Page 79 of Their Arrangement
My hair still hung damp around my shoulders from earlier—dark, curling at the ends.
I reached up. Slowly. Gathered it in one hand.
And watched the shape of my neck change.
Longer.Bared.
More delicate.
More… open.
Camille used to stand in front of mirrors and narrate.
You always look for the flaws first, C.
Men don’t. They look for the weakness.
She’d pull her hair up and smile like a blade.
Give them both. Make them guess which is which.
I tried to smile.
It cracked.
Still, I kept my hand at my nape, hair pulled high, exposing everything Barron had asked to see.
And it didn’t feel like surrender.
It felt like strategy.
Like I was finally learning the rules of a game I didn’t know I was playing.
I stepped closer.
Studied the details.
The garter clip just visible when I shifted.
The faint smudge of lipstick Wolfe never mentioned.
The bow still tight at the back of my blouse—Loyal’s knot, untouched.
And the eyes in the glass?
They didn’t belong to someone who cried on a bathroom floor.
They belonged to someone who learned something there.
“They want a doll,” I whispered. “Pretty. Silent. Replaceable.”
But dolls remember everything.
I released my hair.
Straightened my shoulders.
And smiled.
