Page 75 of Sweet Torment

“Yeah,” I say, and heat crawls up my neck at how rough my voice sounds.

“Whitney’s room next?” she asks, her eyes lingering on my face like she’s gauging my reaction.

My stomach knots but I focus on steadying my breathing. I will not fall apart in front of her. Not here. I want to be with her, and not spiral into some anxiety meltdown. Being in her room could end up being triggering for both of us though. “Are you sure?”

“I need to see it, Freddie.” Her hand finds my arm, grounding me. “But I get it if you don’t want to go in.”

“I’m going wherever you go.”

She rolls her eyes. “You guys are gonna have to get over that. I like my alone time.”

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Whitney’s bedroom is a time capsule, every surface scrubbed clean and unnervingly pristine. The bed is made, the vanity arranged neatly. Bianca walks through the space first, just looking, her fingers trailing over surfaces before she starts opening drawers and looking around.

“The smell in here drives me insane.” She makes a face.

“Me too.”

She freezes, her attention caught by something in the nightstand. A leather-bound book, thick and ornate that I’ve noticed before but never opened. But Bianca does, and the second she flips through the pages, all the color drains from her face.

“Bianca?”

She turns the book toward me, her hands trembling slightly as she flips through a few of the pages. It’s a fucking scrapbook, and a meticulously kept one at that. Photos of the four of us and Whitney, all over the place: bonding ceremony, press conferences, charity events, endless dinners. Mementos from trips we were forced to go on. There are scrawls of her handwriting everywhere, manic little notes. A book of her delusions. A shrine to a life we never lived. It’s a perversion of our past, twisting moments of misery into a fairytale she constructed in her head.

“It’s all lies,” I say urgently, stepping closer when I smell her scent go bitter. “She wanted it to be real but it wasn’t.”

I’ll say it as many times as I need to. Until she believes it.

She nods, but her fingers trace one of the photos and she looks up at me, her blue eyes searching mine. I glance down and it’s a picture of Whitney kissing my cheek at some party, my face neutral. I don’t remember it. I try not to remember any of it.

“Let’s see the library,” Bianca says, not even looking back, the book clutched in her arms. I wonder what she’s planning to do with it. My vote is to burn it.

Whitney’s office is tucked into the library, just off the main room. It’s off to the side with a heavy oak desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Bianca immediately heads to the desk to rifle through drawers while I check the filing cabinet. We find nothing of interest. Stationary. Pens. I cringe when I see the little gold star stickers she used to implement a star chart for us at one point in time. The computer is locked with a password I don’t know. In the corner, there’s a camera, but no red light. Maybe working, maybe not.

Whitney bitched about the cameras all the time so I wouldn’t be surprised if she got her father to turn this one off.

Bianca stops in front of one of the large bookcases, her head tilted thoughtfully. She stares at it for a long moment, her eyes scanning, then turns abruptly. “I think that’s enough of a tour for today.”

She definitely clocked something, but she’s not sharing. I want to ask, but I hold back.

“Everything okay?”

She nods, and I’m fully unprepared for what she says next. “Is there any weed around here, Freddie?”

“What?”

“You know, marijuana? The devil’s lettuce?” She wiggles her fingers in what I assume is supposed to be a spooky gesture, and I can’t help but laugh. “I could really use something to take the edge off. And I’m not a big drinker.”

“I—” I hesitate, torn between wanting to keep her happy and worrying about whether it’s a bad idea. Screw it. “I have gummies.”

Her brows shoot up. “Really?”

Is it that shocking that I’m not a complete square?

“For anxiety,” I admit, feeling my face heat up. “Sometimes it helps me deal with… everything.”

She lights up, grinning wide and bright. It’s almost blinding. God, she’s gorgeous. “Frederick Miller, you beautiful man. Show me your stash.”