Page 19 of Blacklist

“You can go,” she dismisses me.

I give her a moment—a chance to be the girl in the car who told me to read Harry Potter, the girl who needed me to promise everything would be okay. She groans, rolling her eyes to Cyrus, who’s watching us without commentary.

“May I, Your Highness?” I bow to her, sweeping my arm at the waist and flashing her my middle finger.

“I don’t know why you think I want these.” She holds up the bag. “Or, for that matter, you.”

“Of course, you don’t,” I bite out, funneling my humiliation into rage. “You have a whole herd of sheep to admire and serve you.”

I was a means to an end. One she doesn’t need anymore. I’m a single-serving friend. She used me and now she’s throwing me away. It’s the story of my life.

Adair snorts, shrugging her delicate shoulders. She’s an illusion. There’s nothing weak or fragile about her. No warmth radiates from her. There’s no light in her smile now.

“Adair!” Someone calls her name. Neither of us turn to see who it is. We just glare at one another, an invisible, dividing line being drawn between us. Her name is called again and finally, she turns and my gaze follows. A doctor waits by Felix, stripping his gloves off, his eyes cast to the floor.

For a second, her act slips and fear flits across her face. That’s the girl whose smile felt like the sun shining on me. She’s two people, and I have no clue which one is the real Adair MacLaine. I get my answer when she squares her shoulders and marches toward the doctor without another word.

“Look, Sterling. She’s just—” Cyrus begins but I shake my head in disgust.

“Don’t apologize for her,” I warn him, mustering a weary smile. None of this is his fault. “I’ll get the car back to campus in one piece. See you later.”

He nods, looking relieved to be off the hook for her behavior. A startled cry rises across the room and Cyrus rushes away. It’s not my business what the doctor came to tell her. I resist the urge to even look. I’m not wanted here. Not anymore. She made that clear.

It’s a hard truth to learn. The sun never needed the earth.

7

Adair

Some days are diamonds. I can’t get that thought out of my head. I can hear her saying it. Sometimes in a bright, lift-me-up voice when I came home crying about whatever stupid thing had happened that day. Sometimes under her breath when she thought I couldn’t hear her. When I was younger I’d asked her what it meant.

“It’s from an old song, Dair-bear,” she told me. I could wrap myself up in the memory of her calling me that and feel safe for hours. “It means some days are wonderful.”

My lip jutted out as I crossed my arms defiantly over my flat chest, which was the current source of my sorrow. That day was clearly not a diamond. Not after what Cyrus Eaton had said in front of the whole class. We were discussing dimensions. The teacher told us the difference between two dimensions and three was that two dimensions were flat. Cyrus yelled out ‘like Adair’s chest.’ I wanted to die. “Today wasn’t a diamond! It was a black, dirty piece of coal. It was terrible and I hate school and Cyrus and everyone!”

“Some days are coal,” she admitted. “Some days are hard. But you know the difference between diamonds and coal? Pressure. Don’t let the day be coal. Turn it into a diamond.” The slight lines around her eyes softened as she gave me an understanding smile.

My mother was beautiful when she smiled. Daddy says it could run the world like a power generator if we could capture it. They say I look like her.

Or rather, looked like her.

Today was coal, and there was no changing it.

I wish they hadn’t bothered with the open-casket. I don’t need to see her one last time—not like this. Not dead. The funeral home tried to make her look natural in a pretty, floral dress she’d worn to garden parties last spring, her blond hair curled softly and pulled back at the ears like she always wore it. Her lips are painted with her favorite shade: Dolce Vita. I stole her tube from the vanity in her bathroom, but I’m not wearing it. I couldn’t even look at it.

Dolce Vita. The sweet life.

Not anymore.

It’s been a week since I got the call—a week since my life shattered into pieces so small I’ll never put it back together. I want to erase the night. I want to forget everything about it. I want it to have never happened at all. But I can’t erase the black dress I’m wearing or the memory of this morning’s open coffin.

Someone must have given them a photo to help the undertaker prepare her body. They’ve gotten everything right, except that smile—the one that could power the world. I know now that it was never the smile, but the light behind it. It’s missing. No, not missing. Gone. Extinguished, just like her.

The house is full of people, but, despite the lingering summer heat outside, I feel so cold I sneak off to find a jacket. And take a break from the well-wishing strangers, some of whom I’ve known my whole life. My room is in the east wing but at the top of the stairs, my feet carry me in the opposite direction. I find myself in her bedroom. Everything looks like it did that morning. The maids haven’t been cleaning in here. I would guess my father had warned them not to, and no one goes against Angus MacLaine’s wishes. That probably means I shouldn’t be in here either. If he found out…

Slipping into the closet, I tell myself she would have a more appropriate jacket than I do. Half my closet is still prep school uniforms from last year. The other half is haute couture. I had to borrow a black dress from my brother’s fiancée, because Dad said I couldn’t wear one of Mom’s. He’d kill me if he knew I was in here now. My fingers trail across the neatly hung clothes, rippling the fabrics and releasing the scent of her: lavender and vanilla and a hint of Chanel No. 5. It’s all color-coded, the clothes flowing like a rainbow in the large walk-in, ending in a pool of black. Mom owned black clothing, no doubt for events like this. But she never wore it daily, unlike most women. She preferred color, everything from muted creamy yellows to audacious scarlet red. You could always spot her in crowd of her peers, blooming like an exotic flower in the midst of their sophisticated neutrals. I bypass all those and focus on the darker stuff in the back. Coal black pieces that feel like my heart, except they’re still intact.

I grab a cashmere sweater and pull it over my shoulders as heat pricks my eyes. Swiping at it furiously with the sleeve, I catch her scent again and now there’s no stopping the tears. Part of me wants to sink to the floor, surrounded by her, and fall apart. But I don’t. Instead I force myself out of the closet. The sooner the reception is over, the sooner I’ll be one step closer to the end of the second-worst day of my life.