Page 29 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Gant? Are you there?” I hear my father say, but I ignore him.

“Can you give us a hint of where you may end up?”

“I wish I could. My dream is to attend Beaulieu Academy. I applied for a scholarship for a second time in April, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

But you will.A genuine smile cracks my lips for the first time in two bloody years as I step closer to the screen, so close my nose practically grazes the glass.

For once, I feelsomething.

A vitriolic buzz cruises through my veins with so much vigour it sends my heart racing and the blood rushing in my ears and through my cock.

“Right now, I’m seeking alternatives across the county.”

You’re not getting away from me. Ever again.

“GANT!”

I put the phone back to my ear. “Make the Auclair’s proud,” I repeat slowly. For once, I agree with him. “You’re right.”

I’m about to make this cunt’s dream come true.

She killed me that day.

And now… now she’s resuscitated me.

She’s the very air that I’ll breathe.

Every day.

Every hour.

Every second.

Elle

Present Day. Fall Term

This is all a dream.

It has to be…

When Beaulieu’s congratulation pamphlet came just two weeks ago, I didn’t think the academy was even still an option. Now, here I am dressed in the signature navy blue uniform, with my penny loafers crunching over the charcoal pebbles as Mum and I make our way to the massive entry staircase. Still, reality hasn’t sunken in despite the sensory overload of the sprawling green campus, and the intoxicating woodsy scents of the surrounding fir trees.

From this high point, I can see a glistening lake on the fringes beside a Victorian-looking, massive greenhouse. It’s so stunning that for one second I forget my fear of water.

Tears of sheer joy prick at my eyes, and an itch creeps across my nose as I take it all in with shallow breaths, trying to hold it together. There’s no way I’m going to cry in front of my new classmates already.

As I ascend the grand staircase, the surrealness of my personal fairytale only intensifies. Like, I’m Cinderella entering the ball, except I’m not hoping to meet a prince. I’m looking toward my future, and Beaulieu would open a lot of doors.

Just last year, I’d been living in a homeless shelter and working part-time at the deli on weekends with Mum. Eventually, we earned enough to get a small one-bedroom flat. Mum gave me the bedroom despite my refusal, setting herself up in the living room for the past nine months. Now that I’m moving into a freaking castle, that bedroom she’d worked so hard for would be all hers because Jarett never came back. His last message almost two years ago was vague as to his whereabouts. Mum thinks the Auclairs got him. I think he merely left town with all the money in his and Mum’s joint account, which wasn’t much to begin with. He’s probably happy as a clam somewhere along the coast, scamming tourists, and screwing someone else’s wife.

I wish Mum would just divorce him. If she’d file the paperwork herself, it wouldn’t be too costly. But the mention of divorce sent her into a meltdown and I haven’t brought it up since. Still, I’m happy for us both. She’d get some alone time and hopefully more free therapy at the community centre, while I got some therapy of my own; the professional ballet training I’ve always craved.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Mum asks, gazing up at the beautiful archways bordering the courtyard ahead of us. Wisteria vines curl around each, before hanging down like beautiful curtains of periwinkle and lilac. “You don’t fit in here.”

I follow her roving eyes back to the car park strewn with Bentleys, Porsches, and G wagons. I watch as a beautiful girl with mocha skin and pin-straight black hair gets out of a white Rolls-Royce where a driver holds the door open. It’s one of those doors that opens backwards, the epitome of, “this car costs more than your home.”

Her eyes are long and beautifully slanted, her irises as steely grey as the sky overhead. I could only assume that she’s mixed Black and Asian. Like all the other students, she has the essence of a runway model, with the clothes to match. I’m the only student around who showed up in the uniform. Everyone else is dressed like they’ve just come off an old-money aesthetic, Pinterest board.

---