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“Something like that.”
“Good thing, too. It would be shitty to ruin her dress on her engagement night.”
Every muscle in my body ceases. “What? How do you know?”
Black spots appear on the edges of my vision. Some part of me knows that I’m focusing on the wrong thing. That Etta’s engagement has meaning aside from the stabbing feeling now working its way deeper into my abdomen. Yet, I can’t think straight. Can’t see straight.
Violet is still speaking. “My mother mentioned—”
I can’t hear her, because my entire focus has shifted. Like a search and destroy laser, I’ve zeroed in on the woman now leaving the patio. Her halo of blonde hair and absurd fairytale dress are less than subtle as she moves quickly through the crowd.
My heart pounds against my chest, and my interest is peaked. I’m already moving, melting into the crowd. “Well, it was great to see you.”
Violet’s annoyed voice rings after me. “Wait!”
I’ve spent my whole life reading literature. Memorizing stories about tragic heroes and ill-fated love stories, and distantly, I recognize this moment for what it is. Recognize the simplicity of a metaphor, of the girl in the white dress, definitely not meant for me.
Etta is ethereal. She’s Helen of Troy, launching an armada against every defense I’ve built against her over the last decade.
And I am not the hero of this story. I’m Hades. I’m Heathcliff. I’m Paris of Troy, gone to steal away Helen.
The noise of the party below dulls to a low hum as I jog up the back stairwell of the Capulet mansion. It isn’t until I reach the second landing that I realize how reckless this plan is.
I let out a long sigh. Calling it a “plan” might even be too generous. Lapse in sanity? Is it still a lapse if the entirety of the last six months have been one long clusterfuck?
Even if Etta is getting engaged, how will my following her upstairs help? What am I trying to do? Talk to her? I need to go find Bennet and Pierce and focus on why we’re here; namely, so my engagement isn’t the next to be announced.
I freeze in the middle of the empty hallway, about to turn around and go back downstairs, when a figure in a white dress comes around the corner toward me, like an apparition, summoned in a circle of my wildest rambling fantasies.
Etta Capulet stops short some ten feet in front of me. Her huge, round eyes meet mine, and I’ve never before seen someone embody the phrase “deer in the headlights” so perfectly.
She says nothing, staring at me, her expression wary. Guilty, perhaps. Which makes no sense, as I’m the one creeping around a deserted upstairs hallway of her house, while the party carries on two floors below. She has no reason to be nervous, while I have every reason, yet the longer the silence drags on, my curiosity peaks.What the hell is she doing?
“What the hell are you doing?” she says finally, as if reading my thoughts.
I smile at the coincidence, and she scowls in response.
“Looking for a bathroom,” I lie.
She raises an eyebrow. “There’s, like, five bathrooms downstairs. Try again.”
Right.A year ago, I would have had no problem flirting my way out of this. Hell, I would probably pull my shit together to do it now, even if it feels hollow and pointless, just like everything else—I can be charming when I want to be, I just usually don’t care to bother.
But not with Etta.
Etta never fell for my brand of flirting, even back in prep school. She’s probably the only woman on the planet who has never stared at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. She’s certainly the only one who has told me to my face she doesn’t like me, and I suppose she has a good enough reason for that.
“I’ll tell you what I’m doing if you tell me what you’re doing,” I say, trying to insert a note of flirtation into my out of practice tone.
Sure enough, her eyes grow even narrower and she takes a few steps toward me. “Fuck off. I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“Fuck off? When did you learn to use grown up words?”
She scowls, like she isn’t quite comfortable with it herself. “Alright,” she takes a step toward me. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m sure my parents will love hearing that you were wandering around up here.”
I’m 80% sure she’s bluffing. Etta three years ago would never have sold me out to her family, but now...I’m not sure. My father’s face swims in the back of my mind. I’m not afraid of the Capulets, but I’d rather chew broken glass than deal with the fallout if we lose our council seats.
I inhale through my nose, steeling myself, and again, go for man’s greatest weapon: delusional confidence. “Sure, but what are you going to do? If you tell anyone, your family will just attack me and then you’ll lose your council seats.”
