Yes. I would not beg for their affection. I would not wait for them to come to their senses.
I would not cower in the fucking shadows like Seraphina.
I would remind them all why the world once revolved around me.
The first thing I did was buy a new phone.
And as soon as the pimply nerd behind the counter set it up, I summoned the few people who still knew how to orbit me.
Friends-if you could call them that.
But they were loyal in their own way-loyal to spectacle, to drama, to me.
Right now, that was enough.
“Celeste, hey!” Abby’s voice bubbled through the line.
Always bubbly, always eager. A golden retriever in designer heels.
“Meet me at the mall. Bring Emma. I need you both.”
I didn’t explain, didn’t beg. They came because they always came. Because it was a privilege to be summoned by me.
It was a privilege to be in my presence.
We tore through boutiques like a storm. My hands barely touched the fabrics before assistants rushed to drape them over my arms, to start tallying my purchases.
Shoes, silk blouses, a fur coat I didn’t even like-what did it matter? Every swipe of Kieran’s card was a Band-
Aid against the wound they’d all torn open.
Hopefully, his phone buzzed and beeped relentlessly, and disrupted his stupid fucking meeting that was more important than me.
The bags piled higher, the receipts longer, but the hollow ache inside me only grew.
Abby twirled in front of a mirror, arms heavy with bracelets. “Tell me you’re wearing something like this for the engagement party. It’s going to be the event of the year.”
Her words hit me like a stone. I smiled too quickly, too sharply.
“Of course. The best. You think I’d let Sera outshine me?”
“As if she could,” Emma giggled.
The sound grated on my nerves, though I forced myself to join in, to let the laughter smooth the edges of my trembling composure.
“Speaking of which,” Abby chimed in. “When is the engagement party, Celeste?”
My pulse skipped. Because the truth, the ugly, choking truth, was that since Kieran got back from the island, he’d been tactically avoiding any talk about the engagement party.
Every time I brought it up, he brushed it off or downright shut it down.
And it was always scraps of the same flimsy excuse. “The timing is wrong?
‘My parents missed our announcement party, but they shouldn’t miss my engagement party?
‘Once the rogue attacks are solved and Daniel can return, my parents will too, and we can talk about it!
Even when she wasn’t actively involved, Seraphina still found a way to ruin my life.
Kieran had been different since he returned from that island-even more so than usual.
He’d only drifted further from me, throwing himself into his work, barely spending any time at home.
All I got these days were one-word answers and exasperated sighs.
I felt like I was watching helplessly as he constructed a wall between us, every second of silence and distance a new brick.
And when I thought back to what Sera said in the hospital…
No. I wouldn’t go there. I wouldn’t consider that abomination for one fucking second.
“Kieran’s been a little…distracted lately,” I finally answered.
I would not give Abby or Emma the satisfaction of knowing the trouble in my paradise. I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe they had my best interests at heart.
So I tweaked the truth.
“And do you know why?” I didn’t wait for them to reply. “Sera.” The name tasted like venom.
Abby and Emma leaned in curiously as I continued.
“She bewitched him on that island. Twisting him against me. And now, she’s working with Maya-poisoning
Ethan, poisoning Mother. Suddenly, everyone treats her like she’s the poor little outcast. As if I haven’t bled for this family too.”
Their faces shifted-first surprise, then indignation on my behalf.
“That bitch,” Abby hissed.
Emma slammed a pair of heels back onto the display shelf. “Sera always plays the fragile one-the rogue attacks, the shooting-she’s made herself the poster girl for victimhood. But you’re the real victim, Celeste, and when everyone sees that, they’ll see her real face. People like her don’t get to win.”
Her words lit something in me. Yes. That was the truth.
Sera’s power lay in her illusion-this mask of suffering, of silent endurance.
All it would take was a crack, a reversal, and everyone would see what I saw: a manipulative bitch.
I leaned closer to my friends, lowering my voice until it felt like we were conspiring in the dark. “Exactly. She doesn’t have a monopoly on being the victim. The focus just needs to shift from her for a second, and then the world will know who the true serpent is.”
I thought of Mother’s face at dinner, that flash of disappointment, as if I were the problem.
I thought of Ethan scolding me like I was a child.
I thought of Kieran, brushing me off as though I were nothing but an inconvenient weight dragging him down.
My lips curled. The taste of it-plans, vengeance, control-was intoxicating.
Abby smirked, clinking her shopping bags together like glasses in a toast. “Then let’s help the world see it.”
SERAPHINA’S POV
My days off were as rare and precious as hidden gems.
No rigorous training schedule. No sadistic drills threatening to kill me. No psychotic trainer doing her very best to combust my eardrums.
The only downside was that I was so used to movement and action that I spent all of twenty extra minutes in bed before I got too restless and shot to my feet.
I turned the energy on the house. I tackled the sink full of dishes, wiped down the shelves, and even folded the laundry that had grown into a mini mountain, moving from chore to chore until the rooms felt lighter.
By the time I finished, the floors gleamed and the house smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and lavender air freshener.
Still, it wasn’t enough. The restlessness lingered, drumming through my veins. My gaze drifted out the window to where the lawn waited, strewn with dry leaves like a silent challenge.
Grabbing the rake, I stepped outside. The late-summer air wrapped around me, thick with the scent of grass and apple pie from someone’s open kitchen window.
My neighbor, Mrs. Harlow, waved from her porch, her terrier barking like it had some grand announcement to make.
I rarely conversed with my neighbors, but I’d lent Mrs. Harlow a cup of sugar once, and she’d decided that I was her new best friend.
“Doing some gardening today, dear?” she called.
I smiled, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “Trying to. Before my front lawn turns into a jungle and swallows me.”
She chuckled, then launched into a brief ramble about her grandson starting school this fall.
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