Page 145 of The Truths We Burn

I cross my arms in front of me suspiciously. “Business?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light as I look between the two of them. “What business? You’re the dean of a college. I thought your business would consist of budgeting tuition and meal planning school lunches.”

He looks at me carefully. “I wasn’t aware you were so interested in the inner workings of what I do, Sage. Plan on taking my job one day?”

“Just keeping my options open.”

I’m onto you, I want to say.

And by the way his body language shifts, just a little, I can tell he knows it.

So help me God, if I find out he was involved in what happened to Rosie, there would be no waiting like we’re doing with my father.

I’ll kill him in front of the police department and handcuff myself.

“If you must know,” he exhales, “it’s a funding opportunity. We’re looking into more scholarship donations so that bright, young students from underprivileged homes can attend without worrying about the financial burden. Like your friend Briar.”

I slit my eyes when he says her name. He is so full of shit it’s starting to leak out of his ears. The Sinclair men are a handful of generational assholes.

“How very humanitarian of you, Stephen,” I say. “This has been nice, catching up, but I’ve got to run to the little girls’ room.” I tip my champagne glass up at both of them before turning on the ball of my foot and heading in the opposite direction.

I walk away from him and towards the French doors, where all the waitstaff are filtering through.

They all look miserable walking around in their white waistcoats and silver trays. I recognize one of them as one of the guys that had trapped me, Briar, and Lyra at the Gauntlet.

It’s not a rare occurrence for people from West Trinity Falls to work for the people in Ponderosa Springs.To them, they’re just our servants, the people who pick up after our messes. It’s strange that I had never noticed that before, just how many of them worked for the rich, trying to provide a life for themselves.

I can only imagine what they think of us. I bet they sit around and talk about how lucky we are, how easy we have it, and to some degree, they’re probably right.

But tragedy does not discriminate against the poor and the rich. It comes for everyone, and it does not care if you live in a mansion or a roach-filled apartment. It eats at us all.

With no rush to return to the party, I wander around the halls. I know this house like it’s my own, having spent more time here growing up than I would have liked.

I walk into the study, my fingers gliding across the dusty books before I walk onto the terrace. I stand still, looking down from my place on the second floor at all the guests mingling around on the back lawn. A clear representation of everything I despised about my upbringing.

I can smell the fresh floral arrangements in the breeze, bouquets of hydrangeas, violets, and orchids. All of them are placed elegantly around the spacious, green lawn, the setting sun reflecting the color on their petals.

Large white canopies are strategically set up to shield guests while they eat. The circular dining tables were decorated flawlessly by some designer that would never actually get the credit for it. All the women in their oversized hats and men in their suit jackets add to the aesthetic like perfectly arranged ornaments.

Everything is in order. There are no children running around gleefully soaking in the sun or laughter that rings too loud.

It’s all orchestrated to sound and look like wealth.

All of these familiar faces that I grew up around yet had never had one single genuine conversation with any of them. I see Lizzy standing next to her mother and father and wonder if the night before he’d stumbled in drunk and smelling of another woman’s perfume. I’m curious if she’s still hiding who she really is beneath that tailored white dress.

Every influential name in Ponderosa Springs is in attendance today, all here to celebrate my father’s re-election.

One that he’d secured with pity and blood-soaked money.

As I stare at them with their jewelry and designer clothes, it feels like the first time I’m seeing them for what they all are. One big mirage of success and happiness. From a distance, you might see a life people would dream of, but in reality, when you get close, the picture becomes clearer.

It’s all an act.

A show they put on while they’re busy digging holes six feet deep to bury their secrets inside of. Shoving all of their skeletons, crooked ways, and nasty scandals into the grave, leaving the ground to soak up all that wickedness.

I don’t believe in ghosts or hauntings.

But if any town is cursed by the wrongdoings of its civilians, it’s Ponderosa Springs. It forces the soil to absorb their evil, enriching the ground with sinister fertilizer. It’s now so apparent to me that I can feel it as I walk around.

“I kissed you for the first time right there.”