Page 90 of The Bargain

She nods to herself, as if she’s just affirmed her decision.

“This isn’t her burden to carry. It’s my mistake, my fuck-up. My mess to clean up. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

She hesitates, here, faltering, biting into her lip.

“Well, I know I’ve asked you for help, but that’s different.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Ophelia grabs my hand and squeezes my fingers. “Please, Elias. Please. This will be my last mistake—I swear it.” Her eyes go huge, tears wobbling to the surface. “I don’t want Desdemona to know. If she does, it won’t matter what I do for the rest of my life—this will be who I am to her. This disgusting, stupid girl, this girl who wasn’t strong or smart enough to stop this from happening.”

The truth is that I understand what she’s saying, completely. I see her logic, her fears and her vulnerabilities, and I see the flaws in her logic, too. None of this happened because Ophelia was a fuck-up or because she was weak or stupid. It only happened because Birnam did something wrong.

Something low and nasty and evil.

Desdemona would know this, too, but, as it turns out, Desdemona’s mask of perfection has done nothing but backfire on her. Because after everything, it’s me, her liar, manipulator, fake boyfriend, who knows her the best, and what a fucking tragedy that is.

Most of all, I see my own role in all this: it doesn’t matter whether I agree with Ophelia’s logic or not. Telling Desdemona, after everything Ophelia told me, would make me just like Birnam—another person who stole agency from Ophelia.

Either way, I’m going to have to betray one sister.

Out of the two of them, who would survive such a betrayal the best?

I know the answer to that. But the real question is:

Out of the two of them, whose betrayal would be most painful to me?

The same person, of course. Betraying Desdemona—and she would absolutely consider this a betrayal—would cost me both her trust and her love.

Can you lose something you never had, though?

The voice inside my head is cruel yet calm. It’s not vicious or malicious. It’s not meant to harm. It’s the voice of reality, the pragmatic commentator that’s always watched over me, making sure I never lose my sanity to vain hopes and hollow dreams.

Why worry about losing her trust or her love, the voice says, when you’re going to lose her anyway?

A man walking up gallows steps might make any promise that’s asked of him.

Either way, his regrets and sorrows are going into the grave with him.

I think of Desdemona in the observatory: golden hair falling over my face as she whispered she didn’t want to be perfect. Her bare shoulders under the silver raindrops, her open mouth and her searching, hungry gaze. The way she looked at me the night she asked me to save her brothers.

The moment I swore I wouldn’t fall for her.

Too late now. What’s one more mistake?

“I won’t tell her.” My voice comes out low and alien, like it exhaled out of another person’s chest. “I promise.”

I walked into Spearcrest with nothing.

And when all this comes to an end, when truth and lies are thrown one on top of the other in the hectic pyre and there’s nothing left but ashes, I’ll leave the same way.

With nothing at all.

Part III

The Fall

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