And how, after everything Tiffany had done, could Scarlett still miss her? Still love her?
“Knock-knock.” Vivi stood at the door, looking hesitant. “Just checking to see how you’re doing.”
Scarlett waved her in. “Is everyone circling? I can’t seem to get out of this bed. Out of this room.”
“Scarlett, I can’t even imagine . . .” Vivi nodded. “Is that hers?”
Scarlett looked down. She was holding the elephant she and Tiffany had gotten from the antiques store the day after they’d met. “Yeah, I don’t know why I’m holding on to this thing.”
She threw the elephant in the trash, then turned her attention to Vivi, who looked at the trash for a long beat, as if she was considering rescuing the elephant. As if she could salvage some of the wreckage.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Scarlett said. Even though she’d been consumed by thoughts of Tiffany, something else had been weighing on her too. She couldn’t let things with Vivi stand the way they were before Tiffany had taken her.
Vivi braced herself, as if she knew what this would be about. Scarlett appreciated that she didn’t protest or get defensive. She just nodded and drew up a chair beside Scarlett. Together they watched the morning sun slowly paint Westerly’s campus yellow.
“It’s about Mason,” Scarlett started.
Vivi leaped right in. “Scarlett, I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but I’m sorry. I should never have allowed anything to happen with him. It will never happen again. I know he’s your ex, and I would never do that to a sister. There’s no excuse.”
“No, there isn’t,” Scarlett agreed. Then she sighed. “But I can’t exactly blame you for screwing up when my screwup was so much worse.” Her mind flashed to Tiffany. To the terrible, callous way she’d admitted to Dahlia’s murder. I needed her power. As if it were that simple; as if it were just a matter of taking what belonged to her. Scarlett’s eyes stung, and she blinked back tears.
“Your mom is right, Scarlett. You’re not responsible for Tiffany.”
“Maybe not, but I loved her. How could I not have realized how lost she was?”
“People aren’t just one thing or the other.” Vivi shrugged. “We’re not just evil or angelic. She did terrible things, yes, but she did them out of love. That doesn’t make them any better; we should still blame her. But just because we blame her doesn’t mean we don’t understand her. Finding out about what she did doesn’t mean your love for her just vanishes. Love is more complicated than that.”
Scarlett laughed. “Preach.” She picked at her nails, now that her mother wasn’t here to swat her hands anymore. “Feelings never really follow rule books, do they?”
“Hell no.” Vivi managed a small smile.
Scarlett couldn’t help thinking of Jackson, of the way he’d taken her hand right before they broke through Gwen’s front door. Before everything spiraled out of control, there had been a split second when she’d thought maybe . . .
But her head was a mess. Whatever she felt for him was tangled up in adrenaline, fear, heartbreak. She’d need time to sort through it. For now, though, she could make sure others didn’t have to suffer the same confusion.
“Look, Vivi, what I’m trying to say is . . . if I am honest with myself, Mason and I were over the second Harper died and I couldn’t tell him the truth about it. That secret drove a wedge between us. And while we were apart last summer, he changed. It just took me this long to realize that I changed too. We want different things.” Scarlett was a little surprised by her own honesty—and by the fact that it didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would to admit it.
A sweet look of relief washed over Vivi’s face. “And what is it that you want?”
“I want to be happy. I just have to figure out what that means for me. I spent my whole life trying to follow the rules. To be who my mother wanted me to be, who Dahlia wanted me to be, who I thought I wanted to be. But I have no right to force my rules on anybody else. Not you, and especially not Mason. So if you two have feelings for each other, then, well . . . you have my blessing to give it a shot. If you still want to, that is.”
“You don’t have to say that,” Vivi said, looking uneasy.
“I know.” Scarlett winked. “I’m just that big of a person.”
As Vivi smiled with relief, Scarlett thought of how much she’d disliked Vivi at first. It was because she was a wildcard. Now she felt like she knew the girl before her almost better than she knew her other sisters. Even more surprising, she was starting to like her. She could see what Mason and the other sisters saw in her. The intelligence, the humor, the heart. Her remarkable effervescence despite being kept in the dark about her heritage for so long and despite everything that had happened to her the last few days. There was a freedom about Vivi, a lack of carefulness that she knew would appeal to Mason, who so desperately wanted to break free of everything that he was raised to be.
Even now, even after all that had happened, Kappa was where Scarlett wanted to be. Kappa was what she wanted to fight for. Kappa was what she wanted to fix. Still, she felt raw around the edges just thinking about Mason being with someone else. But looking at Vivi, she could at least understand it. She could see it. And she could let the poor girl off the hook.
Scarlett reached over and nudged her arm. “Don’t think I’m going soft, though. You might’ve survived Hell Week, but you’re still my Little.”
Vivi lifted her chin. “No one will ever think of you as soft. And I won’t let you down. Trust me.”
Scarlett’s smile widened. “I do,” she said. And she meant it.
When Vivi left, Scarlett pulled the elephant out of the trash and put it back on her dresser. Tiffany was gone. But Vivi was right. She didn’t have to let go of what was good in her.
* * *
Campus life resumed a shockingly normal rhythm. But while Scarlett had sorted things out with her family and her sisters, she knew she still had something else to do. Something hard.
Scarlett had Jackson meet her at her favorite place off campus, a little bench overlooking the Savannah River.
“Hey, stranger,” she said as she handed him a cup of tea she’d brought as a peace offering.
“She lives,” he said as he sat beside her on the bench and took the cup.
“I texted you,” she protested.
“I think I deserved more than a text message, Scar.” He pulled out his phone. “‘Guess you were right, I am the Final Girl after all. Will call you when I come up for air.’” He stared pointedly over the top of the screen. “That’s hardly an adequate explanation, Ms. Winter.”
Guilt pooled in her stomach. “I heard you came by the house. I’m sorry . . . I . . . It was just too much.”
“I was so worried that something had happened to you.” He scooted a little closer. “I’m sorry about Tiffany.” The public story they’d put out had been that Tiffany died in the freak tornado that touched down just off campus. As for Dahlia, she’d been reported missing and was presumed also killed in the same storm. After all, the Ravens couldn’t exactly explain that Dahlia had actually gone missing days before but had appeared to be wandering around campus looking perfectly fine.