Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(54)

She stays perfectly still. The shiny veneer she’s assigned to her father all these years has cracked, and a tear spills down her cheek. A perfect droplet rolling over her pale skin, the reality of his manipulations seeping out in a slow, devastated trickle.

That frustration surges up in me at the sight, and I say what I’ve been wanting to say to her for god knows how long. “Times have changed, Sloane. I’m not scared anymore. You’re not my fucking friend. You’re just mine.”





20

Sloane


Dad: Sloane. Answer this fucking phone. NOW. You’re done disrespecting me. And if you’re off gallivanting with that homeless orphan, there will be consequences.




I dip my face into the warm water, hoping it will make the tears on my cheeks blend in. The steam from Blisswater hot spring wafts up around me while fat white snowflakes fall down.

I sit on the tiled bench, submerged, and I watch. The instant they contact the top of the water, they melt away into nothing.

I feel alarmingly kindred with them. Everything I thought I knew about my life has melted away into nothing in the span of a five-minute conversation.

Worst of all, I’m angry with myself for not seeing it. Because the more I think about it, the more I think I’ve been willfully ignorant concerning my father.

What little girl wants to think her dad wouldn’t have her best interests at heart? I wasn’t subtle about my crush in the early days. He and my mom would have known, they’d have seen it.

And he moved us all around like chess pieces. For what? For optics? To close a deal?

To benefit himself.

Try as I might, that’s the only thing I can come up with. Having me connected with Jasper wasn’t beneficial to him, so he made sure it would never happen.

It crushed me when Jasper didn’t show up to my first performance. He texted me and said he got caught up reviewing game tape. Sent flowers instead.

I should have been happy I’d finally made it. That he sent flowers. But instead, I cried in the dressing room while wiping off copious amounts of makeup.

I dip my face in the water again, washing away the fresh tears that have tumbled down.

When I pull my head back up and turn my face up to the cool night air, someone sits beside me.

I don’t even need to look to know who it is. I know his smell. I know his size. I know how my body reacts when he draws near.

I know him so well. And yet I didn’t know this.

Letting my head tip back against the tiled edge of the pool, I allow my body to relax and sink into the water.

We don’t talk. What is there to say? So much and so little all at once. His arm brushes against me, and then his pinky finger wraps around mine.

I don’t know how long we sit there like this. Snow falling. Fingers latched together. Steam billowing up around us. Light instrumental music plays through the speakers, and I can hear the joyful squealing of children jumping into the cold pool on the other side of the deck.

Tears continue to leak silently from my eyes. I wish I could make them stop, but I can’t. The ache in my chest is insistent, and the what-ifs or could-have-beens consume me.

What if my dad hadn’t run into him that night?

What if their elevators had passed each other? One going up while the other went down.

What if I hadn’t forced myself to hide my feelings and move on to other relationships?

What could have been if I’d just blurted it all out to Jasper?

What could we have been if he’d done the same?

Would we be together?

Would my parents support it?

Would I even care? Or would I throw it all away for a shot at something with Jasper?

The questions don’t stop, suffocating me under their weight. They say comparison is the thief of joy, and comparing how different my life might look if one tiny interaction hadn’t happened is definitely doing that.

It’s like imagining what you’d do if you won the lottery. Fun to dream about until you get depressed about the fact it will never happen.

One hot tear streaks down the side of my face, and the water swishes beside me, followed by the calloused pads of Jasper’s fingers brushing over the apple of my cheek. A breath hiccups out of me at his touch.

I still don’t open my eyes. Instead, I just let myself feel him. Jasper has wiped many of my tears away over a broken heart, over frustration, impostor syndrome, raw feet.

But never like this. Never over being the one to make me realize I’ve been a puppet. Everyone in my life has treated me like the tiny ballerina inside a jewelry box. Nice to look at and cute to listen to when you’re in the mood, but easily shut away when you have something else to do.

I’m furious with myself for smiling and spinning every time someone opened that box. I’m angry at myself for not flipping them the finger and refusing to twirl around mindlessly. I’m not angry at anyone else.

It’s all directed at myself.

And somehow I’m harder to forgive. I think deep down I expected better of myself.

I wonder if this is how Jasper feels too. Fuck, that must be a heavy burden to bear.

His broad hand slides over my cheek, his thumb and forefinger gripping my chin to turn my head his way. “Sunny, look at me.”

The authority in his voice sends a shiver down my spine even though I’m sitting in perfectly hot water. My eyes open and immediately latch onto his.