Page 66 of Her Holiday Arrangement
She turned away, moving toward the bed, if only to have something to do with her hands. Her pulse roared in her ears as she pulled back the covers. The mattress looked impossibly wide and impossibly small at once, room enough for two bodies, but nowhere to hide.
“You’re really going to sleep after that?” Elizabeth asked, her voice taut.
Riley slid under the covers, her back to the room. “What else do you want me to do? Keep performing for you?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She moved around the room in silence, removing her necklace, slipping out of her dress with quiet efficiency, folding it neatly before hanging it over the valet stand. Each sound, the whisper of fabric, the creak of the wardrobe, only made Riley’s skin prickle more.
The bed dipped a moment later as Elizabeth slid in on the other side. The air shifted with her warmth, and Riley felt her entire body tense, every nerve ending alert. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep, but the space between them was alive with all the words unsaid.
Minutes stretched, long and heavy. Riley stared into the dark, watching the faint silver glow of the moon filter through the curtains. She could feel Elizabeth’s breathing, measured, controlled, infuriatingly calm, like a counterpoint to her own uneven rhythm.
She wanted to roll over. To bridge the space. To demand Elizabeth take back what she’d said. But pride and hurt kept her spine rigid.
Finally, Elizabeth’s voice came low, almost a whisper. “It wasn’t about you.”
Riley’s chest squeezed. She bit her lip hard before answering. “That’s the problem. It never is, is it?”
The silence that followed was colder than the winter air pressing against the windows.
Riley tucked her hands under the pillow, grounding herself in the cool linen, trying to steady the thrum of her pulse. She told herself she could survive this night, this bed, this impossible woman beside her. But when Elizabeth shifted slightly, the mattress moving beneath Riley’s body, her heart stuttered anyway.
Sleep didn’t come.
All Riley could think, over and over, was that she’d been a fool to believe any of it was real.
And yet, her chest ached with the truth she couldn’t silence—she wanted it to be.
12
December 23rd - Elizabeth
Elizabeth woke with the sensation of being watched, though when her eyes blinked open the room was empty of movement. Pale morning light filtered through the heavy curtains, turning the air a cool silver. Beside her, Riley lay on her side, facing the window, hair mussed against the pillow, one hand tucked under her cheek. She looked utterly still, save for the steady rise and fall of her breathing.
The memories of last night unspooled in Elizabeth’s head before she could stop them. The dining room. The judgement of her family. Riley’s shoulders tightening under the weight of every comment. And Elizabeth, sitting there in silence, eyes fixed on her wine glass, pretending not to notice the way Riley was being carved apart at the table.
She had told herself, in that moment, that silence was strategy. That speaking up would have only given her family more ammunition, more reason to sneer. But lying here now, with the memory of Riley’s voice cracking when she asked for backup, Elizabeth knew the truth: she hadn’t been protectingRiley at all. She had been protecting herself. From conflict. From the inevitable argument. From the risk of looking weak in front of her parents.
The shame sat heavy in her chest.
Elizabeth rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling beams. Riley had still climbed into bed beside her after the fight, though she’d turned her back, leaving a careful strip of space between them. The silence had been thick enough to choke on. Elizabeth had lain awake for hours, trying to think of what she could possibly say, too cowardly to risk making it worse.
Now the light was growing brighter, and she could feel the windowpanes humming faintly with the winter wind. She couldn’t leave it unsaid any longer.
She turned her head. “Riley?”
A soft grunt came from the pillow. Riley’s lashes fluttered open, her eyes unfocused with sleep. She blinked at Elizabeth, then seemed to remember where she was. Her body shifted, just slightly, pulling further toward the edge of the bed.
Elizabeth’s chest tightened. “I need to apologize.”
That woke Riley fully. She pushed herself up on one elbow, guarded. “For what?”
Elizabeth sat up too, tucking her legs under the covers, fingers knotting together in her lap. “Last night. At dinner. I should’ve… I should’ve said something. Anything. I thought being quiet would keep things from escalating, but it just left you alone at that table.”
Riley studied her, face unreadable. The morning light picked out the faint bruised shadows under her eyes, a reminder of how little sleep either of them had gotten. “It felt like you agreed with them,” she said quietly.
Elizabeth flinched. “I didn’t.”
“You didn’t disagree either.”
