Page 382 of Bad Prince
That kind of composure wrecks me in a different way.
“Thank you,” she says tightly. “That’s awful. But thank you.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing like you can retroactively make this noble.” She looks at me for a long beat, then shakes her head once, almost to herself. “You know what your problem is?”
I almost smile despite everything. “Several things come to mind.”
“You keep trying to become the version of yourself that makes the most sense on paper.” She steps closer, not intimate, just direct. “And in the process, you make a mess of real people.”
That lands deep because it’s true.
It always has been.
I hold her gaze.
“I’m trying to stop.”
Isa searches my face, maybe looking for the lie, maybe trying to decide whether she wants there to be one.
Apparently she doesn’t find it.
“Good,” she says.
Then she looks away toward the darkening quad and lets out a long breath.
“If you go after her—” She glances back at me. “Do it in daylight.”
The words hit somewhere low in my chest. Because she sees it. Not just the wanting. Not just the history. The wound.
The fact that Stella was something I once let happen in the dark and then failed to defend when the lights came on.
Isa sees all of it.
And instead of using that to humiliate me, she hands me the truth like a blade and trusts me to finally do something decent with it.
I nod once.
“I know.”
She steps back then, like a girl with too much dignity to let herself linger where she isn’t chosen.
“Isa—”
She lifts a hand.
Not angry.
Not cruel.
Just done.
“Don’t ruin it by trying to comfort me now.”
So I stop.
