Shock floods both their faces quickly. My father looks horrified. My mother just looks… lost.
And suddenly, I can’t tell if they’re disgusted, ashamed, guilty, or simply stunned that the daughter they ignored to build their empire, the one theycurated so carefully, turned out mentally ill anyway.
Vi’s hand tightens around my arm.
Levi’s arm circles my waist again, carefully, like he thinks I might collapse if he lets go.
I manage not to sway.
But now that the words are out there, I feel myself shutting down in real time.
The anger drains first.
Then the alcohol I was leaning on.
Then everything else.
I step back before anyone can say anything. Before anyone can pity me.
Before anyone can try to fix this.
“Cece—” my mother whispers brokenly.
But I don’t stop walking.
“Have fun on WebMD,” I mutter and leave the room.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Levi
There’s more of her to love,I keep telling myself.
All while my brain is constantly building and dismantling the pieces of Cece I’ve come to understand these past weeks.
It took me a while to uncover the pattern. I’m guessing it took her a while, too. But I’m almost certain I don’t know half of it.
There’s a harrowing rhythm to her, but it keeps changing. Unfortunately, it seems to surprise her the same it does me. And I’ve come to realize that this is also new to Cece. Not just me.
I’ve made sure to read up further on the withdrawal of Seroquel. Her last, desolate words from when she stormed out of dinner last week at her parents’ are a haunting clang in my brain.
And with the way she has completely given up resuming her medication—even after her PA broughtthat tiny green bottle to my place from her office—I’ve been trying to understand what it would mean for her. Especially since she was borderline religious about the meds, according to Vi.
Her alarm still goes off at noon. The words,‘Take meds’,glare at me every single time. Possibly because she’s never around her phone when it happens. Like she’s deliberately ignoring it.
She’s either on the balcony, testing the limits of my sanity. Or simply wandering in the kitchen, a glass of whiskey in her hand.
Yes, she has somehow managed to start day drinking. Which is probably why she hasn’t been to work for over two weeks now.
The one time I brought up her family physician, she aggressively rolled her eyes and resumed whatever she was looking at on her phone. Which was so unlike Cece that I almost stumbled back a step.
So I haven’t brought it up again. Not the doctor’s appointment. Not Seroquel. Not even my rapidly depleting bar stock.
And now, I’m helplessly staring at her, unable to find her a way out of this mechanical, near-robotic nightmare she’s trapped in—unable to compute her words.
“Maybe you’ll like the company? Some of your Harvard alumni might make an appearance,” I plead with her.
So as not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, I had given her a full week’s worth of notice about this gala. It was a funding event on the last day of the Global Healthtech Summit that was held annually.
