Page 104 of Gilded Fake

“Of course.” The blue-haired woman smiles up at me, her eyes sinking into the wrinkles on her face. I think about what my mother would have said, if I was still her daughter and she still cared enough about me to tell me to take care of my skin and use sunscreen and night cream—or enough to show up at my trial. I smile back at the woman. I hope life gives me reasons to laugh until I have all those wrinkles on my face too.

I step out the door into the sultry, suffocating blanket of summer heat. The buzz of crickets and cicadas drones as low and long as the slant of sunlight over the manicured lawns and giant oaks. For one brief moment, I think I see Spanish moss swaying from the branches, but it’s just a trick of the light dappling the ground with the leaves’ shadows. Savannah is far away, far behind me. I no longer cling to the hope of going back. I can never go back from the things I’ve done.

“I can just be out there with all these people?” I ask, gesturing to the few blankets scattered before us, a few people in the shade, others soaking up the last rays of evening sun. “How do you know I won’t hurt someone?”

“They said you were unlikely to reoffend,” says the woman whose nametag reads Ruth. “That’s why you’re here. Now go on, get some fresh air. It’ll be good for—”

“How do I know when to come back?” I ask, gripping the door so she can’t close it. Suddenly, I’m terrified to be alone after three months of craving just a moment of solitude to think or reflect or just be. Guards and other inmates were always watching, psychiatrists asking questions, lawyers prompting another recitation of the answer we had to give on the stand.

“Whenever you like,” the woman says with a patient smile. “Dinner’s at six in the dining room, but many of our residents prefer to eat alone. You can put in an order with the kitchen until ten if you prefer solitude or have special dietary needs. We provide you with a suggested schedule, but the only requirement is that you attend all your doctor’s appointments.”

“And my shrink,” I remind her.

“That’s one of our doctors, dear.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s just so… Free.”

“Most things are, compared to where you’ve been.”

“Right,” I say with a little laugh, releasing the door. “Sorry.”

“Try to relax,” she says, giving me a gentle smile. “You’ve been through a lot. Remember, this isn’t a punishment. You’re here to heal.”

“Right,” I say again. “Thank you, Ruth.”

She holds out a picnic blanket, but I shake my head, and she tucks it under her arm. “Enjoy your walk,” she says. “And welcome to Cedar Crest.”

I stand in the thick, lush grass for a minute, and then I slip off my shoes so I can feel it under my toes. It’s obviously watered plentifully every night, or it would be dried up and withered by this time of year. I start to walk, the warm, silky sensation so alive under my feet I want to laugh out loud. But that would probably make people stare, and I had enough of that the past few years—and the past few weeks in the courtroom.

My trial was expedited, and it’s only by some miracle I ended up here instead of McPherson. Actually, I should credit my fancy, top-notch lawyer instead of a miracle. Instead of the public defender I expected, Faulkner’s best defense attorney showed up and informed me she was taking my case. I’m still not sure how that happened, since my family couldn’t have paid for her even if they hadn’t disowned me, and I sure as hell hadn’t saved enough at the club to afford Vivienne Swift. She assured me she had been paid, though.

At first, I thought it was Harper using Royal’s money to make some kind of amends for the shit he did to me, but she insisted it wasn’t. Which left me to wonder, eventually settling on the legal fees being guilt money from the Norths. It’s hard to picture them all hanging out at a barbecue, but Harper says they have close ties with the highbrow attorney who graduated top of her class at Harvard Law a few decades ago. Then again, when you’re the leader of a gang, you probably need the best defense attorney money can buy.

I come to a path of smooth river stones with ornamental plants along it, but I veer around, keeping my bare feet in the grass. I’ve heard of Cedar Crest plenty, but I didn’t realize how huge it was. It’s a whole complex, with different wings for different types of patients—or “residents,” as the staff calls us. Most of the residents are voluntary commitments, though one or two are probably here through court mandated sentences like me.

After ten minutes or so, I’ve reached the south side of the building. I come over a small swell and see, halfway down, a lone figure sitting on a picnic blanket. For a moment, I think it’s him, and my heart beats wildly, a caged bird battering itself against the bars of my ribs.

I shake the thought away. Of course it’s not him. Now that I’m not in a jail cell, I’ll have to get used to seeing him everywhere, his face around every corner, in every crowd. The loss of him will haunt me like a ghost until my dying day.

To prove to myself I’m not insane like they said in my trial, that it’s just some rando with blond hair pulled back at the nape, I march down the hill toward him. I’m standing over him before I comprehend the truth.

He turns, squinting up at me against the murky sunlight. He shades his eyes, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing either. Finally, a slow smile spreads over his face. “Hey, Lo.”

“Colt,” I breathe, taking a step back, dual urges to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness and to turn and flee warring inside me.

He looks me up and down, and my hand goes to my middle, as if one small hand can cover it all—the shame, the fear, the relief to find a valid excuse for what I did, the guilt for doing it, the months of having to tell lawyers and judges and a courtroom full of strangers and familiar faces alike the things I’ve done, the ways I crumbled and pieced my broken shards back together and finally snapped under the pressure of it all. And then to have it all thrown in my face, scoffed at, made to look small, my words twisted and turned back on me, used as weapons, my experiences called into question, their validity mocked with eye rolls and incredulous tones, just the way I knew they would if I ever spoke them aloud.

I’m glad I kept most of my secrets, only giving them the bare minimum, enough for my attorney to defend me but not enough to bring the Dolces’ wrath down on me.

Once, I thought I saw him there, in the crowd. But I couldn’t be sure through the tears.

I’m sure it’s him sitting before me now, in the last place I expected to find him. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. He always finds a way to invade my life, my heart, my dreams and my reality. We are tied together, inextricably bound, and cutting the stitch that held me to Dixie didn’t sever our connection. Of course it isn’t that easy.

He scoots over and pats the blanket beside him. “Sit.”

I sit.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, finally getting my wits about me.

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