And again, like a magic spell, my nerves calmed.
Feeling more assured, I left the bathroom. The music playing swelled in the ballroom as I neared, creating the perfect grand entrance. Drawing in a deep breath, I stepped forward and into the limelight alone.
And straight into a black blur.
The person had been on their wayoutof the ballroom, and quickly, as if their feet couldn’t carry them fast enough. We collided into each other, my chest crushing into theirs, my heels stuttering as I tried to find balance. Their hand braced just above my elbow,steadying me as their other hand narrowly drew their drink back from dumping down the front of my dress.
In the split second as the world still spun, I knew it was a man I ran into from the dark suit jacket my fingers instinctively curled into paired with the woody, sharp scent of his cologne.
Did Daisy direct Carter Pembleton out to me?I wondered in that split second.Is this some sort of divine intervention?
I drew in a breath to apologize, except when I looked up, the words died on my lips.
The dread I’d felt when Mom told me Dad wasn’t coming was nothing compared to the pure horror that swallowed me now. A check in the world’s longest-running chess game, and my moves were limited.
No, nonexistent. I was done for.
C-H-E-C-K-M-A-T-E.
It was not Carter Pembleton, someone I never would’ve recognized.
There were far more differences than similarities, but I recognized this boy in an instant.
Even if it’d been forty years instead of four, I think I’d always recognize him in an instant.
B-E-C-K-H-A-M J-E-N-N-I-N-G-S.
“I’m sorry, sorry,” Beck said in a halting voice. His deep green eyes focused down at me as if he were staring straight into my soul. A lock of his platinum blond hair fell over his forehead, and even from here, I could see the darkness of his roots peeking through the bleach. The greenwas the same. The blond was new. “I didn’t even see you. I—I should’ve looked.”
Time held perfectly still for exactly one second. Beck looked at me neutrally, perhaps even a little embarrassed, but completely unknowing. We’d both changed drastically in four years, it seemed.
And then Beck’s gaze dipped to my throat, to the necklace that hung around my neck. The same necklace he’d put on me four years ago.
The second the recognition hit, every ounce of pleasantness evaporated. The light in Beck’s eyes didn’t so much dull as it flicked out completely, like a tidal wave slammed into him and cut the electricity.
Before it vanished completely, plunging him into darkness, I caught it: a horror of his own.
I suddenly thought of the blood draining from Ms. Jennings’s face when she’d looked at my necklace.A-Alice, she’d begun.I forgot to tell you?—
I could finish the sentence for her now.I forgot to tell you—my nephew is back.
“Eleanor Brighton,” Beck breathed, my name sounding like a delicate curse on his lips. The stark emotion that’d flickered in his gaze a moment ago was gone now, replaced with something far more relaxed. “I almost didn’t recognize you. I’d hoped you’d be uglier.”
Breathing had become impossible, because even though the horror had yet to fade, something else swept in. My feeling wasn’t a tidal wave so much as a tsunami, drenching me where I stood, sweeping meoff my feet.N-O N-O, the letters were as loud as exclamation points in my brain.N-O-T H-I-M.
But then, with my fingers still locked in his shirt, different letters spelled out in a forbidden font,F-I-N-A-L-L-Y.
My voice came out barely above a whisper. “Are—are you Mr. ASMR?”
For a heartbeat, I let myself feel the shameful relief. If BeckwasMr. ASMR, it meant he’d known who I was when I’d first messaged him back in April, and he’d still chosen to reply. He hadn’t blocked me immediately. He’d responded, messaged me back and forth for weeks, and camehere.
It meant maybe, just maybe, he’d missed me as much as I’d missed him.
But then the heartbeat passed, and the shame swallowed the relief whole. Beck’s hand was still on my arm, no longer steadying me, but trapping me in place.
“Mr. ASMR.” A small, mocking smirk tugged at his lips, and his expression filled with a dark sort of amusement. Mocking. Cruel. “You know, I don’t know what I thought you’d say to me after everything,” he mused, voice as low as if telling me a secret. He brought his drink to the front of his chest, between us, tilting it, nearly letting the contents dribble over. The green in his eyes flickered, debating. “But it wasn’t that.”
And then he dumped his cup out on our feet.
