When The Stars Align

chapter thirty two | roselake

warning: the following chapter briefly mentions suicide and drug/alcohol abuse.
and i'll say it now that this will somewhat continue until the end of the book.
thanks for reading!

"CAN I PLEASE GET my shirt back?" I asked Tori. I stood in front of her in my jean shorts and a black bralette. I don't think I've ever felt more exposed in my life. Well, I have, and I try my best to push it out of my memory. "Please!" I try to grab it from her.

My sister pulls it away. "Laura will be back soon enough with some dresses for you to try on, you'll have to take your shirt off after anyway." Victoria gets off her bed, holding her silk robe. "Here, if you really feel exposed."

She helps me put it on, despite the fact that I could do it myself. The baby blue fabric felt cool against my skin. But my sister wasn't too focused on helping, her eyes still going down to my stomach for the nth time during this dress fitting session. I find myself tracing the most noticeable scar.

"Now that she's gone, do you want to tell me how you got that?" Tori asked.

I turned around, not being able to face my sister. Unfortunately, the mirror was right there, giving me a better view of it. "What do you think it is? It's from a desperate suicide attempt, before I remembered I couldn't actually die."

The look on her face said that that was exactly what she was expecting. She pursed her lips. "How old were you?" she asked quietly, sniffing.

I sat at the edge of the bed and played with the end of the robe. "Fifteen, almost." I closed my eyes, trying to hold back tears. "Drunk, I'm pretty sure. I just got... frustrated with my life, saw the blade in my room and-"

I stopped. I couldn't continue. I thought that one day I would've been able to talk about everything that happened to me openly to the people that actually care about me, but clearly today wasn't that day. I flop onto the bed, letting out a sigh.

Tori lies down beside me. "I'm sorry, Vera, I shouldn't have asked you around it."

"No, no it's okay," I said. "You just were curious, probably worried." I wanted to change the topic, so, so badly. "How are... how are the kids? Does Annalise allow you to sleep?"

Tori doesn't mind the change in topic, laughing in response my my question. "No, she doesn't, but at this point I'm used to it. Child number five is just another walk in the park... and I assume there's going to be a sixth in the future."

I sat back up again. "Was it part of the job description that you had to be able to have a child in October in order to be queen? Because if it was, I'm pretty sure you ignored that part and got the job anyway."

She smacked me gently. "You bastard. I knew I'd end up with a bunch of kids, but apparently the universe just decided it would punish him and our kids are either born in September or November."

"Wasn't Isadora born in August?"

"Oh, yeah. That was terrifying. It wasn't even the end of the month, more like halfway through."

"Yes, fifteen is half of thirty, you can math well."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Anyway, moving on, you and Atticus went on a walk today?" Her voice became higher, and she held onto the word "today". I knew this was going to end up to be a conversation I didn't want to take part in.

"Yes... we did. It was no big deal..." I drew out my voice. "Why are you asking?"

"Come on, Vera," she retorted. "How do you even manage to be around him all the time and not feel like you're going to die? How do you stay so calm when he has a girlfriend? One of these days, you're going to admit your feeling to him, I know you're going to spill."