“Not any weirder than calling yourself Mr. ASMR.”
My attempt at a joke had worked; Carter let out a sharp laugh. “I guess that’s true.” He let out a soft breath. “My parents. I told you about how they’ve been introducing me to all the girls at the club. Trying to find me… well.Someone.”
He hadn’t told me that, not exactly. He’d said they’d used it like an entrance into society. Ms. Jennings, though, had said,I have heard they’re looking for their eccentric son someone to settle down with.“O-Oh?”
“Well. So. I—I just wanted to put feelers out on something. You’re different from everyone else. I get this feeling that… you’d understand.”
I focused on the board in front of me, my mind rapidly trying to figure outhisstrategy before he spoke. “Well, I’m all ears, then.”
“When you first DM’d me, I kind of thought… it was fate.” Carter leaned forward into the stretch of sunlight coming in through the window. “I know I said that already, but I really mean it, Eleanor. Maybe not in a super grand way—but then again, can you really talk aboutfatein anungrand way?”
I blinked, taken aback. “Fate.”
“Eleanor,” he began softly. “How do you feel about me?”
Now my stomach turned over on itself. How did I feel about him? I liked Carter. I liked how awkward he was at times, how happily he talked about ASMR. Carter was steady, safe. My thoughts were perfectly calm when I was with him, almost peaceful enough that I could’ve fallen asleep.
My thoughts eerily sounded like Beck’s voice.How boring.
Carter leaned forward now, further, stretching further into the sunlight. “I—I like you, Eleanor,” he admitted. “I think you’d be perfect… for what I need.”
I pinched a pawn.Perfect for what I need. The words did nothing. There were no sparks, no butterflies, no excitement. Carter was choosing me, and it was like my body was asleep, unable to react.
A loud chirping noise filled the air like a bird had gotten into the game room. Carter jumped at the sound. “Sorry,” he said, pulling his phone out. He glanced at the screen, angling it toward his chest. “If it’s all right, I’m going to take this.”
I was actually relieved for the call, desperate for space to breathe. “Go ahead.”
He rose from the board, pointing a finger. “No cheating.”
I gestured to his camera. “There’d beevidence.”
Carter smiled when he left.
I tried not to let my relief be visible, since his camera was still recording, but I slumped forward. Surely he hadn’t been about to ask for my hand in marriage, but his sudden intensity had thrown me. Andfate? When he came back, would he jump back into that conversation? At least it was almost the top of the hour. Jamie would be finished with book club soon.
With my racing thoughts, I was suddenly too aware of the window beside me. The sun set lower, streaks of gold filtering into the room and across the chessboard. Beckoning me to look at the sky. To look at the serenity garden. To look at the place that’d been as scary as a monster in the dark.
And like a siren singing its song, for the first time in four years, I looked my nightmare in the eye.
The garden was beautiful. You’d never have guessed a fourteen-year-old lit it on fire once upon a time. The gardeners at Alderton-Du Ponte had the rosebushes replaced with ones that looked similar but lacked the “award-winning” title. Flowers bloomed at the base of the bushes, pink instead of lavender. A large tree sat in the middle of the garden, with flowers blooming at its trunk, its large limbs full of leaves and filtering sunlight. And there, just in front of the tree, sat an outdoor chess table with two wrought-iron chairs on either side of it.
Magical. Haunted.
There were no pieces, so if anyone wanted to play chess at that table, they’d have to bring their own—orfindtheir own. Beck and I had hunted around formakeshift pieces when we’d wanted to play, scouring the ground. Rocks for pawns, sticks for rooks, flower petals for queens.
I’d only ever played out there with Beck.
I’d only ever been out there with Beck.
C-U-R-S-E-D.
“Thirsty?”
A shocked gasp wrenched out of me, and for how silent the room had been up until then, it’d echoed loudly in my ears. And then, a second later, an iced coffee appeared in front of me.
I knew the voice, but I still traced the arm up, finding that my nightmare had come to life.
Beck’s expression as he stood before me was neutral, no smirking grin or glittering eyes. He had a heather-gray sweatshirt on, hood drawn up over his head, shielding most of his blond hair. It peeked out at the sides, though, feathering over his forehead.
