Page 14 of The Cruel Heir
Pretending the world didn’t rearrange your insides, while you're still expected to clock in on time, and smile at guests who mispronounce your name.
I packed my work shoes into my tote, and grabbed a granola bar I wouldn’t finish. I hadn't eaten much all week. My stomach churned, but not from hunger, more like my nerves had been tied in knots, and left to rot.
Lately, I’d been so tired, it felt like I was wading through cement. My limbs dragged, my eyes burned, and I couldn’t tell if it was from lack of sleep, or just trying to keep breathing through a life I didn’t recognize anymore.
My chest felt tight. Not the kind that came from exercise or illness, but the kind that wrapped around your ribs like panic, with nowhere to go. I blamed it on burnout. On stress. On the cafeteria food, or the job, or the weight of pretending I wasn’t unraveling.
That part of me whispered,remember you’re late.
Another part whispered,you’re his now.
And God, I hated both voices.
My new ClearView uniform was hanging on the door. Pressed. Neat. Like the remnants of its predecessor weren't at the bottom of my closet, after that day. Like it hadn’t soaked up the sound of my begging, my stillness. Like it hadn’t become something I wanted to burn.
But rent didn’t care about history. Or dignity.
Neither did Clear View.
Especially not for girls like me.
I pulled the new skirt over my hips with numb fingers, trying to get used to it, doing what so many of us have been forced to do: perform composure. I smoothed the invisible wrinkles from my pressed shirt nervously. I painted silence onto my skin, and prayed no one would look too closely.
They never did.
Maybe that was the point.
I’d told myself I was almost out; just a few more months of paychecks, just a little more saved. But now even that escape route felt farther away. Like he’d dragged me back under, just to remind me he could.
And he would.
I glanced at the mirror, but didn’t linger. I already knew what I’d see. A girl in borrowed clothes, and borrowed breath, bracing herself for another day in a place that had never been safe.
I looked at the time and realized if I didn’t hightail it out of here, I wouldn’t catch one of the three buses I needed to. Then I would be late to work. I swallowed the scream, and grabbed my keys.
Because being broken didn’t stop the world from expecting you to perform.
Because being right didn’t pay the rent.
Because being believed had never been part of the deal. Sometimes, I’d look in the mirror, and try to see what he saw. The girl worth chasing. But all I ever saw was a mess of a girl, with too many cracks, and not enough glue to hold herself together.
No one cared. So why should I?
ZARA
Ishould’ve walked away the night it happened. Should’ve burned that place down when my father set me up to be raped by Chadwick. That awful night. Nothing good happened at the Club. First Chadwick, then Sterling. Was I only meant to be used and abused by men?
Poverty doesn’t give me many options, so, unfortunately, I was going to have to suck it up. Pain just teaches you how to compartmentalize. And I learned real fast how to make silence feel like safety. Healing costs money. Peace costs privilege. And I hadn’t earned either yet. So I stayed. Fine, then I’d hunt the truth myself.
I wasn’t working this wedding because I loved the romance. I was here because I didn’t have the privilege to choose better. I should’ve quit long ago, long before my soul calcified into something brittle and bitter. But I needed the money, and no one else would hire me in this town.
Not after the estrangement with my father. He was the good guy. A slick talker. And I didn’t want to run into him today. I hoped I wouldn’t anyway. I would fade into the background of this wedding, bolt, and get back home in time to roll myself up like a burrito in my blankets, before crashing to sleep.
I’d barely stepped into the banquet hall when I saw her. She’d waited five public months of widowhood, before trading black lace for pearl-white satin.
Did Sterling lie, or was my father here somewhere? Was he going to confront me after I ghosted him, and didn’t follow his orders? I didn’t know what I would say to him if he did.
The bride was walking around smiling about her big day.
