Page 42 of Cheshire's Smile
My shoulders tensed at the eyes burning into my back.
Anger swallowed up my misery. “You could have just told me. Leaving a cryptic message wasn’t the way to do this. And you left your phone... again.”
Hatter smiled lovingly down at me. “I know I did. But how can one be reminded of what one has forgotten if they don’t know they forgot it. I needed you to remember on your own.”
“And I did,” I shoved down the angry words that wanted to come forth. “But now I’m going to lose you in the process.”
“You’ll never lose me.” Hatter placed my hand on top of Cheshire’s sandwiching it between them, his eyes heavy on both of us. “Neither of you. I’ll always be here.” He weakly tapped his chest with his free hand.
“Fuck that!” I jerked to my feet, pulling my hands away from him. “You can’t say that to me. Not now. Not ever. I refuse.”
“Alice, stop being a little brat,” Carban stalked forward until his nose wrinkled in disgust. He pressed on anyway until he was inches from me. “Hatter is on a brink of death and you’re acting like it’s all about you. If you’d stop thinking about yourself for one moment then maybe none of this would have happened and Hatter wouldn’t be dying.”
“Carban,” Hatter began.
Carban let out a derisive laugh.
“But what can we expect from theGreat Pretender.I’m surprised you even came back for Hatter since you didn’t give two shits about the rest of us. You are just that childish self-centered manipulative little girl from long ago still playing pretend.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders, his fingers biting into my flesh as he snarled, “Why are you even pretending to care if Hatter dies now? You didn’t before. You didn’t give two shits about what happened to us when you betrayed us. So why now? Why?”
The anger inside of me had reached an all-time boiling point. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I couldn’tpretend.
“Because I didn’t remember you!” I shouted, shoving at his chest. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Everyone was staring at me now in an array of emotions. I was making a scene. I was showing my hand. But I couldn’t find it in myself to care.
“Do you want to know how for a hundred years, I sat there and watched all my memories — all mypreciousmoments with you slip away until the only thing I remembered was my name and by some miracle Hatter.” I pointed at the man in the sick bed with a sad laugh.
It wasn’t funny. No one was laughing. Only silence and the racing beat of my heart. I wasn’t done yet.
“I made mistakes. I know I did. I made a rash decision because I was sodesperatelyin love with you all that I would have done anything —anythingto stay here with you.” I gripped the front of his shirt with my fists, angry tears running down my cheeks.
“So no, I didn’t come for you. I let you sit here. Punished for my crimes.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “I let you sit here because up until a few hours ago, I didn’t even remember you existed.”
I dropped my hands, my breath coming in rapid pants.
The words had finally come out. The thing that kept me from coming after them. The expressions on their faces might have been amusing if my own emotions weren’t threatening to take me over right then and there.
“So, there. There you have it.” I lifted a hand lamely, shoving at the tears on my face. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I must figure out how to save the Underground... again. Because fuck knows no one else is going to do it.”
Without waiting for anyone to respond, I raced out of the room.
My heels clacked on the tiled floor beneath me, matching the rapid pounding in my chest. I vaguely heard someone calling my name but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t run away from my problems or my feelings but at that moment I had to try.
There wasn’t anywhere I could run and hide in the palace. Not without getting completely lost, so it wasn’t surprising when I found myself falling to my knees before the pool of spirits by the bridge leading to the palace.
My knees ached at the impact but not more than the pain in my heart. I stared aimlessly into the pool. For a moment, I wondered how much easier it would be to just float the rest of my days away.
It certainly had to be easier than this.
I sat there for a long time with my arms wrapped around my knees, staring out into the mist.
How had everything gotten so tangled up?
A week ago my biggest problem was which human was going to come in with an imaginary complaint about the fae messing up their yards or hitting on their spouses. A week ago, I was wrapped in Hatter’s arms none the wiser that I was missing three other males in my life. It wasn’t a great life but I didn’t know that at the time. And yet it was still so much simpler than now.
Now, I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t care about what was happening with the Underground. It was no longernot my problem.
