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“No fucking clue, but I don’t plan to stop.”
“Tell me what to do Carson,” she begs, tears filling her eyes. “I need someone to tell me what to do, because I don’t know how to be anything other than what they told me to be.”
Our eyes lock and for the very first time I feel like I understand the girl next to me. So I nod, lift my hand, and pinch her chin between my thumb and forefinger. “Come eat dinner, then let Fitzy help you.”
Docilly she nods, mouthing “Thank you,” to me, before she pushes to her feet and follows me out the room.
“Goodness me, you are so beautiful and so tiny,” Fitzy gushes, as Priss pads barefoot into the kitchen.
Her fingers move to her braid and she fidgets uncomfortably. “I look better with my hair and makeup done,” she says.
“Nonsense, you’re gorgeous just as you are. Sit, eat, then tell me a little about your style,” Fitzy says, doing his best to put her at ease, talking quietly like you would to a skittish animal.
“I wear a lot of dresses,” Priss says, carefully tucking my shirt beneath her as she climbs up onto the stool opposite Fitzy’s.
“Is that because you like them, or because your mom liked them?” I question, not looking at her as I place her plate full of stir fry in front of her.
“I…” she says, her cheeks coloring pink.
“With those legs you can wear anything you want,” Fitzy says quickly, flashing me a glare before he focusses back on Priss.
Sitting down next to her, I lay my palm on her leg, rubbing my thumb back and forth over the skin on her thigh. She tenses for a moment, then relaxes beneath my touch and I lift my fork and eat with my free hand.
Fitzy begins to eat and I watch from the corner of my eye as Priss tentatively lifts her fork.
“What’s in here?” she asks.
“Dinner, it’s chicken satay stir-fry,” I say stabbing a piece of chicken and bringing it to my lips.
“I—” she starts.
“Eat it Priss,” I say, an order, not a suggestion.
She faulters, but only for a second before she slowly spears a baby corn and brings it to her lips, biting carefully. When she takes a second bite, I stop watching and start eating again.
“So, dresses,” Fitzy says, clearing his throat, his gaze bouncing between me and the girl beside me.
“My mom liked me to wear dresses most of the time,” Priss confesses.
“And do you like dresses?” he asks kindly, his attention on his food.
“I,” she pauses, thinking. “I- I don’t know.”
Fitzy’s expression softens. “Well I can help with that.”
For the next several minutes we eat while Fitzy tries to get her to chat, but after a second my Priss disappears and Carrigan emerges. Her answers become practiced and polite, robotic, orchestrated and I fucking hate it.
My hand slides from her leg and I lean away from her, unwilling to pretend, wanting my girl back. Her eyes snap to me, and I can see the confusion in them. She doesn’t know she’s gone from sweet and sincere to Carriganbot and for the first time I truly see how ingrained her indoctrination is. It’s more than just manners and behaviors, this is a whole separate personality that she switches on and off and I don’t think she’s even aware.
I may not like the cold, impersonal side of her, but right now she isn’t being cruel or bitchy, she isn’t trying to manipulate Fitzy, she’s just behaving in the way she’s be taught to behave. The realization is startling and so obvious that I feel stupid for not seeing it earlier.
Tally has been telling us all along that her twin is as much a victim as she was of their parents’ malice and we all denied it, but she was right. Where Tally was ignored, Carrigan was bombarded, where Tally was forced to pretend to be Carrigan, her sister was forced into a mold of their parents’ creation. Both girls have been abused by their parents, just in completely different ways.
Carrigan isn’t innocent, just like she told us, she’s played the game, did as she was told, but just like Tally, Carrigan is much more resilient than you’d expect. The sweet girl, the one I like, the one I crave, is still there beneath the façade of polished creation, despite the girl’s parents’ best efforts to make her just as heartless and evil as they are.
Leaning down I press a kiss to her shoulder, and like my touch flipped a switch she faulters, some of the polish falling from her voice as Priss reappears. Her softened gaze looks to me and a small, sad smile hitches the side of her beautiful lips.
Carrigan Archibald is a complicated, fucked up, beautiful mess and I want her, all of her. I’m rarely a selfish person, but I’m rich enough, stubborn enough, and controlling enough to know that she’s my new obsession and whether she knows it or not, she’s mine.
