder.

It wasn’t until we’d climbed into my bed and I let her cover me with a blanket that I started to fall asleep, but it was her telling me a story about a girl who was lost, following after a compass she couldn’t seem to grab a hold of. She would follow as closely as she could manage, but at the end of each day, she went to bed totally alone and lost. Then along came a handsome prince who promised to take care of her, to wipe away her memories of living in the dark and hand her a new compass, one that would lead her to the people she loved. But he lied. Instead he abandoned her, leaving her with something she knew not how to care for.

I blinked away tears as I felt Taylor spill her own. The story niggled at something in the back of my mind, like she was telling me something, shrouded in fiction. I wanted to ask her about it, but my mind shut down and I slipped into a deep sleep.

Chapter Thirty

Time was a rubber bullet,shooting just as fast as any ammunition, nearly as deadly and effective, but softened by the reality of what lay beneath.

I knew I wasn’t in danger. Going to New York wasn’t the end of me, or the end of my dreams…but it still felt just as deadly as if I were to stop breathing entirely or walk straight into a prison cell, accepting a life sentence.

I kept a brave face for Taylor, who had finally started wearing her normal clothes around me again. Every now and then she’d begin to say something, only to stop, slam her eyes closed, and shake her head. I didn’t want to push her, especially because what I knew she was likely going to tell me was a fairly big, life-altering conversation. Pushing her wouldn’t do any good.

“So…” I folded a few t-shirts and set them in a cardboard box. “You’re staying, or…what’s the plan for next year?” I cautiously asked my stepsister.

We had been tiptoeing around this topic for weeks. It wasn’t like she owed me anything, but I worried about her. It didn’t slip past me that she suddenly stopped seeing random guys, or that she’d been vomiting in the bathroom every morning.

“I can’t stay here by myself…it’s too much space, and I’ll miss you.” She looked up from her container of yogurt, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“So, you’ll go back to Dad’s?” I carefully freed two of my jackets and a few more sweaters from hangers. I was almost completely packed, but I’d have been lying if I didn’t say I’d been moving like a sloth with these last few items. I didn’t want to go.

“For the summer…and maybe I’ll come see you in New York for a bit, but otherwise I’m going to talk to the school counselor about returning next year and finishing my degree.”

I stopped mid-fold, turning toward where she sat on my bedroom floor.

“Seriously?”

I’d expected her to tell me she was moving back home or taking a year off. I mean, I knew she was keeping a pretty big secret from me, and if I was right about the secret then she would need more than a year off to handle it.

“Yeah, it’ll give me time to come up with a plan for a roommate and everything.”

“Wow…I didn’t expect you to say that.” I abandoned my clothing and sat down next to her on the floor. She had a sleeve of saltines next to her and a jug of water.

“Tay…is there something you aren’t telling me?” My voice was soft as velvet, hoping to coax the truth out of her, but she just continued eating her yogurt like I wasn’t there.

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