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“You’re not her, are you?”
Alexander’s voice broke into my thoughts.
He was sitting up near the chaise. He’d slept on the floor and had been curled into a ball, hugging the other velvet pillow.
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
He stood up and walked over to me. Now that I knew him better and had felt the struggle inside of him, I could see his attractiveness.
He wanted to be a good man, but his father raised him to be a bastard.
And I didn’t know him. Not like the other two. With Alexander, at first, he’d felt wrong every time we were near each other. Like magnets, when you flip them around, and they push against each other, desperate to stay apart.
Now I wasn’t sure. He didn’t feel wrong anymore, but he wasn’t one of mine. My heart didn’t love him yet, but there was potential.
He sat on my bed and stroked my hair. He lifted it in his hand and dropped it to my shoulder, then rubbed my arm.
“You’re not the Willow I know,” he said, studying me. “You’re not the one I was engaged to. You’re not the brainless little Upper who craved Lower dick and sneaking around on me, doing Victoria’s bidding.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I could lie and pretend it was just the accident. I could continue the facade and silence him with deception.
But maybe whatever treatment Dr. Norris had done the night before had fixed some part of me, or maybe it was because I was free of the pills for the time being, but I didn’t lie. I couldn’t continue the deception.
I sat up in bed, took his hand in mine, and looked him in the eye.
“You know I’m not her,” I replied carefully. “I’m different now, and I understand if you don’t want to stay engaged to me. I’m not that girl.”
He studied my face, and his eyes narrowed. He watched me as if waiting for a reaction, weighing his next words and choosing them carefully.
“You’re mine, Willow, whoever you are,” he said, surprising me. “I don’t know what that looks like or how this all plays out, but for now, you’re mine because I would lose my fucking mind if I let you go.”
With that, my fate was sealed. At least for the time being, I was still secure.
Now I just had to figure out what the hell was going on.
CHAPTER20
After that night,everything changed, and yet nothing was really that different.
I still took the pills, even the extras Dr. Norris had sent over. The sensation of being pulled apart, dissolving, and being unanchored from this world was too much for me. I was terrified that it would happen again.
Dr. Norris was still not pleased with my disregard for his orders, though. I was put on academic probation, but we all knew nothing would really happen if I did anything. I was basically untouchable, and everybody knew this.
But despite that and my immense dislike for the man, I kept up my weekly treatments and took those fucking pills like a good Upper girl. A brainless, soulless Upper girl whose only duty was to her family and her future husband and nobody else. It was infuriating, but I settled in, and it became tolerable.
The brain fog was livable now. I was finally getting used to being me andnotme, with Willow andother Willowcoexisting simultaneously within a single cage of muscle and bone.
My days at Crimson began to stretch into each other, routine became paramount to keeping myself settled, and boredom became the thing that kept me anchored firmly to this world.
I still tried to unravel my feelings about the three different guys in my life. Alexander was the most steady presence, always by my side in the dining hall and during every Crimson Academy function, from assemblies to movie nights in the great hall.
I saw Rome by Alexander’s side most of the time, and once or twice he caught me unawares when I was under the wall waiting for Alexander. He found me alone there, and we spoke, but we didn’t touch. We wanted to. I could feel it between us like an anchor itself pulling us together.
But we didn’t. For Alexander’s sake, because Rome saw him as a brother, but also for mine. I felt like if I went too far with Rome on my own, I would lose the tenuous grip I was maintaining on my reality and plunge headfirst into the bizarre things that danced around the edges of my memories.
Whenever Alexander found us alone down there, he was tense at first but also intrigued. I sensed I could explore with him if I played my cards right. I could push him and find out how far he would go.
The possibilities were endless. I simply needed to throw off the shackles of Crimson Academy and their ridiculously long list of rules and regulations for Upper women.
