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Truth was, I needed a hug. Which was how I found myself rolled up in a down comforter with only my face showing.
I could tell by the slant of light behind the curtains that it was late and wished I’d been sleeping this whole time. But I’d spent yesterday in a sort of fugue state, once I’d gained my composure, at least. It was a long, quiet afternoon and evening as my sisters tried to distract Mama and me. Though Mama was in much better shape than me. At least she’d avoided sleeping with her interloper. And she’d kept her heart locked up better than I had too.
Instead of protecting it like I should have, I’d shoved my heart into a pasta maker and smushed it into spaghetti, left thin and brittle once the tears dried.
It was all a lie.
Every word he’d spoken to me. Every moment we shared.
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. But then I’d think about how he watched his father pursue my mother, never once trying to stop him, lying to me about Merrick’s intentions when I asked. Or his father showing up after the first night we were together and Grant telling him I was just a part of his plan. Maybe Grant was lying to his father. Maybe he wasn’t. But Grant and I had started off as a lie, and we’d ended with one.
There was no way to know what was real and what wasn’t. What was true feelings and what was a manipulation. I shouldn’t have blamed him. He told me he’d win, and I told him I’d win, and then I fell for him like an idiot. And now I was shocked that it turned out exactly like he said it would.
That was on me. All me.
Yesterday, I’d woken with my world filled with hope.
Today, I’d woken with that hope smashed to a thousand pieces.
The sick ache in my chest twisted and writhed at the thought of him, at the thought of the future I’d caught a glimpse of before it disappeared. Once, not so long ago, I’d believed that I was destined to be alone, and that I’d be better off that way. And the man who proved me wrong lied from the very start.
My nose burned, my eyes pricking with tears, and I pulled a flap of blanket over my face before they spilled down my temples and into my hairline, even though no one was here to see. Hiding here alone, I could cry as much as I needed to. The only shame here was my own.
Stupid, so stupid I’d been to trust him when I knew better.
I knew better.
And I’d still fallen like a fool for the worst sort of man—the man with an agenda.
The man who valued money and prestige over all.
But I’d seen another man too, a man I’d believed was so genuine, freshly hatched and experiencing the world for the first time. He’d spoken to me once about magic as if he’d only just discovered it. He’d held me in the moonlight and told me without words that he needed me. He’d said he wanted to stay.
If I’d signed his contract, would I have woken to an empty bed? When he told me he needed me, was it me he needed or the signature?
I was too hurt and confused, too bruised to know.
A soft rap on the door preceded a creak as it opened.
“Hey,” Daisy whispered, “are you up?”
I didn’t move in the hopes she’d leave.
“She’s not up,” Daisy whispered again.
“Oh, she’s awake,” Poppy said a little too loud.
The bed bounced as she climbed in and kept bouncing as she jumped on her knees, shaking my burrito like an earthquake.
I groaned.
“Open the curtains, Daisy.” She shook me with more purpose. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Leave me alone.”
“We did that most of yesterday,” Daisy said sweetly. She slipped into bed on the other side of me, and her hands rummaged gently in the area around my face, looking for entrance.
“I’ll bite you. You know I will.”
“You will not, Iris Jo,” Daisy said without stopping.
“I will,” I warned weakly. “I haven’t eaten and am very hungry.”
Having found a way in, Daisy pulled back the flap, exposing my face. Hers fell.
“Oh, Jo.”
Tears sprang again. “Don’t say, Oh, Jo like that, or I’ll cry again.”
Her chin buckled, but she nodded, somehow managing to cradle me in her arms.
Poppy’s bouncing had slowed, then stopped. Next thing I knew, my sisters were spooning my hips.
We laid like that for a little while. Daisy had freed enough of my scalp to stroke my hair, and I cried even though I’d said I wouldn’t.
Neither of them called me on it.
“I’m sorry,” Poppy said.
“Me too,” I answered.
“Can I set his car on fire?” she asked.
We laughed through muffled noses.
“Fine, can I put sugar in his gas tank? Slash his tires?”
