Page 104 of Savannah Royals
But Mellie does something wholly unexpected. She punches the blankets hard, right beside my feet. “You better hope we’re friends, Katarina.” The bedsprings creak as she shifts her weight. She’s climbing up the bed, right on top of me. “You better hope we’re friends,” she repeats, her body pinning me, her head mere inches from mine. “Because you do not want me as your enemy.”
I sputter. Her hands press my shoulders into the mattress. Her bony little fingers form claws, digging into pressure points at my clavicle.
“Please don’t make me do something that isn’t ladylike, Katarina.”
“Like what?” I cock my head because I’m almost curious. A tiny flare of light, of engagement with the world, blooms in my belly.
Mellie’s eyes are pure fire. “Like slap the shit outta you,” she cries, voice squeaking. “Slap some goddamn sense into you!” She shoves hard, pressing me into the mattress. We both bounce lightly on the rebound before she shoves herself off, sliding onto the bed beside me. She slips her legs, rather audaciously, under the sheets alongside mine. “Would that make you listen to me? Wearefriends, goddammit. And friendstell.”
My mouth opens, then closes. I blink furiously, trying to stave off the floodgates.
“Oh, Kat.” She reaches for me, brushes a tangled strand of hair away from my face. “What happened? Is it Matthew…or your beau from back home? Please tell me. We can fix this. Whatever it is, I know we can fix it.”
And it’s her kindness that undoes me, her gentle patience, when I simply don’t deserve it. I begin to wail, words rushing out so fast and jumbled, I wonder if she’ll be able to make any sense of them. “I’ve ruined everything, Mellie. I’ve gone and ruined it all…”
The whole sordid tale spills out with very few omissions. I don’t tell her about the Wolfpack, but I tell her about getting into trouble in the bayou,about Paul getting shot, about sending for Matthew. About our conversation at the end of the night, the one that ended with Matthew leaving me, walking away as I crumpled in the street. I pull very few punches.
Mellie’s eyes grow wider and wider as the story progresses.
“I wish it had never happened, Mellie,” I cry, blinking through tears. “I wish I’d never met him.” Because the pain of this—thisleaving—cuts so deep. Especially after I tried, tried so hard, to be worth sticking around for.
“You don’t mean that. You love him.”
“I don’twantto love him,” I roar, flinging back the covers. “I don’t want to feel this way at all.”
“But you do.” Her voice is small. “You do, and you need to tell him. You should have already told him.”
“I can’t tell him, Mellie. I need to let him walk away clean. He deserves it, after all I’ve put him through.”
“He wants to know.” Her chin juts out again. “He asked you outright, and you lied. Again.”
“Perchance I didn’t lie,” I stipulate. “I simply held my tongue.”
“Perchancethat’s bullshit, Kat. And you know it.”
A tiny laugh slips out, the absolute tiniest, but it breaks the dam. I cover my face with my hands, laughing and crying all at once.
“Sometimes, Katarina,” Mellie says, a small chuckle betraying her own lips, “you can be a real simpleton. And a harlot, to boot, juggling all these men. I told you this wouldn’t end well, straddling two worlds, but you didn’t listen to yourfriend, now did you?”
I laugh a little harder now, simply because it feels good. Mellie yanks me to a sitting position. She swipes a hairbrush from my dresser and begins running it through the rat’s nest atop my head.
“This is a horror,” she murmurs, ripping the brush through snarls. Not gently. “An absolute horror. And we’ll need teabags for your eyes, for the swelling. You must promise me something right now, Kat. Swear?”
“Swear what?”
“Swear you will never give a man this kind of power over you again. Not Matthew. Not your fella from the Catacombs. No man is worth your dignity, and no man should accept you without it. If he does, he doesn’t have your best interest at heart.”
I consider this. I buried my dignity so very long ago, locked it inside a chest alongside my heart and handed it to Paul. Deep in the Catacombs.
“You’re a lady now,” Mellie continues, running the brush through, again and again. “So swear it to me.”
“I swear.”
It’snotnearlyassimple as Mellie believes, digging myself out of this hole. Weighing my dignity against Matthew and Paul. I know perfectly well what Mellie believes I should do. The fairytale has written itself, and all that remains, in her mind, is to declare my love and allow the prince to sweep me away. Because no one ever roots for Paul.
No one, that is, except me.
Even still, with Mellie’s encouragement, I send a letter to Matthew at the hospital. It’s brief, borderline impersonal, but I tell him where I’m going to be and when. I make no promises, no sweeping statements, because I have none. I’m wrung plumb dry.
