Page 48 of Spearcrest Queen

Evan leads me away; I let him. How could I deny my own rescuer? I wasn’t even strong enough to fight back against my enemies alone.

We pass the donation table on our way out; Maximilian, Dahlia and Anthony are long gone.

I barely notice mysurroundings: my vision is just blurry hallways, colossal palm leaves, gleaming elevator doors, buttons lit up in amber, grey carpeting and dimmed gold sconces. Evan opens a door, leads me through. A large room, white bedding, a bucket with champagne cradled in ice, bouquets of white carnations.

Evan tries to say something, but I push away from him, making my way shakily to the bathroom. I feel along a wall, push over a door. My heels click over smooth tiles, I see my image gliding ghost-like past a mirror framed with lines of silver light. I fall to my knees in front of the toilet and throw up a stomachful of champagne and caviar.

Evan crouches at my side, fingers brush my temples as he pulls back loose strands of hair, tucking them behind my ears. Itry to push him away again, but he ignores me, big hands steadying my shaking arms. I don’t want to cry in front of him. I hate crying in front of Evan, because it feels like spilling my guts at his feet for him to kick through in disgust. But what’s there left to spill? What’s there left to kick?

I melt into tears, crying right into the toilet, forehead pressed into my arms, which are propped on the seat. Evan murmurs something at my side, but I can’t hear him over the hard, silent sobs shaking my entire body. He strokes my back and I can’t help but feel like a pitiful dog cringing away from its master’s hand.

I let myself cry until there’s nothing left, until my chest cavity feels like an empty coffin. It’s the only way I can make it out to the other side of this. The only way I’ll calm down is by getting through the crisis, not avoiding it.

When my sobs have finally faded, I sit up.

“Sophie,” Evan says. “Are you alright? Speak to me.”

I can’t do that yet. I don’t trust my own voice. I pull away from him and stand shakily to my feet. I flush the toilet, go to the sink, splash water over my face, my eyes. My eyeliner is still in place, delicate flicks at the corners, but my mascara is a shadowy smear beneath my eyes, clean streaks crossing through where tears left their mark. I pour myself a glass of water and drink. I need to calm down. I need to calm down and think.

“Sophie, you’re scaring me.” Evan takes the empty glass from my hands, sets it aside, and turns me towards him by my shoulders. “Speak to me. Please.”

“I’m fine.” I pull away from him and leave the bathroom.

He follows me and I can practically feel his distress and concern pouring out of him, sharpening my own panicked dread to a deadly point. I whip around, facing him.

“How am Iever going to pay you back?” My voice comes out high and brittle with fear and anger. The skin around my eyes feels stretched thin, and my throat still burns. “Do you know how many years it’s going to take me to—”

“Don’t do this.” He steps into me, jaw clenched, eyes darkening. “Don’t even start with this bullshit, Sophie. Fifty thousand is nothing—I don’t want to hear it.”

And there it is, the crack that stretches far and wide between Evan and me. It’s always been there, and if I ever allowed myself to forget about it, then it was only ever out of sheer delusion and foolish hope. The crack is a gaping canyon, stretching ever wider, an impassable black chasm.

“Fifty thousand willneverbe nothing to me.” My voice comes out dull and heavy.

“Yes, it will,” he snaps, surprising me with the harshness of his voice. “Yes, it will, trust me. You’re going to graduate with honours from Harvard, you’re going to start your career with all the power and influence of Spearcrest and Harvard behind you. One day, fifty thousand will mean nothing to you, just like it means nothing to me now. So don’t bother talking about it, because I don’t care.I do not give a shit.”

Anger flares through me, and I grab onto it, I hold tight, because anger is so much better than the pain and horror of what just happened, the pain and the horror of the yawning black gap deepening between us.

“Igive a shit,” I tell him. “I don’t have a choicebutto give a shit.”

“Yes, youdo,” he bites out. “I’m telling you right now, we never need to talk about this ever again.” He sounds angry too now: his cheeks are flushed, the blue of his eyes electric. “Ifyoukeep bringing this up, Sophie—if you want to fight about this, then it’s because youchooseto.”

“I didn’tchoosefor you to step in!” Tears spring to my eyes anew, hot and mortifying. “You should’ve—you could’ve—”

“I should have what, Sophie? I could’ve done what exactly? Watch the woman I love suffer and do nothing? Sit by and let some spoilt asshole humiliate the person I care the most about in this world? Stand by and let you get hurt on my watch like I spent years doing, like I swore I’dneverdo again?”

“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

My voice trembles as it rises. The tears fall from my eyes. My entire body feels too hot and too tight, and my heart feels like the ever-contracting singularity of a black hole, pulling everything into the black vortex of my pain.

“I’m not fighting your battles for you. I’m helping you because I love you, helping you the only way I can.” He shakes his head with a hollow laugh. “Trust me, Sophie, I know all too well you don’t need me. I know it better than anybody else, so you don’t need to remind me.”

The naked hurt in his hoarse voice is enough to send a flood of heat into my cheeks. I shake my head.

“You can’t solve a problem by just throwing money at it.”

He scoffs, an ugly sound coming out of his handsome mouth.

“That’sexactlyhow people like me solve their problems, Sophie, don’t you know that? Isn’t that why you get to look down at me every day of your life?” I open my mouth to reply, but he doesn’t let me. He doesn’t even raise his voice, his tone so raw and harsh and commanding it shatters the words right out of my throat. “I’m not responsible for the way the world works. Throwing money at problems does work. You just saw it. So that’s what I did, I threw money at it. I won’t even apologise, because the truth is that it felt good to do this for you, to help you by doing something other than fucking the sadness out of you for a change.”

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