Page 223 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
The sight wrecked me.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” A reporter shoved her way up to me, regarding my name tag. “Do you work here? Do you know who the Little Tiger is? Who is she to Mr. Prescott?”
I struggled to avert my eyes from the statue. “I’m sorry?”
“From the placard.”
That caught my attention. It stood at the base of the centerpiece, mounted to the floor. A monument of its own. I could barely see it through the crowd.
Giving the reporter my back, I asked Ida Marie, “When was the placard placed?”
“Umm…” She cocked her head and tapped her lip. “The day we went to pick up the couches for the lobby.”
Before our fight. Before Virginia’s wedding. Before that night in the pool. Before everything.
I didn't fully understand why it mattered, but it did. Maybe because I knew it wasn't an apology. Whatever he’d etched onto the placard would be a revelation before the apology was ever needed.
Shoving my way through the masses, I stood in front of the placard, words engraved into thick stone.
“Moira”
by artist Anders Bentley
Dear Little Tiger,
You wear black and white, but you are a rainbow.
It’s the first thing I noticed about you after I really noticed you. The realizations spiraled from there. I noticed all your fucking minutiae (I bet that word gets you wet), without ever realizing it.
Your damn pride cripples you, but it also proves you’re the most determined person I’ve ever met. You are somehow both fire and the water that extinguishes it. You fixate on words, but your actions are what gut me.
I want to do all the things I've never done with you—and all the things I've already done again, because fuck, I know they’d be better with you.
When everyone else saw the angry kid with the busted lip and the bruised knuckles, you simply watched me. When my employees saw crass behavior, you saw my humor and returned it. When I didn't see myself, you still did.
I hope you're looking at the centerpiece. I hope you're staring at the geodes, the cascading waterfall, and the tiger. I hope you’re overwhelmed by it. I hope it fucking shatters a piece of you when you stare at it. I don’t hope you want to fuck the shit out of it, but for the sake of this analogy, let’s say I do.
Because that’s what it's like for me when I stare at you.
In case it’s not blatantly obvious by now, I fucking love you.
Nash/Ben/Yours
Nash’s version of a love note.
Littered with profanities, yet still charming.
And on display for photographers, press, and guests to fawn over.
All of North Carolina, who idolized him, would see this.
Ceiling: He didn’t break your heart. He cracked it open. Remember?
“Like a geode,” I whispered, shaken by the realization. “Geodes need to shatter for their beauty to be seen.”
Around me, the room shifted. Nash appeared near the alcove of elevators, flanked by Brandon Vu, Delilah, and a few more people. Shock slowed my breathing before panic took over and turned my heartbeats into a pop song.
Blood coated Nash's fist and smeared beneath Brandon’s nose. They’d been in a fight, and now he was being led outside, accompanied by his lawyer and what was probably more agents.
