Gone.
I’m left standing in a soaked slip, hair plastered to my skin, looking exactly like what I am—someone who has just survived something she shouldn’t have.
If anyone asks, I’ll say I got caught in the sprinklers.
It’s late. Past two, if I had to guess. The lobby should be empty.
Never be the last debutante at the ball.
My mother’s voice echoes in my head, sharp and useless now.
So much for rules.
With my heart still racing, I walk back through the gardens and toward the hotel, each step carrying me further away from what happened—and deeper into whatever comes next.
I tell myself I need to forget.
I tell myself I will.
But even as I move forward, one thought presses in, impossible to ignore—if the current isn’t strong enough to carry him out by morning…everything falls apart.
And then—too late—I remember.
The Pucci heels.
Still sitting on the breakwater.
Chapter Eighteen
My fingers tremble as I turn the page.
For a moment, I just stare at the next entry, my breath shallow, my chest tight, as if I’ve been dropped back into that night all over again. The debutante ball. The night I buried so deep I convinced myself it no longer existed. Not forgotten—never that—but sealed off. Contained. Something I could survive only by refusing to revisit it.
And now here I am.
Reliving it.
Not just through memory, but through Whitney—through her words, her thoughts, her version of something we both swore we’d never speak of again.
I reach for my espresso and take a sip. It’s gone cold, bitter on my tongue, but the sharpness grounds me, pulls me back into the present just enough to keep reading.
My stomach turns as a different thought threads through me—of women like us. Socialites. Wives. Daughters. Debutantes. Raised to be polished, positioned, displayed. Power disguised as beauty. Value measured in perception.
And how easily all of that can be stripped away.
I’m sitting here in our bedroom, trying to make sense of everything that happened today.
The shift in tone is immediate—quieter, more contained than the last entry, but no less heavy.
My head feels like it’s spinning, like I’m stuck in something I can’t get out of. I keep telling myself that if I write it down, it’ll make more sense. It always does… doesn’t it?
I swallow, already knowing the answer.
It started small. It always does.
Of course it does.
I went out this afternoon—just groceries, nothing special. I did buy a dress, though. It was on sale, and I’ve been feeling like I needed something new. Something that made me feel… good.
