The garden air carries the scent of roses and damp earth, cooler than the crowded rooms but not cool enough to slow my pulse.
I walk fast, heels clicking on the stone path, hoping distance will discourage him. Travis keeps pace beside me, his hand occasionally brushing my elbow to guide me toward the fountain, as if I am a guest who might get lost in my own stepfather's garden.
"You don't have to walk with me," I say, stopping near a trellis heavy with white blooms. "I know the way."
"I insist." His smile is gentle, concerned, perfectly calibrated. "A beautiful woman alone at night. Hardly safe."
"I'm not your concern."
"Old habits." He leans against the trellis, blocking my path back to the house. "We were close once, Skye. I still care about your wellbeing."
I stare at him in the garden's ambient light—fountain illumination catching the planes of his face, the same handsomeness that once made me believe I was fortunate to be chosen.
Now I see the calculation in it, the way he arranges his features into expressions designed to elicit specific responses.
"You lied to me," I say, abandoning pretense. "Every bill I split, every meal I bought, every time I chose between textbooks and groceries while you watched—"
"While I watched you grow," he interrupts, his voice still pleasant. "Independence is forged through struggle, Skye. You wouldn't be the woman you are without that hardship."
Irritation flares hot and sudden in my chest, the familiar burn of being explained to, of having my own experience reframed as his gift to me.
I want to scream that struggle isn't pedagogy, that poverty isn't character building when it's manufactured for sport, that watching someone drown and calling it swimming lessons is cruelty dressed as philosophy.
I want to slap him as I once slapped Kai, feel the satisfying crack of palm against bone, watch his composure crack like fine porcelain.
But I don't. I store the wanting, bank it like fire, and meet his eyes with the coldness I've learned from him.
"I'm the woman I am despite it. Despite you." I feel my shoulders square, my chin lift.
I watch his eyes for the flicker of irritation my defiance always provoked. But he just laughs, soft and disappointed. "Still so dramatic. I always admired your passion, even when it lacked direction."
"Stop." I step back, thorns catching at my silk dress. "Stop performing. We're alone. There's no audience."
His expression shifts—not dramatically, just a subtle relaxation of the muscles around his eyes, his mouth.
The gentleman facade recedes like a tide, revealing the flat coldness I remember from our final months. The look that preceded criticism, that followed it, that made me feel observed and found wanting.
"Alone," he repeats, tasting the word. "Yes, finally. I've missed this, Skye. You and me, without pretense. The way it was before you became... difficult."
"Before you hit me."
"Before you provoked me." He pushes off the trellis, moving closer. "Before you destroyed everything when you fucked that student. Dylan Cooley, was it? Nineteen years old."
I feel the old disorientation that came whenever he reconstructed reality to make me the problem.
You misunderstood. You overreacted. You made me.
"I never touched Dylan." I want to scream.
He stops an arm's length away, close enough that I smell his cologne—expensive now, not the drugstore brand I bought him when I believed he couldn't afford better.
"I came to you for support," I say, my voice steadier than I feel. "I told you what was happening—the slander, the lies, how they were forcing me out. And you believed I slept with him."
"The evidence was compelling."
"There was no evidence." The rage rises in my chest again. "There was a boy with a crush and a department looking for scandal. I was innocent."
"Innocent." He laughs, sharp and bitter. "You were always innocent, Skye. Always misunderstood. Never responsible for the chaos you created."
His hand moves—quick, familiar—and cups my jaw. Not hard enough to bruise, just enough to hold.
"I asked if you slept with him," he says, voice dropping low. "You refused to answer directly. What was I supposed to believe?"
"That I was telling the truth. That I needed you to listen instead of—" I jerk free, thorns tearing silk. "Instead of hitting me."
The sound of fabric ripping seems to release something in him. He steps back, hands raised in mock surrender, the gentleman returning like a cloak thrown over shoulders.
"Forgive me," he says, voice carrying toward the house. "Old memories. I overstepped. Let me escort you back inside—"
"I'll find my own way."
"Skye." The warning is subtle, buried in the pronunciation of my name. "Don't make a scene. Don't prove me right about your dramatic nature."
"And what happens if I do make a scene, Travis?" I demand.
"Then I tell everyone what I know about Dylan Cooley." His smile never wavers. "The whole story. The real one. I have friends on the Whitmore board, you know. Friends who would find the details very interesting."
"You wouldn't."
"I would do whatever necessary to protect myself. You know that about me." He smooths his jacket. "Smile, return to the party, and we'll discuss this civilly another time. You know I'm right. You always knew."
I stand in the garden's half-light, torn dress and racing heart, and hate that he is correct about one thing. Making a scene would require explanations I am not prepared to give.
Not to Heinrich, not to Diane, not to Kai—especially not to Kai, who would see weakness where I need to show strength.
"Another time," I repeat, making it sound like agreement.
"Excellent." He offers his arm, and I take it because the alternative is collapse. "See how easy compliance is? You always made things harder than necessary."
"And you always made cruelty look like kindness."
"Cruelty?" He presses his hand over his heart in mock offense. "I'm trying to help you, Skye. The way I always did. Some people simply refuse to be helped."
We walk back toward the house's glowing windows. I count my steps, measure my breathing, prepare the mask I will need to wear for the remaining hours. The emerald silk hangs torn at my shoulder.
"You look beautiful tonight, by the way," he says as we near the doors. "That color suits you. I always said green was your color."
"You said a lot of things."
"And meant every one of them." His grip on my arm tightens briefly before releasing. "I'll see you inside. Don't keep your new family waiting."
Behind me, the fountain plays on, indifferent to what it witnessed. And I think of all the other gardens, all the other nights, all the other ways I learned to survive in spaces that should have been safe.
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