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Our return to Spearcrest was bittersweet.
The night before we returned, Zachary and I made love like we both never wanted it to end, slowly, achingly, holding on to each other desperately, kissing as if each kiss might be the last. Afterwards, we lay entangled in my bed, my head on his shoulder and his mouth pressed to my forehead.
“Please,” I told him, my heart in my mouth, “don’t tell anyone about us.”
“Have more faith in me,” he said then. “I would sooner die than betray your trust.”
Butofcourse,Ididn’t take into consideration how much happiness changes a person. I returned to Spearcrest feeling different—because the crushing loneliness was gone, because the bleak darkness of despair had ebbed away—but I assumed that change within me was only internal.
I was wrong.
I find this out on the first evening back while I’m in my bedroom unpacking my things. A knocking sound is immediately followed by the door opening, and there’s only one person who enters my room without waiting.
“Happy New Year, Ness,” I say over my shoulder.
“Happy New Year, Dora.” Inessa loops an arm around my neck and kisses my cheek. “How was your holiday?”
I turn to answer her, but she narrows her eyes and steps away from me, looking at me from head to toe.
“What is it?” I ask, glancing down at myself.
I’m wearing faded blue jeans, a white woollen jumper and white trainers—nothing out of the ordinary.
“You look different,” Inessa says, peering at me with a suspicious expression. “You look—I don’t know.” She waves a hand around while she tries to think of what she wants to say. “You look, well—happy.”
I laugh. “Are you saying I looked miserable before?”
“Obviously not. Not miserable. But not likethat.”
“Like what?” I sit down at the edge of my bed, crossing my legs and lacing my fingers around one knee. “Use your words, Ness. Describe what you mean.”
She stands in front of me, tapping her lips. “Hm. All pink in the face and soft and—I don’t know.Creamy.”
“Creamy?” I laugh again. “What does that even mean?”
“Did you get yourself a boyfriend during the holidays?” Inessa asks, narrowing her eyes at me. “And you didn’t tell me? We texted every day!”
“There are some things one cannot share by text,” I say with a little shrug.
“You little whore!” Inessa cries. The word makes my guts clench uncomfortably, and for a second, my blood runs cold. “You know I live vicariously through you! I want to know every detail!”
I hesitate. The word “whore” is an unpleasant reminder of all the things I avoided worrying about when I was with Zachary: like my father and the promise he forced me to make—that I would never let anybody touch me before marriage, that I would never be a whore.
And what he said to me after I made that promise, those words that are indelibly burned into me.
Break this promise, Theodora, and I will punish you for it for the rest of your life.
“What is it?” Inessa asks, frowning. “I didn’t mean to pressure you, Dora, I’m so sorry.” She sits next to me and takes my hands. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just happy you’re happy.”
“No, no,” I say, lacing my fingers through hers and squeezing. “You’re my best friend, Ness, of course, I want to tell you. I’m just nervous, that’s all. I need you to swear to me you’ll never tell anyone.”
She pushes back her long hair and pulls out the tiny golden cross she wears around her neck. “I swear it,” she says, holding the cross and kissing it.
Even though it’s been a long time since I’ve stopped believing in saints and crosses, Inessa believes faithfully, and so I’m immediately soothed by the solemnity of her vow.
“Alright,” she says, tucking her cross back into her top and holding my hands like she was doing before, “tell me everything, you scandalous woman!”
I laugh. “How do you know it’s going to be scandalous?”
