Page 12 of The Oath We Give

THREE

JINX

CORALINE

AmI the only person in this restaurant that feels like a mannequin?

Posed, dressed, and placed for display. When they walk by me and glance, they can admire how well put together I am. How polished my outfit is, how shiny my hair is.

None of them suspect that I’m plastic, or maybe that’s their secret. The waitstaff that refills my water without asking, the Ponderosa Springs elite that walk by to speak to my father, they can all smell the plastic melting away from my flesh. They all know I’m a fake, a fraud, but they simply say nothing.

I’m a broken, sweet girl barely scraping by emotionally, trying her very best to merge back into this superficial world of sharks as a tiny minnow. I’m their favorite inside joke.

I use my fork to push away another piece of overpriced salmon. There is a fish that died to be overcooked and served to people who probably can’t taste anything due to the years of smoking and lies that burn their tongues.

“Stop playing with your food.”

My fingers tighten around the utensil in my hand. Do not stab her. Not in public.

I’ll be twenty-two in May, two months from now, and I’m sitting here muttering an apology under my breath to my stepmother to avoid causing a scene. Once I feel her critical gaze move away from me and back to her earlier conversation, my grip loosens on the fork.

For the longest time, I never understood why Regina disliked me so much. She’d known me since birth and had always preferred to buy into the evil stepmother archetype rather than love me like her own. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood what she saw when she looked at me.

I’m a road bump in her otherwise well-paved life. I’m the product of an affair, cold feet before the wedding of her dreams, and she spent my entire life making me pay for my father’s sin of falling in love with another woman.

“Have you picked out your dress for the fundraiser, Coraline?” My father’s deep voice practically rattles the fine china.

James Whittaker is a force.A demand in a room full of offers. The answer to all of his questions is always yes, and looking him in the eye is a risk.

I meet his gaze, the difference in our appearance growing more noticeable the older I get. Every day, I resemble my mother more and more, and it only fuels his hatred for me. I’m the constant reminder of the love he’d lost, the love he was planning on giving it all up for.

What kind of woman makes a generational wealthy man give up his future of success and notoriety for an unstable, mediocre one?

A cursed one.

We used to be close, when my eye color was more green instead of brown. He called me his pal until I was thirteen, and we’d spend every Sunday at the dock. I’d draw in my sketchbook while he fished. Then two pieces of my hair turned white, and us spending time together stopped.

I told myself we drifted apart because of my abduction, but it’s a comforting lie. His involvement with the Halo, which he claims was blackmail from college friends, only pressed harder on our strained bond.

We broke the pieces years ago and never bothered picking up them up again. We instead decided to stand atop them as strangers, letting the shattered glass slice the bottoms of our heels.

Better to remain in pain than admit the truth.

I’m thankful for it though. His distaste for me.

It taught me the most important lesson when I made it out of that basement.

There isn’t a single person in this world who will look out for you better than yourself.

“I’m not going.” I grab the glass of water in front of me and take a small sip, preparing myself for the onslaught of questions and passive-aggressive insults.

We’re in public, which means this conversation will be hushed words and forced smiles. The vultures surrounding us are dying for scraps of gossip to spill over from someone’s table, and the last thing my father wants is more negative attention.

It helps my cause because they won’t push me too much with this many eyes on them. I am, after all, the child who survived. Their own personal Harry fucking Potter. It’d be bad press if they show how little they actually care.

“Why’s that? Everyone is expecting us there as a family. I even told Senator Bloom’s son you were looking forward to seeing him.”

Carson Bloom, I think to myself, is an egotistical prick who tried to get me to do cocaine in the bathroom at his father’s reelection party, doesn’t believe in climate change, and thinks he’s the second coming of Christ.

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