Page 16 of Hell Bent
“I wouldn’t have kept it if I hadn’t wanted to. Ireallywouldn’t have kept it if it had been my wedding dress. Here. I’ll show you my dress.”
I pulled out my phone, and when he saw the picture of me from the wedding-dress-choosing day, he made a face. I said, “I know, right? My mother’s choice. So tasteful.”
“Another princess,” he said. “Or queen? Or is that your father?”
“Oh, no. It’s princesses all the way down with us, here in the female line. Women don’t succeed to the throne, not if there’s a man to do it instead. But again—no throne to succeed to. Ersatz princesses, my grandmother calls it. Drives my mother crazy. The dress I had on was my reception dress, and, no, my mother didn’t approve of it. I figured she’d have the wedding-dress pictures for the society page, though, and that was enough. It was a bit of a battle, to be honest, but I won. Not that it matters now.”
“So I have to ask,” he said. “Anastasia? That’s what the boyfriend called you. But I heard ‘Alix.’”
“Anastasia Alexandra,” I admitted. “Alix for short. The reason is a little embarrassing.”
“Wasn’t she famously murdered, Anastasia? Hell of a name to give your brand-new baby girl.”
“Fortunately,” I said, “I’m not superstitious. But OK, here’s the reason. I’m telling you because I won’t see you again, which is extremely freeing, and I’m at an inflection point here, where everything I do is determining my future. Which will not include any hiding, or any masking, either, but it also won’t include taking responsibility for my ancestors possibly harming yours. I’m not particularly proud of some of them, but it is what it is. My great-great-aunt was Princess Alix of Hesse, who married Nicholas II of Russia, aka the Tsar. They had four daughters and a son.”
“And one of the daughters,” he said, “was Anastasia.”
“Yes. Alix-slash-Alexandra was my great-great-grandmother’s cousin, and Anastasia was her first cousin once removed. I tell you that because I’ve heard it so often, it’s engraved on my brain.”
“Shot to death by the Bolsheviks in a basement along with the rest of their family,” Sebastian said. “Those are some lucky names, all right.”
“Anastasia was only seventeen,” I said. “Alexei, the Tsarevitch, was thirteen. And now you know why my grandmother wasn’t thrilled about that name. My mother said, ‘You are a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, who wielded immense power at a time when that power wasn’t otherwise open to women, and you deserve beautiful names.Familynames that will help you hold onto your dignity.’ I’m not sure today was what she had in mind.” I ate the rest of my fries and was sorry they were gone. “Alix is fine. Alix is good. Alexandra is one of my grandmother’s middle names, and nobody has to knowwhat it means. Anastasia is a bridge too far. Ned kept wanting to call me that. Said it made me sound more ‘special.’ I don’t want to be special. I want to be normal. I always have. He’d tell people about the princess thing, and I’d—” I stopped myself before I could go on some kind of Bitterness Rant in order to avoid feeling guilty. “Maybe one reason I broke it off, honestly.”
“You didn’t think the same things were important,” Sebastian said. “Seems like a good reason to me. Anastasia is a beautiful name, though, viewed objectively. Complicated name. Suits you, I’d say, but you do you.” He reached across the table. I froze, but he wiped something off the side of my mouth with his thumb. “You had a little mustard.”
I had to laugh. “I’m so classy. Princess material all the way.”
“So—why?” he asked. “Why’d you break it off? Makes sense to me, seeing you with the guy, but what happened to make you realize it, right at the end?”
“I just couldn’t go through with it,” I tried to explain. It wasn’t easy, since I barely understood it myself. “I had an anxiety attack and thought it was just nerves, and then I had a worse one at the church. I thought I was going to faint for a minute there, or possibly throw up. Maybe I’d still have gone through with it even so, though, because I keep my promises.”
“Not all promises have to be kept, I guess,” Sebastian said.
“You’re right,” I said, “but how do you tell the difference? It was my grandmother. She said that if I wasn’t sure, I should walk. Just walk right out of the church. That life was too short to live it in doubt or worse, that I’d always held my head high and owned my choices, so why wouldn’t I do it now?”
“Wise,” Sebastian said.
“She’s always wise. She’s my role model. At least I talked to Ned first. That’s the only bright spot, that I didn’t leave himstanding there, looking stupid. He’s pretty crushed, though.” I had to stop and compose myself before I went on. “It doesn’t make me proud to know that. I felt stuck. Trapped. Not his fault. Mine, for not knowing myself better. It’s a lousy thing to do to somebody.”
“Be lousier to marry him knowing you felt that way,” Sebastian said, eating a fry, then stuffing the container with a good half of his fries back into the bag.
“That’s what my grandmother said. That’s the only reason I could do it. Are you not eating the rest of those?”
“Uh … no. Want them?”
“You bet I do. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I couldn’t eat much then. Pure panic. What you’re seeing is me a hundred times more composed. Frightening thought. This is a first, though. What kind of guy doesn’t finish his fries?”
“A guy with a meal plan, like I told you,” he said, fishing them out and handing them over. “How’d your parents take the walking-out deal?”
“My mother was furious. At meandmy grandmother. Even more at my grandmother. She thought my grandmother talked me into running. But I just—” I threw out a hand. Unfortunately, I caught his hand as he was lifting his milk carton—yes, he was drinking milk, while I was having a chocolate milkshake—and just about knocked it onto the floor. I didn’t, because he hung on.
“Whoa, there,” he said, taking my hand in his.
I couldn’t breathe for a second. It was the intensity in his amber wolf-eyes, or the way he sat so straight and still, or something. Or that he was holding my hand.
I took my hand away, and he let me. “I realized my life isn’t quite working,” I said. “And I need to figure out how to make it work.”
“Still doesn’t explain the party dress,” he said.
