Privileged

by Carrie Aarons

  His head whips to her, and I can see the sweat on his brow. “Rachel … I, I wasn’t a good man back then. I was a different person, with different priorities. I never meant for anyone … I never meant for her to get hurt.”

  “I’m going to be sick.” She rushes up from the table and flees the room.

  Bennett’s chair scrapes the floor, but before he can follow her, I’m standing and pointing. “Sit down.”

  He eyes me as if I’m about to jump across the table and strangle him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry … I never meant for your family to get hurt.”

  “It’s about ten years too late for that. Mourning at her funeral, pretending you didn’t know her … you’re the worst kind of man. And you’ll only realize what it feels like to have your soul ripped out if the same thing is done to you.”

  I turn to Nora for the first time since I started to derail this crazy train. Tears slide down her cheeks, and her eyes hold a mix of sympathy for me, and astonishment at the scene that just played out.

  “Since you stepped foot on my homeland, I was waiting to meet you. Plotting out how I would approach you, get you to talk to me and eventually fall for me. Every action I’ve taken, every time I flirted with you or touched your body … it was all in the hopes that one day I’d be here.”

  She gasps, and I feel like I’m ripping my own heart out of my chest. Before tonight, I thought my soul had been black with the soot of my mistakes. Now I knew that the color black was a shade I could no longer use in description for it, that I was so past gone there was no word that compared.

  I turn to Bennett. “I fucked your stepdaughter, took her innocence. Just like you took mine. Just like you took my mothers. And now, Rachel will know what a bloody prick you are, how you’ve tarnished her family.”

  If there was a word strong enough for the look of betrayal written all over Nora’s face, I’d use it now. My heart felt like a ground up piece of meat, and my head ached like someone was slamming a brick against it. I’d done it, finally come into Bennett’s life and mucked it all up like he’d done mine.

  Job done, I turned on my heel and began to walk out of the room.

  But his voice stops me. “I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. I should have come to you and your father when she died, I should have stopped it long before that. I should have been a better man. You will never know how truly sorry I am for all of it. But … I do know that you may have just ruined all of my happiness, and I’m the one who feels sorry for you. Because your mother would have wanted better than this for you. She adored you, she revered you. Jane would never have wanted you to hold this rage and coldness.”

  I don’t turn around, I just feel the daggers of his words cut deep into the flesh of my back.

  It should feel like an epiphany in my muscles, a surge in my system. Completing my mission, avenging my mother … I’d always imagined it would be glorious.

  But, as difficult as it is to admit it, Bennett is right. The victory feels empty, spiritless.

  I’m left with nothing but a heavy heart and a confused conscience.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Nora

  Three Months Later

  With all of the research and knowledge I have digested about science and biology, I still do not understand how human emotion factors into our makeup.

  Sure, I understand studies like anthropology and sociology and psychology, that we react to certain pheromones and we have triggers in our brains that unlock anger or humor or even love.

  But I still don’t grasp why we can’t just turn these off. Why we can’t listen to reason and just stop being sad or mad or even stop yearning for a certain person. Whatever the reason may be why we can’t, I wish I could solve it. I wish I could erase memories and hours of my life, go back before it hurt so much.

  An errant tear breaks away, as it seems to all the time now, and I wipe it before I can start bawling again. Even after twelve weeks, you would think I’d be able to shut it all off, just move on and forget about it. But even now, as May closed in, I couldn’t seem to get over it. The crack of betrayal that oozed hurt and pain in the middle of my heart was nowhere near healed. Every night I lie awake, thinking about what he’d said over and over and over again.

  Thinking about the look in his eyes when he’d thrown me aside like a stray dog, kicking me before he left me out in the proverbial rain. Or how, just days before, I’d given him the most valuable thing I’d ever have to give. And he took it, breaching my trust and making my world flip on a dime. I wasn’t the same girl I had been when we’d landed in London, and now I was even further from that girl.

  “Are you crying again?” A soothing voice hits my ears, but I keep my gaze out the window.

  In the garden outside, the plants and flowers are blooming, coming out of the long, lonely winter we all had. It should bring hope, but I don’t feel the cloud of gloom clear up from over my head.

  Swiping at my cheeks, where tears I hadn’t even realized had fallen rolled, I nod. “I can’t help it, I’m sorry.”

  “Baby girl, don’t you ever apologize for nursing your broken heart. It’s a part of life we all have to go through. You work through it in whatever way you feel is best.” Mom’s strong arms wrap around me as she sits on the arm of the plush chair I’m curled up in.

  “But he doesn’t deserve it.” My voice cracks.

  “They hardly ever do.” Her tone is far off, and I know she’s not thinking about Asher Frederick the way I am.

  The past three months have been exceedingly hard on her. After that fateful dinner, she was appalled with Bennett. Hurt that he’d never told her about Jane, gobsmacked that she was living with someone who had broken up a family. For two days after Asher had dropped the atomic bomb, she’d stayed in a guest room in our palace residence, refusing to see Bennett until she could collect her thoughts. I didn’t want to see him either, but I was like a child caught in the middle of divorce. Those two days were like the Cold War in our house, harsh ice covered every interaction. Bennett looked haggard, like his heart had been torn out of his chest and he was slowly dying from not being able to look at my mother. He’d slept outside of her door, his bones rattling every time he got up off the hardwood.

  It just so happened that some of the greatest news of my life came in those two days, the fat envelope from the University of Pennsylvania overshadowed by the drama playing out in our home. After two days, Mom emerged from the guest room and stated that she and I were going home for a college tour, and that we’d be back in a week. Bennett begged her to let him come, apologizing up and down, but she’d told him she needed this time away. He respected it, and let her go. Watching him, I knew it had taken all of the strength inside of him to let the most precious thing in his life just walk away, not knowing if she’d come back.

  Throughout the flights, and the trip, the sorrow was palpable on both of our flesh. What had happened, how our hearts had broken, it wasn’t something we were going to get over anytime soon. That night would play on in my head for years to come.

  I pushed the thoughts aside, though, as we’d returned home, never feeling more grateful than I was in that moment. The cobwebs of homesickness were finally shaken off my bones, and realizing that what I’d worked so hard for was finally paying off was a big sense of pride that soothed my aching soul.

  On the plane back to London, Mom had turned to me.

  “Do you think I should forgive Bennett?”

  Just thinking about why she needed to forgive him made me cringe. I’d brought this upon them, I’d allowed Asher to breach our security and happiness. I’d fallen for his lies, and now everyone was paying the price.

  I wasn’t happy with my soon-to-be stepfather, but I’d seen how this was tearing him apart. “Do you think you should?”

  She chuckled lightly. “You’ve always been my mirror, showing me the things I’d rather not face but doing it all the same.”

  I considered her sentence. “Mom, I know
that you love me, that you’d do anything for me … but was there ever a time in your life that you thought everything would be easier if you hadn’t had a child so young?”

  Her red hair swings angrily over her shoulder as she squarely faces me. “Nora, don’t ever say anything like that. You’re my child and there is not one day I’ve ever wished for that.”

  “Mom, I’m not saying it to upset you, or because I feel that way. I’ve never felt like you didn’t want me. But … you know me, I look at things logically. Even if you say you never wished that, a part of you deep down must have felt it. When you were working a double shift at the diner, or paying for clothes that I’d ripped unnecessarily. I think … I think right now it’s the same way with Bennett. Ten years ago, he made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. But … you haven’t even heard his side yet. You aren’t giving him any benefit of the doubt, and I know that beyond everything, you love him more than you can say. You wouldn’t have uprooted your life for just anyone. The Bennett you know could be a completely different man than the one Asher described.”

  It was like a knife slicing each ventricle of my heart to say his name.

  Her smile is a proud one. “How did I ever get blessed with such a wise daughter? You always awe me, my girl. You’re going to do amazing things … you already do.”

  I shrug. “I just believe that most people deserve a second chance.”

  “After everything that boy said and did to you, for you to still believe that is such a miracle. And I believe it too. I believe that even the most damaged of us deserves a second chance.”

  What Asher had done to my family hadn’t taught me that though. I had learned that some people were worth fighting for, worth saving. And that others were more damned than we could ever imagine. Asher had educated me, but not in the way he’d planned. He had sought to tear apart my family, to ruin Bennett and send my mom running. But when you knew what real, genuine love felt like, that could prevail over anything.

  Three months later, we were all stronger than ever in our relationships with each other. Bennett had sat down with each of us, telling us the truth of what had happened with Jane. How he’d messed up, and then tried to break it off only for her to not be able to let it go. He had cared for her, but eventually the truth of what he was doing to her son and husband made him sick. That night, she’d come over in a panic and he’d tried to stop her, but she ran out. And what Asher was so broken over happened, and no one could ever take it back.

  “How was your therapy session?” I looked up into her eyes, which were clear and sure.

  My mom, the rock of my life. “It was actually very good. We talked about the wedding more, and I feel like we are moving past it. Thank you, honey, for urging me to be a bigger person. You make me a better person every day, you know that? Sometimes I think you’re the adult.”

  It had been easy to be honest, to encourage her to make things right with Bennett. I wanted them to get married, I wanted my mom happy. And if therapy was a good road to that, then I was all for it.

  “So how are things looking for the wedding? When is your next dress fitting?” I try to move us onto a happier topic.

  The wedding was only a month away, and the whole country was abuzz with excitement.

  “Next weekend, and they have your dress ready too.” She clapped her hands, and I could not wait to see both of them.

  The designer was basically a living legend, and our fairy tale seemed picture perfect whenever we were in his studio.

  Mom talks about a few other decisions they’ve made, but my mind is trapped in its perpetual thought process, over analyzing and worrying. I’ve had an anxiety attack almost weekly, and for the first time in my life, I don’t want to go to school.

  Besides my mom marrying Bennett, I can’t wait to fly to UPenn in August and leave all of this behind.

  One of the only positives of this whole fiasco has been that we’ve gotten to deal with it in private. No press, no paps. I can’t imagine the shit storm that would fly if Bennett’s mistake ten years ago was made public.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Asher

  A glass shatters on the side of the wall, and I don’t even cringe. Shoes crunch over the broken shards, curses muttered as he rounds the corner.

  “Why hasn’t anything gone public yet?! It’s been three bloody months, and he’s still sitting in his goddamn throne room, getting his knob polished by his little American slag!” My father roars, his face redder than I’ve ever seen it.

  Because Rachel and Nora Randolph are better people than you’ll ever be, and even if they are devastated, they would never leak anything personal about their family or Bennett to the press.

  He’s losing it, and I’m just fading deeper into my despair. From the moment that news broke that the American peasants turned princesses would be moving to London, it was a marathon to the finish line for me. I bided my time, grew close to Nora, gained her trust, worked my way into her body, and then crushed them all like ants under my boot.

  Except, I hadn’t accounted for the feelings I would gain for her. How interwoven my emotions would be with the girl that I made my mission … how dark and steep my slide into oblivion would be.

  Nora was, for all intents and purposes, the one shining spot I would ever have in my life. Her laugh, the way she looked at me as if I was just as innocent and pure as her, all of the things we’d done together. They were all gone, I’d robbed us of all of our light.

  And so far, the only person it had seemed to hurt was me. Sure, there was speculation when Nora and her mother went home to visit the American college she’d been accepted to, just another thing I wasn’t around for. But they’d come back, were photographed with Bennett, seeming to still be the perfect family unit they’d been since before the dinner from hell.

  “I’m going to have to leak it to the press then. Bloody hell, I always thought by exposing him to the ones he loved the most, that they’d do the hard part for me. But I underestimated the callousness of those two peasants.”

  My father picks up his cellphone, his shirt collar wrinkled and his hair out of place. He’d never looked more desperate, and I was suddenly fearful.

  Leaping out of the chair I’m sitting in, I try to grab his phone. “No! You’re not going to leak this.”

  For three months, I’d watched him become unhinged. He wasn’t proud of me, the way I’d always envisioned. It hadn’t brought him closure, only further toward the brink of insanity. I hadn’t realized until just recently that there was no way to please him, to make him happy in this lifetime. Too much damage had been done, and he wasn’t the type of person to let it go.

  But I wasn’t about to let him take me, or Nora and her family, down with him.

  “What are you doing, you twit! Give that to me, now. I’m going to correct what you clearly couldn’t accomplish. Christ, never leave a little boy to do a man’s job.”

  His words stung, like cigarette burns to my skin. I’d lived under his influence for so long, fed the same bullshit day by day. And in the end, it hadn’t made anything better. It only proved that he would never love or care for me the way I wished he could, and that I needed to get out from under him. I needed to be free.

  “If you leak this, I’ll go to the press.” I stand tall, my shoulders squaring for a fight.

  He cackled, the sound hollow and malicious. “And say what, you tosser? Tell them how useless you are?”

  Inside, my heart cracked further open. “No, I will tell them what you assigned me to do to Nora and her family. I’ll tell them all the sordid details, and describe what it is you’ve done to others in our community. You forget that I’m a good listener, father … I know things that you don’t want any other person to know. Your reputation will be tarnished … but even worse in your eyes, the Frederick name will be tarnished. You’ll be the laughing stock of London, and none of these blithering idiots you call friends will ever speak to you again. So go ahead, muck up Bennett McAlister’s life. But ju
st know that if you do, you’re going down with him.”

  My father’s face was the shade of burning coals, dark and ruddy. “You spineless little shit! You’ve ruined everything! You’re a disgrace.”

  A renewed sense of strength courses through me. “You know what, coming from you, that is a compliment. I’m glad I’ve disgraced and disappointed you, because I never should have wanted to impress you in the first place. You’re evil, a prick with a hard on for revenge and eyes for nothing else. My mother would be ashamed, in me and for what I’ve done.”

  “You know nothing about your mother.” His voice is somber.

  “And neither do you. There are two sides to every story, Dad. Why did she cheat? What was happening here that she felt she needed to leave us? I may not remember many things about her, but I do know that it wasn’t all of her fault. And it wasn’t all Bennett’s. I’m done listening to your delusions, and I’m done being your errand boy.”

  His fists grow white with how hard he’s clenching them. “You have no idea what it’s like to be on your own. I’ve given you everything, everything a person could want.”

  I knew he would throw that wrench into it. “You can’t touch me, and my trust fund is mine. A gift from Mum and her family, if you didn’t forget. And you may have given me money, but you never gave me what a parent should.”

  My whole life, I’d been made to feel as if I was a nuisance, or an afterthought. He hadn’t come to my achievements, been present for birthdays or milestones. Money might make the world go around, but I was beginning to realize that there was nothing that came close to being loved and cared for. And while I may never feel it like the way I had with Nora, I wasn’t going to settle anymore. I wasn’t going to live in this dark place with him.

  Without another word, I turned on my heel and stormed out of our townhouse and onto Downing Street. The sidewalk was thin with pedestrians, almost everyone already at home eating supper with their families.