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“I’ll turn up at his office this afternoon and see what I can do,” Davis says as the bell rings, signaling the end of lunch.
“Dinner at ours tonight, then?” Hawthorn suggests.
Everyone nods their agreement, and we leave the cafeteria and head to our classes. We only have a few months left until the end of senior year, then we’ll leave Green Acres Academy and head to Cornell. Izzy and Gulliver plan to get married in the summer, but even though I know that Hawthorn is my future, my mom’s voice is still chirping in the back of my head, taunting me that this isn’t real, that he’s playing with me, that he couldn’t possibly want me the way he says he does.
Suddenly, the food I just ate turns to ash in my stomach, and bile fills my mouth. If this all turns out to be fake, I have no idea what I’ll do. I’m so invested in him—in this life he’s promised me, in the way he makes me feel. So if it’s all a cruel joke, I know I won’t be strong enough to survive it.
“Princess,” Hawthorn growls, his fingers wrapping around my arm and squeezing. “Penelope, what’s wrong? What the fuck’s going on?”
Shaking my head, I cover my mouth with my hand as tears pool in my eyes. I can hear my mom’s voice so clearly in my mind. Ugly, fat, worthless. I don’t know what triggered this now, but all of a sudden, I’m a mess of insecurity and fear.
“Princess. Penelope,” he says, my name a demand for something that my addled brain doesn’t feel capable of processing.
Suddenly my feet are off the ground, and I’m moving, held tightly in Hawthorn’s embrace as he carries me somewhere. The world around me blurs as unshed tears mar my vision and fear so potent that it blinds all rational thought consumes me.
The slamming of a door cracks the cage of emotion I’ve fallen into, and blinking, I find a furious-looking Hawthorn glaring down at me. “Snap out of it, Penelope, talk to me, tell me what the fuck is happening.”
“I don’t know,” I cry, sinking down to the floor and pulling my knees up to my chest. “I won’t cope, I won’t.”
“Won’t cope with what?” he cries.
His demanding tone calms me enough that I lift my eyes to his and lock my gaze on his face. “If none of this is real,” I whisper.
“What?”
Shaking my head, I bury my face into my knees and hide from him. It’s pathetic and childish, but in this moment, I just can’t be a grown-up, I can’t deal with this guy and my parents and still function.
“Look at me,” he growls, his voice so close I can feel the warmth of his breath as he talks.
Lifting my chin, I look up and find Hawthorn kneeling on the floor in front of me.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know, I just…”
“Look at me,” he orders.
My eyes lift and my gaze locks with his without thought, and the tumultuous emotions that stare back at me make the breath I’m panting to take catch in my chest. No one has ever looked at me the way he is right this minute.
“You are mine,” he says slowly.
I nod, the movement painful as tears fill my eyes.
“Tell me,” he demands.
“I’m yours,” I whisper, my voice cracking as I speak.
“I know you’ve lived in a world of lies and mistruths, but me, us, this,” he says, pressing his palm to my chest directly over my heart, “is real. There’s never been anything as real as me and you and that huge diamond on your finger. When you doubt it, all you have to do is look down at that gold band, it’s a circle, never-ending. That’s us, Princess, never-ending. I love you, so fucking much, and when you hear that bitch’s voice in your head, you need to remember that. You need to remember that she’s nothing, and we’re everything.” Pausing, he drags me into his lap, holding me tightly to his chest. “We’re everything, Princess, everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I say against his blazer.
“You need to be stronger, every time she makes you question yourself or us, she’s winning, and we can’t let them win. They don’t deserve to win,” he tells me, his voice firm and unyielding as he pinches my chin between his fingers. Lifting my face up, he forces me to look at him, to see his words and the intensity in his eyes. He means this, everything he’s said, he means it, and his eyes assure me that it’s all the truth.
“I hate this,” I confess, slapping at the side of my head. “I hate that she’s in here, that I can hear her.”
“You can’t cower from fear. I know it’s hard, but you have to confront it, just like you did at the party. You told them to go fuck themselves because you’re stronger and better than them. That’s what you have to do now, you just have to remember that you are so fucking strong. Rhodeses are weak, but us Benedicts, we’re the kings and queens of the seas,” he says, smiling.
Sighing, I rest my head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking mess.”
