Page 245 of Swallow Your Sorries

The other day Aria asked why I hadn’t come to the hall for lunch and it took me far too long to blurt out that I’d been in the library finishing an essay. She’d noticed. She’d cared enough to notice.

“I look for you everywhere I go,” he says, stroking my cheek. “But to be fair, everyone was given food poisoning. Zedd’s home economics class catered for the dancers again.”

“What happened?”

“He must’ve let the puff pastry out too long,” he says with a dismissive shrug.

I frown. I ate Zedd’s food all the time, thanks to Stassi. He isn’t sloppy by any means. In fact, he’s been boring Stassi to tears about his meticulous preparations. Stassi had commented that he acts like he’s going into surgery, vs baking a quiche.

There was nothing wrong with that food.

Or at least, there hadn’t been.

Gant looks at me in the mirror and I look back at him and we both say nothing. Because I know he knows that I eat Zedd’s food and he knows that I know. He’d do anything to make me his princess both on and off the stage.

But I can’t bring myself to ask as I reach for a makeup brush with shaking fingers and swipe on more blush. If I ask, he won’t lie. And if I know, it’ll fuck with my head.

So many things are already fucking with my head.

Sylo’s father.

Jaime.

Even fucking Rin.

Jarett.

Even Sylo himself. Did he recognize his father’s car from the fuzzy crash tape? Did he have a suspicion? Or is he seemingly in the dark like Gant?

Why is Gant in the dark? Why hasn’t he noted the resemblance between his uncle and my father?

It just doesn’t make sense. None of it does.

If I could just get to the lot. If I could just see if Sylo’s father brought the car to show off like all the other parents with their classic vehicles…

“Tell me what’s the matter, Dove. You’re about to dance in front of those scouts. Don’t let anything Jaime’s done mess with your head.”

Jaime. She’d already lost our home. I can’t let her take away my dance opportunity, too. I apply more blush with more vigour, more determination, and as more of a distraction than anything else until I look damn near garish. It has to be visible beneath the strong lights after all. But as I dip the brush again, Gant gently takes it away from me.

“I can be your haven,” Gant says in my ear, turning from the mirror to watch me in real time. “If you let me.”

I’m going to resist at first but then my spine, so stiff and rigid from holding up my own weight for far too long bows and before I know it, I’m on his shoulder and he’s my support. My refuge.

“It’s always Jarett,” I say softly. “Even when he isn’t here, she’ll always choose him over me. I’m never enough. My acceptance and forgiveness, despite the past isn’t enough. My love for her isn’t enough.”

“I think you’re more than enough. You’re too much. You were right about what you said that night. You’re above everyone here. You’re no angel, but you aren’t depraved, even though you have every right to be.”

At my uncertain look, he goes on.

“I’ll give you an example. I wouldn’t have sent her to the infirmary. I would’ve left her in that car to either succumb to alcohol poisoning or hyperthermia, or she’d wake up tomorrow morning and realise she’s finally lost her last little token, her one and only love left behind. I’d toss myself away, straight out of her life. She doesn’t have Jarett. Now she doesn’t have any more reminders of him either.”

I swallow at his harshness.

“But see? Just look at your expression,” he says, and we both peer back into the mirror. He looks hard, cold, and determined. I look wimpy, weak, and unsure. “You aren’t me. You’ll fetch her in the morning, and accompany her to some lice and roach-infested motel for a few nights until what money she has left runs out. Then you’ll freeze to death with her in that soda can of a car and return to Beaulieu in two weeks, pretending like everything is fine. You’ll think it’s fine too, because you don’t really believe you deserve that much more. It’s why you keep wearing rags when you don’t have to. It’s why you’ll freeze in that car and suffer with her when you can come to my penthouse and stay warm.”

“I couldn’t do that to her.”

“She did it to you.”

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