When I sat up, the vision of my well-fucked naked body greeted me in that mirror. That goddamn mirror.
Gone.
I pictured myself throwing the phone at the fucking mirror, smashing them both to pieces. It wouldn’t matter. I’d still stare at the wardrobe door and see what we’d done. I could still feel him between my legs.
After dragging my stiff body from under the covers, I slipped into some pyjamas and tied my hair in a ponytail. I lurched for the door, eager to leave. But as I reached it, I paused. With my grip strangling the doorhandle, I arranged my face into some semblance of happy. On the other side of the wooden barrier, my sister would be lounging in front of the TV, probably eating cereal. It was her Sunday morning routine.
This is no routine Sunday.
The last person to walk out this door had been Ben. What had I done so wrong to make him run?
My brow scrunched as my tear ducts prepped for a deluge.
I gritted my teeth. Don’t you fucking dare. I wasn’t going to cry over a man. If he wasn’t able to handle the magnitude of us then he didn’t deserve my tears.
I waltzed out, determined to put on a show for Bree, and aimed for the kitchen.
“Hey,” she mumbled through a mouthful of food.
“Morning. How’d you sleep?” I poured myself a glass of juice.
“Mm. Good.” Her spoon clinked on the bowl. “What time did Ben go home?”
I stiffened at the sound of his name. Poising my drink at my lips, I prepared to douse the burn at the back of my throat. “Before midnight. He only just made it before he turned into a pumpkin.” I tipped the juice, gulping it too fast as she laughed.
I choked, launching into a coughing fit. It was the perfect cover for the spring of tears. The bastards got past my guard.
“Are you okay?” She dumped her bowl on the coffee table and jogged over to me.
“Yep,” I gasped. “Wrong tube.” Slapping myself on the chest, I reached for the paper towel.
“What time are Mum and Dad getting back?”
I blew my nose and caught my breath before answering. “Around dinner time. Wanna help me cook a nice meal?”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
Let’s soak everything in alcohol and flambé the shit out of it.
Maybe I could do that to my sheets?
And the mirror.
_____
I’d called four times and left messages. He hadn’t replied. Mum and Peter had come home that night and I’d had to pretend that there wasn’t an empty space where my heart had been. He’d run off with it and dumped it somewhere on his way to ghosting me. At least he’d done the same with the used condom.
I’d been mechanical in my routine—eaten dinner, had a shower, gone to bed, gotten up, gotten dressed, eaten breakfast, gone to school.
Now here I was heading to fourth period. I pulled out my phone, checking for any messages. My face fell at the missing envelope icon at the top of the screen.
“Oh, shit. What’s wrong with you?” Pauline approached me on the path leading to our class.
“Nothing.”
“Okay. I believe you. Not.”
“I don’t think I can talk about it without bawling like a baby.”
“I won’t ask.” She pursed her lips and peered at me through the corner of her eye.
“He ghosted me.”
“Prick.”
“I know I didn’t do anything wrong. Things were going great.” I threw up my hands. “He freaked. Things got real and he freaked.”
“Sounds like it. Ben’s the dependable type.”
“Not so much. I don’t know what to do.”
“There’s nothing you can do. The ball is in his court. If he needs space, give it to him. What’s the first rule of dating?”
“Don’t chase.”
“Exactly. Guys are built for the hunt. If he wants you, he’ll come and get you when he’s ready. Then you decide if he’s worthy.”
“You’re right.”
“Just keep doing you, girl. Chase the goals, not the man.”
She was so right. I sent up a prayer of thanks for having her in my life. “I love you, Pauline.”
She hooked an arm over my shoulders. “Love you too, sweetie.”
_____
Emmeline
Hampshire, England
13th July, 1867, 2:56 p.m.
My father paced the floor of my bedroom as I lay curled on my bed. Left to right. Hands clasped behind him, eyes on his polished boots, he marched to the head of my bed and spun on his heel, before turning back the way he came. His nostrils flared as he pulled in air and forced it out again. We had been locked in this stand-off ever since he’d dragged me kicking and screaming to my room. Could it have been half an hour? An hour? I did not know.
His footsteps stopped and he twisted to face me. I stared at his belt buckle. Would he choose to use it as a punishment?
“I find it difficult to understand how my daughter—my daughter—could defy me in such a way.”
I had not defied him. He had defied me. He had decided who I was to marry without consultation and without consideration of my heart’s desires.
“Speak!”
“What would you have me say?”
He scoffed before landing a heavy blow across my cheek. I whimpered, soothing the sting with my palm as I pushed my face into the mattress.
“How long have you been consorting with the servant boy?”
If I answered truthfully, Marybeth would be in trouble and Uncle Tobias would be without his mistress. For the first time, I found myself empathising with a man I had previously considered self-serving, unctuous, and fickle. What if they were truly in love? What if my uncle had been forced to marry Lady Margaret
