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[entry]
"You're lying to me, Ella. You don't have what it takes to be a Du Sang."
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We missed the ball, but not the afterparty.
After changing out of our formal dresses to cocktail ones, everyone eagerly filed into the old dormitory of the academy and started the party. I watched down from the second floor, thinking of how lucky I was to avoid my father and stepmother tonight.
I found myself wandering to the portrait of my mother, which still embellished this hall. I wasn't usually in the mood to drink, but I closed my eyes and took another shot. It burned down my throat, just like the guilt that burned in my stomach.
Erik. He had almost kissed me the last time I stood here.
"Fraud," I said, approaching him. "Embezzlement. Bribery. Corruption. Tax evasion. Your hands are dirty, Erik, so dirty."
His eyes flashed. "Shut up."
"You worked hard," I said, quietly, after a long moment settled between us. "I know you did. In the years we grew up together, I watched you pour hours into this. Why? Why did you start-"
"Because everything was failing," Erik snapped, and the brunt of his anger revealed that other side he had. "Everything was failing, Vesper. Why do you think I've been so absent these past few weeks? It was all falling apart. I was just very good at concealing it."
"But-" I shook my head, "How? I don't get it. You were so successful that-"
"Competitors won out. My father was my biggest investor. The second?" He looked down. "Your father, until he cut ties."
I blinked once. Twice. "Say that again."
Bitterness tinged his words. "He offered me a deal. He would keep investing, and even considered handing me his empire, so long as I protected you, cherished you, and..."
"Kept tabs on me. As long as you monitored me like he wanted you to, he would give you everything." I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. More than that, it hurt. He would use me too. Even the boy I grew up with and loved.
He loved me too. Just not as much as he loved everything else.
"Once you left without a word, your father threatened to cut off all ties unless I told you where you had gone."
"But I never told you a thing," I whispered. I had fled in humiliation after finding out he had cheated on me. "How did you...?"
Nausea rolled up in my stomach when he looked to the ground. "I had a tracker on you. The promise ring."
Oh my god. "You sick-"
"He only stopped investing once he had people do an investigation. Your father found out I cheated on you and hated me. That was it. I've been trying to keep the company alive for the past few years. It's gone to shambles now."
I took another shot. And another. We had this conversation only hours ago, but it still felt like it happened a minute ago. I gripped the wall, stumbling, and wondered if it was the alcohol or the feeling that twisted my heart.
"I'm leaving, Vesper. The moment you came back into my life was the same moment I found you were with someone else." He smiled sadly. "Avery Dragomir. I would have never guessed, but in hindsight, I should have."
I stood there, staring at him. His confession rattled me, but he had been in my life for so long. This felt final. "Where will you go?"
"Harvard." Erik paused before hurrying off. "I would say keep in touch, but I know you never want to see me again. I wish you all the best."
"Vesper." A hand gripped my wrist, stopping me from taking another shot. I took a step and suddenly realized that was a bad decision because I tripped forward. Arms wrapped around me, catching me before I slumped to the floor. "Jesus Christ. How many did you take?"
"I-" I lifted my gaze to him and suddenly something broke. My eyes filled with tears.
Avery looked at me in concern and the slightest bit of horror. "Are you...crying?"
I was just as horrified. Before, I would have rather died than let another soul see me cry, but Avery has already seen me cry several times. I found crying humiliating, but right now, I just wanted him to hold me.
My fingernails dug into his skin, stopping him. Erik looked at me with a flash of alarm. Slowly, I asked him a question I had thought about for hours.
"Were you the one who purposely hooked Ella up on the pills? With Mason?"
Avery brushed a tear away. Thank god it was only one tear. He was silent as his silver eyes assessed me. He was so cold and objective, even in situations like this, that it made me wonder if this had always been a game. If it was still a game.
Why did he always find me at the most vulnerable moments? Every single time he would comfort me, and with every accumulating situation like this, my trust in him grew. How could I trust him?
I looked at him imploringly, wondering if he could read these buried thoughts. Shame then overcame me. What type of person does it make me to doubt him? Hasn't his intentions been clean from the beginning?
"Erik said something to you." It wasn't a guess from him. He knew it. I stayed quiet. "What was it about?" Again, I kept my mouth shut. "Ella?" I refused to look at him. "Silence is an answer, Vesper."
His hands on my bare shoulders shifted and I realized that the only reason why I wasn't cold was because he had been keeping me warm. Avery shrugged off his sharp blazer and wrapped it around me.
"Can we talk about something else?" I cast my eyes downward but he lifted my chin.
Avery's gaze never left me, but he complied. "Fine." A pause. "What are you scared of?"
"Seriously?"
"What?" Avery lifted his hands in surrender. "I could have asked you for your favorite color, but I already know it."
"You do not," I managed to say, even though I was drunk. Everything was getting blurrier and I was leaning heavier on him.
"I don't," he admitted. "What is it?"
"I don't have one." But I was lying through my teeth. I glanced to his eyes and I knew my answer. Silver. My favorite color was silver. "What about you?"
Avery held my gaze. He said, with no hesitation, "Your eyes."
I was definitely really drunk because there's no way that's a color. I decided to interpret it as the color of my eyes. "Brown is your favorite color?"
"Your eyes aren't only dark brown. They're also jade and blue. Like a kaleidoscope."
I coughed to hide my smile, but I think I failed quite miserably. "Are you more drunk than me or just color blind?"
"Why not both?" Avery suggested before backtracking. I knew I could not get away with evading the question. "And don't think about changing the subject. You're even worse at it when you're drunk. Answer my question. What are you scared of?"
Lions, I thought. But that was too morbid. My father? My step-brother? The truth?
I settled with, "Rainstorms. Thunder and lightning rattles me. Especially heavy rain." It had rained when Alexander and my mother died.
"I... did not expect that," Avery remarked, running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah," I shrugged, before falling quiet. "Alexander used to let me burrow into his bed when it rained badly. When it got too scary, he dragged me to my parents' bed chambers. He always claimed, on the way, that he'd drop me off and go back to bed, but Alex always ended up staying with me and my parents. The bed was big enough for all of us. Years later, I would go to Ella's room. She always hummed me to sleep, you know." I blinked rapidly before forcing a smile. "So yeah. I'm scared of rainstorms."
He rubbed circles on my thigh with his thumb. Avery looked thoughtful, almost sad, as he said, "I'm scared I'll end up alone with no one who loves or understands me." I stayed silent, listening, as my eyes started feeling heavy from exhaustion. "I'm not really sure if anyone would love me if I wasn't born into the life I was. At any rate, I'm not sure anyone could even understand me."
"Maybe we're not meant to be understood," I mumbled, drunk.
He shifted so that I could lean on him more comfortably, amusement tinging his eyes. "Maybe I would believe that, if I hadn't met someone who had."
Those words washed over me like cold water. I suddenly felt very sober as a sharp pain stabbed at my gut. He was talking about the girl from the island.
Avery's trance broke and then a shift in his mood occurred. An almost sad smile appeared on his lips before he softly said, "I think you need some rest."
Before I could respond, a loud voice rang from the end of the hallway. "Find them. Tell them we're playing another game."
Alarm rang into Avery's eye and without hesitation, he threw my arm around his shoulder and started walking rapidly down the hall. Blake. He was not happy at all.
"They're going to play an incriminating game," I mumbled drowsily as Avery took a left. He looked over his shoulder before glancing at me. "Blake wants something over me."
"Son of a bitch," Avery murmured, shoving a random door open. He locked it as I held onto the wall for additional support. "He's already ruined the lives of so many girls this way."
My eyes widened as I registered the words. Avery set me down on an armchair and stalked towards the antique windows. It was pouring angrily outside. Thunder shook the room.
"Don't you-"
Avery shoved the window open and I screamed when rain flooded the room. Avery peered through the window, soaked in a second, before turning to me with an apology in his eye.
I already knew what he was going to do.
"We are not jumping," I snapped, fear in my eyes. "I told you that I hate-"
"Would you rather play their game?" Avery answered back, calmly.
"You couldn't have taken us to another exit?" I demanded, fury rising. I stumbled towards in heels, cursing myself for being so intoxicated. "Don't tell me that there are no other exits!"
"There aren't," Avery defended. "They're all watched by Blake."
"What?" I scoffed in disbelief. "Do you think he has people watching the exits? This is not a movie, Avery. No one is going to stop us from walking out of a door-"
"Vesper," he gripped my shoulders, losing his temper. "I tried that once with my date, okay? He had the exits blocked and we were forced to play. She transferred the next week."
I stared at him with wide eyes. There were several implications in that statement and even more unsaid words. What did Blake do to that girl?
"I get it," Avery relaxed his grip on me. "You're afraid, but I need to you think this rationally. You're a rational person-"
"Shut up," I pushed him away, practically yelling at him. "Shut up, Avery! Stop trying to justify this. You can't just say that because I'm a rational person I'll go through with this. Fear is irrational. I'm scared, okay? I-"
"What is it?" Avery demanded, losing his cool, and gripped my shoulders. He saw through me. Of course he did. No matter how much I tried to hide it from him, I couldn't. He knew my sudden frustration with him wasn't because of rainstorms. "Something is not right."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Bullshit," Avery snapped, silver eyes filled with anger. "You are too damn intelligent to act dumb and to act like I am too. Now tell me what it is, Vesper." I closed my eyes, feeling the damning silence. "Was it something Erik said earlier?"
I pursed my lips and avoided his gaze. "Avery-"
He let out a humorless laugh. "Do you still love him? Is that what it is?"
"No, I-"
"Then what, Vesper?" he asked, so coldly that it caught me off guard.
"I will not allow you with my son." Avery's father approached me after Erik finished his confession. "Even if you are a Du Sang."
I answered, politely, "Pardon-"
"I believe I made myself very clear." He gripped my wrist, pulling me closer. I struggled against him, but he only tightened his grip. He looked so much like Avery, but he had none of his gentle disposition. "You may have succeeded in ruining his engagement with Satin Queens, but I will not let you anywhere near him. My boy is meant for great things, not a frivolous girl who disobeyed her father and ran to Europe for a party school."
"It was not a party school," I gritted through my teeth. "It is one of the most prestigious academies in the world and I didn't apply. They invited me."
"Don't test me," the man hissed. "Do you even know that he's leaving? He was never going to stay."
"What?" I had been so shocked I couldn't even register his words.
"When Avery was seventeen, he was called to play in the World Cup for England. He declined, because his mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The national team's coach visits him every year. Did you know that?"
I blinked again and again. I knew Avery Dragomir was good at football, but I had no idea how insane he was.
"Now that his mother's time is almost up, he'll leave. He'll accept the offer again. And you? You will only hold him back. When my son was training before the sun rose, what were you doing? Partying. When he was studying with world class tutors late at night, what were you doing? Fooling around with that Solar boy. You are not only a disgrace to your family, but someone who can't offer a thing. The only thing you are is pretty, but there are plenty of girls that are pretty. Avery can choose one of them later. Preferably a respectable girl like Sasha Laurence."
When it became clear that I couldn't respond, he pulled back and smiled. "Good that you understand. I expect the next time I see my son, you are not the girl on his arm."
"Vesper?" Avery asked, his eyes turning colder by the minute. He ran a hand through his wet hair. His shirt was plastered to his toned chest.
I swallowed and said, quietly, "Let's just go."
I turned away so I wouldn't catch his reaction.
I shouldn't have been surprised by his father's confession. Avery once told me he killed seven birds with one stone. Only now did I understand why Avery Dragomir had wanted so desperately out of his engagement quickly. Why he agreed to my offer so rashly, so easily. Why he tried to spend as much time as he could with his younger brother.
He was running out of time.
This whole time, Avery Dragomir was taking care of unfinished business because he had always planned to leave.
But he never, ever planned on telling me.
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