If my hands had been shaking before, now they were in full-on tremor mode. I held the truth crumpled between my fingers, and I had been right all along. Not one enemy but two. Two people who I had grown to trust. Two betrayals for the price of one.
And Grace. Her words stung. Was that really who I’d been? Some giggling first-year with a stupid crush? Is that really how she saw me? I wanted to call her and scream. I wanted to be able to defend myself. I wanted to run back to camp and tackle Bradley and Naomi and drag them back to Pemberly Brown where they’d be arrested for all the pain and anguish they’d caused so many people.
I wanted impossible things. So instead, I closed my eyes and I fell. I fell back to that place, to brown hair and changing leaves and possibility. I saw Bradley for the first time and felt my heart flutter when he smiled his dimpled smile. I heard cheers erupt in the bleachers of our stadium during football games and was overwhelmed by the scent of Pemberly Brown’s expensive hallways.
I remembered that feeling of entitlement. The idea that I deserved everything I’d been given, that the universe somehow owed it to me. I’d like to think I’d changed, that I’d grown into someone with a better understanding of how things at Pemberly Brown worked, of how things in my world worked. But all I felt was bitterness. Maybe the only thing that had truly changed was the resentment that clung to me like smoke.
“Your dad sent me. It’s almost 4 a.m., Kate.” Seth’s voice made me automatically crumple the paper further and kick sand over the beautiful bottle at my feet. “You have to come back.” Seth shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right? They warned everyone about night swimming. The lake gets deep fast and it’s too easy to lose your bearings,” Seth said. The kindness in his eyes made me want to die. I didn’t deserve it. I was too dumb for kindness.
“I know. It’s just…first Alistair and then Clayton and now Porter. God, I’m just such an idiot.”
“Why are you doing this to yourself? None of this is your fault, Kate. You have all these people who love you,” his voice cracked a little, “but it’s like you’re too busy punishing yourself to even notice.”
I couldn’t tell him that I deserved to be punished. I couldn’t explain how stupid it was for anyone to consider loving me. So instead, I just followed silently in his footsteps as we padded back to camp.