Page 91 of Serpentine Valentine
They all collapsed into happy chatter, energized by the adrenaline of their confrontation with the hockey players. They pet me, touched me,bouncing on their toes and talking over each other. I listened a little, but really, I tried to catch my breath and absorb the magnitude of love I felt surging through me. Love for them, but also, for the first time in a long time, a little love for myself too.
And all I wanted to do in the wake of this massive moment was go to Luna and thank her.
If I could stand down Pierce, inspire sisterhood in traumatized women, and come back to the setting of my nightmares, couldn’t I find the courage to ask for forgiveness too? Couldn’t I find the courage to make myself vulnerable enough to love someone, really love them with all of my scared heart and broken soul?
I found that I could, and I knew exactly the first step I had to take if I had a hope of winning back the pure heart of Luna Pallas.
“In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow—and that is likely to hurt.”
—Wei Wu Wei
Lex
The first stepin winning back the heart of Luna Pallas was contacting Bryn.
“Are you sure?” Her face had been an odd flux of concern and excitement. It made me like her even more, to know that despite her own desire to see my story shared, she didn’t want me to hurt.
She obviously didn’t get that I was used to living with pain.
I met her mother, the famous Quinn Harper, that very night at a quaint but expensive restaurant in town. She was just as impressive as I’d imagined, yet something in her air put me at ease. This was a woman who took her job seriously, who would do justice to my story because she wanted to do justice for women everywhere. This was someone I could trust as much as I ever trusted anyone.
As much as I should have trusted Luna.
Four days later, I was on my way to meet Quinn to read over her preliminary draft of the article when I decidedto stop at our mailbox because the arm was lifted on its side. I’d applied for early admission at Cambridge for a MPhil in Classics, and I was waiting with bated breath for the letter that would seal my fate.
That wasn’t what I found in the metal box.
My fingers curled around a rectangular envelope, and when I pulled it into the light, I instantly recognized the loose, looping script of Luna Pallas.
Alexandra Gorgon, it was addressed with our Charity Lane information beneath it.
I tore the paper open with my teeth, and a USB drive fell into my palm along with a scrap of paper torn out of a book. It was the title page of a retelling of Medusa from a collection of mythology I recognized by Marios Christou.
And scribbled on it in that flowery handwriting was a note from the lover I’d betrayed.
Lex,
“Veritatis et acquitatis tenax.”
Persevering in truth and justice.
I know you’ve taken Acheron’s motto to heart in your crusade against the men who threaten women on campus. I know you think it’s admirable and just, and maybe it is. But it’s a Band-Aid over a bullet hole. If you want to stop the problem, cut it off at the source. This should help your cause, and maybe, it’ll help heal your heart. I think it’s a good one buried beneath all the hate.
Luna
My fingers cramped around the page, tearing one corner. Carefully, fingers trembling, I smoothed it out on my tights-clad thigh before folding it carefully into a square and tucking it in my pocket.
Luna’s goodness, even and especially in the face of my own selfish fury, made my heart ache and throb in my chest. I felt like the Grinchmust have, the goodness of others fertilizing his fallow heart until it grew three sizes. I rubbed at the pain as I walked to meet Quinn, but I relished it too.
Because I was healing, and it had more to do with Luna and her unflappable example of kindness than it did with the beatings I’d handed down to vile men on campus.
Although, it did have a little to do with that too.
When Quinn inserted the drive in her computer, I knew Luna had torn out a section of her own heart in order to heal mine.
She’d turned in her own mother.
The scores of emails not only condemned Mina Pallas for obstructing justice but they also implicated Professor Morgan.
