“He was looking for the coin,” I said.
“You were right,” Gray said. “The fear you had about it being in Scotland was true.”
“I’m so fucking stupid.”
Grayson placed his hand on my head, stroking my hair. “You’re not stupid. West had a months-long advantage. When we started looking, he’d already searched Crowne Hall. He knew what we didn’t: Woodsy was never the key. It was never about his poems or his favorite poetry, it was always you, your poetry. Woodsy desperately wanted you to write. So he buried it beneath the first poem you ever wrote him.”
Tears blurred my eyes. “Why wouldn’t my uncle just do that here? Fucking Scotland?”
“I don’t think your uncle could have ever predicted what would happen to you,” Grayson said softly. “Crowne Hall was dangerous. Arthur du Lac burned down his house to get at it. Scotland was a safe choice. The last time it was used was for Josephine…” Grayson trailed off. “I suspect Woodsy gave it to her years ago.”
“Why didn’t West use it? All these months he could have used it.”
“It was the one thing holding you to him,” Gray said. “He wanted you to love him. Truly love him.”
You’ll never be able to leave me until you find it.
“I hate him,” I whispered.
Grayson continued to stroke my hair in a soothing rhythm. “There’s more. West has been writing in it since last year.”
I clenched the leather.
I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it, or just toss it in the fire and be done with him. Still, I flipped through pages.
Addicted.
Needing the closure.
I stumbled on the first entry, dated the night of the poker game.
What has she been doing all these years? She’s still so beautiful. Does she still think of me like I think of her? That night got me through everything… My beautiful songbird with the heart of an angel.
Does she still sing for me?
Another one, dated the night after New Year’s.
Dad was way too fucking nervous when he saw me talking to her. I never should have done the bet…she was just a servant. He still doesn’t know how I got rid of the coin. I told him I lost it playing poker. If dad finds out about Story, then she’ll never be safe. He doesn’t accept she’s the love of my life. He can never know.
But why is she with Grayson fucking Crowne?
The next entry was the night of the ball, of Abigail’s engagement.
Rape? Fucking rape? Fuck her. Just like everyone else. She never loved me. Just like all the maids that tried to ruin Dad.
Dad will know what to do.
That was the last entry until after we got divorced, and it was dated right around when we got married. Then the next one was right after West stopped his father from attacking me.
I think I fucked up.
The next entry was marked April of this year, a few months after I’d started sleeping in West’s bed.
Every night Story falls asleep in my bed and I watch her until the sun comes up or until my eyes force themselves shut. I think about the beginning, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Was it that night? Or was it the first day I saw her, and I realized how little I actually had?
Because suddenly I had something for myself—a feeling in my chest no one could take.
Maybe that’s when it went wrong, because I was too young to know what it was. I lingered around her, clung to her, stuck to her, but I didn’t know why. I was just addicted to it.
Then I was caught hanging with Story, and that feeling I thought was all mine, corrupted into hot shame. It became theirs.
I didn’t want to admit—couldn’t admit—that what we had was real. So I took the bet. There was no harm in it.
She’d never find out.
I’d never get that far with her.
I just liked talking to her. I liked that there was a piece of this planet my parents didn’t touch. A piece for me.
Then that night—
It cut off abruptly. I wondered what would have caused him to stop writing so quickly, for the ink to bleed halfway into the blank page like he’d hurriedly stopped writing and slammed the book shut. I scanned through pages and pages looking for more, addicted on insight, until I found the next entry, dated March.
Every now and then, I get a ghost sensation. I feel their hands slam into mine when I come out of the servants’ quarters. I hear their laughter.
And I hear mine.
I didn’t even fucking know they saw me go down to her.
It was easier to stop going to Crowne Hall than it was to see her. Why would I explain anything to her anyway? My father had my life planned out for me. She was a blip. A nothing.
But there had been a few minutes, when through the small, uneven window in her bedroom, I could see the moon. Her breathing was soft, and she was warm. For a moment, my life wasn’t laid out for me. I didn’t see every year until my death.
It was perfect.
It was the only perfect moment in my life.
How do I say sorry for that? If I say sorry, it means the only perfect moment in my life was wrong.
Tears fell, wetting the ink on the pages. There weren’t many pages left, and West had written in a way that left many blank, but I kept flipping them.
My fingers felt numb as I did so.
The only entry after that, was dated the night before he died. It was weird, I wanted to know what had gone through his mind all the time he was with me, keeping me captive. I wanted to know why he did the things he did, but there was nothing, no entry.
So I read the final entry, dated the night he’d kissed me and called himself the villain.
I took it for granted. I thought her song would wait until I returned.
I ignored the unwritten line in that poem.
Feed the bird.
If you don’t feed the bird, the bird fucking dies.
I fucking raped her.
The best night of my life was the worst of hers.
I couldn’t keep reading as my tears fell down and smudged the words on the paper.
“I never thought I’d hear him admit it, and even now it’s just on paper. I don’t know if I’m happy or sad…or mad…or…”
I set the diary down as a rush of sobs wracked me. Grayson fell beside me on the couch, pulling me closer.
“Have you read this?” I asked.
He nodded. “After reading this, I don’t know, Story. A part of me thinks he always knew what would happen, which is why he made me promise to get Lottie out. He knew the day he agreed to work together he was going on a suicide mission.”
“So why even pretend to be winning me over?” I couldn’t breathe as the rush of just everything overwhelmed me. “Why fucking hold on to the coin? Why?”
Grayson and my eyes locked.
He wanted redemption.
“I hate him.” I chucked the journal at the wall and the brittle spine broke in two. “All these months, he had it. We could have left. We could have been free. Why is my heart breaking again?”
Grayson grabbed me, ripping me to his chest, but careful not to smush Sonnet. My tears melted into his shirt in a mess of sobs and snot.