The Worthington library, a monument to old money elegance – floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, leather-bound volumes. It was also, Vivian realized with growing dread, completely soundproof.
The parents arranged themselves in the room's center like opposing generals preparing for battle. Vivian and Tristan were positioned slightly apart, close enough to hear each other, far enough to feel isolated.
Vivian's hands were shaking so badly now that she had to clasp them behind her back to hide it and pinched harshly to hold back her calmness. Her mind was racing through every possible scenario, every potential consequence:
Best case: They believe we just went for air and give us a lecture about responsibility. Worst case: They realize this was a planned rebellion and I lose what little freedom I have left. They'll probably assign me a guard, monitor my every move, maybe even transfer me to that boarding school mom keeps threatening me with.
But what if they ask who started it? What if they want to know whose idea it was? What if—
"Now then," Eleanor began, her voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed, "would either of you care to explain your behavior tonight?"
This was it. The moment of truth. Vivian took a breath, preparing to give a carefully neutral explanation that would minimize the damage for both of them.
"We apologize for worrying you," she began smoothly, her voice steady despite her racing heart. "We simply stepped outside for some air and lost track of time. It was thoughtless of us not to inform—"
"That's not what happened," Tristan interrupted, his voice sharp with frustration.
Vivian's blood turned to ice. What is he doing?
"We didn't just step outside for air," Tristan continued, his face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance. "We left because we were bored out of our minds. These parties are ridiculous – all this fake politeness and forced conversations with people we barely know."
Stop talking. Please, God, stop talking.
Eleanor's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Excuse me?"
But Tristan was on a roll now, his teenage rebellion finally finding its voice at the worst possible moment. "Come on, you know it's true. We spend hours getting dressed up to stand around making small talk about nothing. At least in the garden we could actually breathe for five minutes."
"Tristan," Vivian said quietly, desperately trying to catch his eye, to signal him to stop.
He turned to her with an expression that was almost challenging. "What? You said the same thing, Viv. You said you felt like you could finally breathe out there."
The words hit her like a physical blow. Her carefully constructed excuse crumbled to dust as every adult in the room turned to stare at her with new understanding.
He just destroyed everything. Everything.
"Is that so?" Eleanor's voice was deadly quiet. "You felt you could 'finally breathe' away from your responsibilities?"
Vivian's mind raced, trying to find some way to salvage the situation. "I meant—"
"She was right!" Tristan's voice rose with desperate conviction. "Why should we have to fake being interested in conversations about the weather when we could be doing something real? At least out there we could actually—"
"Excuse me." The words cut through Tristan's rambling confession like a blade through silk. Vivian's voice carried a chill that would have made her mother proud. Every eye in the room turned to her as she stepped forward, her posture straightening into the perfect deportment that had been drilled into her since childhood.
Something had shifted in her expression—gone was the panicked girl from moments before, replaced by someone who looked disturbingly like Eleanor Alcott in miniature. Her gaze fixed on Tristan with surgical precision.
"May I clarify what actually happened this evening?"
Eleanor's lips curved in the faintest approximation of a smile. "Please do"
Vivian's voice took on the measured cadence of someone accustomed to being believed. "I was the one who suggested we step outside. I told Tristan I couldn't breathe properly—not because I was dissatisfied with the evening, but because my corset had been laced too tightly. I was experiencing genuine difficulty." She gestured delicately to her torso. "We found a quiet spot by the pond where I could sit and recover. Unfortunately, I misjudged the terrain in these heels and injured my ankle."
She lifted her hem slightly, revealing the genuine cut on her ankle—blood that had come not from any stumble, but from her desperate scrape against the garden stones when the guards found them.
"We barely spoke while I recovered. I'm afraid if I said anything that Tristan interpreted as... social commentary... it may have been due to my discomfort affecting my choice of words." Her tone suggested gentle confusion, as if she couldn't quite fathom how her innocent recovery period had been so thoroughly misunderstood.
Eleanor inclined her head fractionally. "I see."
The words were perfectly crafted—a plausible medical excuse, a logical explanation for their absence, and most devastatingly, a complete dismissal of Tristan's emotional honesty as mere "misinterpretation." Vivian had just transformed his moment of vulnerable truth into the confused rambling of a boy who couldn't properly understand a lady's indisposition.
"But we talked about—" Tristan's voice cracked with disbelief. "You said you felt trapped, you said—"
"Enough." Victoria Vale's voice snapped like a whip. Her face was flushed with mortification as she turned to the Alcotts. "I'm terribly sorry. Tristan has been going through rather an intense phase lately—you know how teenage boys can be, reading meaning into perfectly innocent situations." The smile she aimed at her son could have frozen hellfire. "We've been dealing with this tendency to... dramatize... for some time now."
"Mother, I didn't—" Tristan's protest emerged as barely more than a whisper.
"Respect your mother," his father commanded, his hand falling heavily on Tristan's shoulder.
Victoria continued, her voice carrying the particular brand of humiliation that only a society mother could deliver. "I do apologize if our son's overactive imagination has caused any discomfort. We'll certainly address this tendency to misinterpret social cues. Some young men simply need more guidance in understanding appropriate boundaries and interpretations."
The words hung in the air like poisoned arrows. Not only had Vivian's story been accepted, but Tristan had been reduced to a confused boy with "overactive imagination" and poor "social cues"—the kind of subtle social assassination that high society specialized in.
Charles Alcott cleared his throat diplomatically. "These things happen. Young people can certainly get carried away by the romance of a garden setting." His tone suggested the matter was already forgotten, filed away as a minor social hiccup.
But Eleanor's eyes remained fixed on her daughter, and Vivian could see the calculation there—her mother had understood everything. The real story, the careful reconstruction, the strategic deployment of plausible deniability. Eleanor wasn't fooled for a moment. She was impressed.
When they were finally dismissed, the two teenagers walked out of that library with their social standing intact and their hearts shattered beyond recognition. The adults' voices faded behind them as they returned to the glittering ballroom, where the party continued as if nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
Vivian had learned that the boy she'd started to trust, the one person who seemed to see through all the bullshit, would throw her under the bus the moment he got emotional. A person who would take her honest feelings and twist them into weapons against her should not be considered a "friend".
And Tristan had learned that the one person he thought understood him, the girl he'd believed was trapped in the same golden cage, would sacrifice him without hesitation when her own position was threatened. She is not his "friend" but a cold and treacherous evil.