He said for her he'd steal the world… she said it wasn't theirs to own… like rubies and diamonds and gold… it's as dark as the hearts we hold… we dug out its flesh… and we filled it with bones… long ago…
Dahlia's voice drifts through the air like a ghost, dark-throated and sweet, the perfect soundtrack to go along with the smoke and spirits floating around the posh Upper West Side wedding reception Ren has been hired to photograph for the night. She doesn't know who the DJ is, but she can imagine them sitting in their booth and waiting to see what her reaction will be to hearing her girlfriend's hit song playing amongst the high society Ren was once a part of.
She scans the crowded rooftop and looks for a different moment to immerse herself in.
A caterer flits by her carrying a half-empty tray of champagne and winks when she grabs a flute. She lets her fingers linger on the cool Cristal for a moment before downing the sharp-tasting, golden drink in one gulp. Ren smiles at the caterer shyly before grabbing the Nikon F2 hanging from her neck and turning back toward the party.
Mr. And Mrs. Baldwin's wedding reception has a Golden Age of Hollywood theme, fitting enough for a young couple whose newly shared name has dominated Bedlam's film industry for generations.
A red carpet leads the way to a gold and black colored drape where the newlyweds and their guests had had their pictures taken earlier in the night, sometime between the soberness of the wedding ceremony and the start of the opulent celebration that had begun afterward. Deep emerald cloths are draped over the round tables where guests set their glasses of champagne and plates of decadent hors d'oeuvres while they danced to the upbeat jazz music that played for most of the night, and golden lanterns scattered across the rooftop fill the atmosphere with a warm glow.
It's almost midnight now, and only a few men and women dressed in vintage suits and dresses are left swaying along to the music on the dance floor or shuffling around the tables waiting to say goodbye to the bride and groom.
At the bar behind her, someone from the groom's famous film industry family is gossiping about the bride's parents. New residents of Bedlam, Mr. And Mrs. Stewart had been recruited from mainland America only a few short years ago to work as scientists on Clearwater Island, the mysterious island off the southeast coast of mainland Bedlam more commonly known as Research Row. While they had both started off as low-level researchers, they quickly moved up in the ranks after discovering a new underwater plant species while daring to explore the deeper waters surrounding the sub-island. Ever since Bedlam was founded over one hundred years ago, the waters surrounding Research Row had been constantly guarded and patrolled by the hulking metal ships owned and operated by the US Navy, and residents and researchers didn't often decide to get in the way of the Navy's course.
"Oh Christ, Margaret, would you just look at them?" the man behind Ren puffs.
The Stewarts look around with their arms flailing while they frantically try to keep the layers of the cake from collapsing onto the cake table. They apparently hadn't known any better than to cut their own pieces off of the tiered wedding cake while the caterer was busying himself with other guests. While Bedlam's scientists are generally well-respected even by Bedlam's high-society residents, they aren't necessarily known for their etiquette.
Click.
"Oh Christ, Ken," the man's wife sighs dramatically, "would you let the people eat cake?"
Ren smirks at the woman's dissidence and turns around, wanting to capture the look on the man's face as his polite society devolves into a brief moment of chaos. She finds them sitting alone at the center of the bar. The man is sipping a scotch on the rocks and puffing on a rare Cuban cigar looking thoroughly scandalized while the woman is turned away from him and tracing the rim of an empty glass of wine with her finger.
Ren lifts her camera to her eye, but before she can secure her shot, a woman walks directly into the frame and starts mouthing the next verse of Dahlia's song as she makes her way drunkenly toward Ren.
He said he's in love with this girl… but she's taking things slow… dismantling his mirrors and smoke…
"Lau-ren Pre-scott," the woman says as she gets closer, sounding out each syllable of Ren's name as if she's writing it down for later. "I never imagined I'd run into you here."
Ren knows that's a lie.
The Baldwins had booked her for this wedding months ago, and they had been anything but discreet about it to their hundreds of guests. Everyone knew that the elusive Lauren Prescott, once confined to her exclusive world of professional ballet, would be attending the Baldwin wedding as a staff member. If it were the Upper East Side, she'd never take the gig. There's too much old money floating around there, and too high of a chance she would run into someone her parents know.
But the Upper West Side, with its innovative artistry and open-minded social scene, was supposed to be safe from her old life.
"I'm sorry," Ren says in the most pleasant voice she can muster after a long night on the job, "have we met?"
The woman doesn't look like anyone Ren would know outside of work. She's about the same age as Ren's mother, but she doesn't have the slender yet strangely muscular physique that mothers often share with their daughters who do ballet. If anything, Ren would say that she's slightly overweight. She also doesn't have the beauty or extravagance one might find on a movie star or politician's wife, and there's no sign of the various piercings or spiky, multi-colored hair Ren often sees on Dahlia's friends, either. Instead, she wears her light-brown hair in tight, shoulder-length curls and a single-diamond pendant around her neck to complement her dark blue, A-line dress and dances off-beat to Dahlia's haunting chorus.
Darkened queen… new pretty thing…
"Rebecca Goldberg," the woman says as she reaches out to shake Ren's hand. Ren notices she has lipstick on her teeth when she smiles and assesses that Rebecca either doesn't get out much, or she's about to start a bold conversation driven by a generous amount of liquid courage. "You probably don't remember me."
Ren lets go of the woman's hand and shakes her head slowly.
"I figured as much," Rebecca says as she places her hand on her hip and beams at Ren. "I recruited you to Bedlam University from Blackwell Prep! It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Oh my gosh, that's right!" Ren exclaims.
Her enthusiasm is only half-feigned. She holds some fond memories of Blackwell Prep. Because her older brother, Nathan, had already carved out a name for himself in lacrosse, Ren was already one of the most popular girls in school before she even started her freshman year. Of course, becoming popular isn't hard to achieve when your father is Senator Lawrence Prescott, one of the most prominent politicians on the island. Following in their father's footsteps, Nathan won the titles of both Homecoming and Prom King almost every year that he ran, and Ren took up the crowns in the three years after Nathan's graduation. After Ren's class pulled a senior prank by letting a band onto their school grounds to follow the Dean around wearing kilts and playing bagpipes, however, Ren was afraid that she wouldn't be allowed to graduate, let alone continue on to college.
"Photography, huh?" Rebecca asks, gesturing toward the camera hanging from Ren's neck. "You sure do have a way of surprising people, don't you?"
It was almost unheard of for a student from one of Bedlam's private schools to attend Bedlam University, which was usually reserved for gifted students from Bedlam's public schools and mainland America, or of course the lucky few exchange students from other countries. Students from Bedlam's private schools, on the other hand, would usually attend an Ivy League university in mainland America or study abroad if they didn't immediately start working for their parents. Ren can remember how taken aback Rebecca had been when she had requested an application.
"I try my best," Ren says with a forced laugh that she hopes sounds polite enough.
Nathan had notably devoted his life to their father's campaign straight out of high school, as if their lives weren't already consumed by it enough. Instead of merely posing for pictures and attending press conferences, however, he began networking with important political figures, arranging photo-ops, and spending long nights writing heartfelt speeches for their father to present to the people. Ren, on the other hand, had decided to major in dance at Bedlam University rather than join Ballet Reve, the dance academy their mother, Natsumi, had attended in her youth.
Strike one from the Prescotts.
"It's nice to see young people finding themselves," Rebecca replies with a wink that says she's talking about something more than Ren's career.
"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Ren responds, flushing.
She knows Rebecca is only trying to be polite, maybe even supportive, but even after three long years, she still isn't ready to talk about what had happened on that fateful night of her twenty-first birthday that has since become one of the most defining moments of her life.
It had been a Prescott party just like any other. Glamorous men and women flounced around the extravagant ballroom of Nottingham Palace, the luxury resort owned by Nathan's best friend and Ren's high school sweetheart's family, the Nottinghams. The Palace had built Bedlam's tourism industry since the island territory's founding years. Even though there was a second resort in the Upper East Side, the Prescotts always held their gatherings at the original location on Nottingham Island that was founded by Matthias's famed ancestor, and the original owner of Bedlam's islands, Thaddeus Nottingham.
Nottingham Palace is a Victorian masterpiece of grandeur and ghosts, an opulent estate where every corridor seems to breathe with the memory of old money and ambition. The facade is a vision of nineteenth-century luxury: pale stone ornamented with wrought iron, copper rooftops gone green with age, and a hundred windows that shimmer with candlelight by night.
Inside, the ballroom glitters like the inside of a jewel box. Gilded moldings climb the walls and curve into painted ceilings alive with cherubs and constellations. Massive chandeliers drip with crystal, scattering shards of gold across mirrored pillars and marble floors.
Outside, terraces lead to sprawling gardens carved into the cliffside, where rosebushes bloom in perfect rows beside marble fountains and mythic statues. At the edge of the property, the sea crashes far below, its mist rising to touch the lowest balconies like a ghost's sigh. Lanterns line the paths, their flickering light reflected in glass conservatories that house exotic plants and whispered conversations.
To the rest of the world, Nottingham Palace is Bedlam's crown jewel — a sanctuary for the rich, a monument to legacy. But to those who know it best, it's something more haunting: a stage where beauty and power dance together beneath chandeliers where the ghosts of the island's gilded past never truly left the room.
The only guests left at Nottingham Palace the night of Ren's twenty-first birthday party were a few of Lawrence and Natsumi's closest confidantes — the famed industrialists Gerard and Justine Astor, wealthy art collectors Nelson and Elizabeth Carnegie, and, of course, Nicholas and Diane Nottingham of the Nottingham fortune, amongst others — as well as the group of girls Ren had invited from her old dance company, Blackwell Prep, and Bedlam University.
Ren's parents and their friends were hiding out at one of the many bars surrounding the ballroom talking about business and politics while Ren's friends continued their childhood tradition of playing Ghost in the Graveyard. She could still remember the ring of her friends' voices as they pirouetted across the ballroom floor.
"Come on, birthday girl!" a group of girls shouted as they leapt out of the ballroom.
Ren stood at the bar on the East end of the ballroom with her then-boyfriend, Matthias, a handsome young man with a perfectly styled dark brown pompadour and penetrating deep blue eyes. He was wearing a black suit by Bianchi, an Italian designer popular in Bedlam, and had one hand placed on Ren's waist and the other in her dark, pin-straight hair as he planted a light kiss on her lips.
"One more game, and then I have to show you something," Matthias said in his deep, heavy voice.
"Why don't you play with us? It'll be fun," Ren said as she traced a finger playfully down Matthias's silky red tie. "You are still allowed to have fun, you know."
Like Nathan, Matthias had started working for his father at Nottingham Palace straight out of high school, starting out as a manager and quickly climbing the ranks to become the Chief Financial Officer. While Ren had found Matthias's ambition attractive when she was still in high school, she had seen him quickly change in ways she didn't expect and wasn't prepared for over the years. He was no longer the handsome, charming friend of her older brother who threw wild parties that the whole school wanted an invitation to while his parents were busy overseas. Instead, he had become a serious, reserved businessman who spent most of his time in meetings that discussed important, confidential matters that he wasn't allowed to share with her.
He had become like their parents.
"You know I've never been that great at hiding," Matthias replied.
Matthias really had never been good at playing Ghost in the Graveyard, but Ren knew that wasn't what he meant. Matthias had never been comfortable with his fame, even as the seemingly rebellious teenager who invited half the school to his parties on the weekend. In reality, those wild parties had been Matthias's hiding place for a long time. He would have much rather been in some coffee shop where no one knew his name, but that's never been what was expected of him, and Matthias has always loved to please.
"Just one game?" Ren whined and batted her eyelashes cutely.
"How about you play one more game and then meet me in the West bar?" Matthias replied as he brushed a piece of hair behind Ren's ear. "I have something I want to show you."
"Go! Go!" Ren's remaining friends yelled as they ran out of the ballroom.
"You mean the North bar?" Ren responded, confused. "The West wing is closed tonight."
"No, I mean the West bar," Matthias confirmed. He smiled and gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek. "Go play. I have to go talk to Nathan about something."
"Ren, come on!" A slip of a girl wearing a knee-length red dress grabbed Ren by the arm and began tugging her away. Her hair fell loosely and wildly in long, dark curls down her back as she sauntered away from the bar with Ren in tow.
"Oh my gosh, Carmen!" Ren giggled at the girl before turning back toward Matthias. "I'll see you in the West wing!"
Carmen led Ren across the ballroom by the hand. They raced by the gold curtained pillars and maroon clothed tables that had been used as hiding places in their last game and made their way toward the East exit of the ballroom where there sat a row of photo booths. The photo booth on the end had a white sheet of paper taped to the outside with the words OUT OF ORDER written on it in swooping calligraphy.
"Wait —" Carmen said as she pulled back the dark blue curtain of the broken photo booth and slipped inside to sit on the bench, "in here."
The music and chatter from the dwindling party softened as the curtain closed. Ren and Carmen sat closely together inside the machine, giggling and panting as they caught their breath from running. Ren caught a whiff of Carmen's flowery perfume as Carmen pressed a finger to Ren's lips to stifle her laughter.
"I hate seeing you with him, you know?" Carmen said after a few moments, looking at Ren vulnerably through her thick eyelashes.
"I know," Ren sighed as she traced her pointer finger lightly over the top of Carmen's hand. "I'm going to tell him eventually."
"No you won't," Carmen responded softly, intertwining her fingers with Ren's.
Ren and Carmen had been roommates during their freshman year at Bedlam University and had quickly become best friends. After spending a lifetime with the same girls from her dance company, Ren had welcomed any new friends in her life with open arms after she started her college career. Carmen was naturally the first person Ren had met when she moved into her dorm, but that wasn't the only thing that had drawn the girls to each other.
Carmen was an exchange student from Mexico, and like Ren, she was also the daughter of a conservative politician who was known for his controversial views about the country's military involvement. Also like Ren, Carmen had a knack for disobeying her father's expectations of her, like choosing to go to college rather than enter into an arranged marriage with an important Mexican diplomat. After many long nights staying up late drinking imported Sangria they had snuck into their room, Carmen finally confessed her attraction to Ren, who had been growing distant from Matthias ever since he began his career at Nottingham Palace.
Carmen not only reminded Ren of the excitement of her days with Matthias at Blackwell Prep, but she gave Ren the strength to admit that Matthias's career might not be the only reason they had grown apart. Throughout her years in ballet, Ren had always known that she felt differently about the other girls than they felt about her. Even throughout her relationship with Matthias, she sometimes wondered if their decision to be together was merely driven by their family's close ties with each other rather than romance.
Carmen's admission to Ren finally gave Ren the courage to confess that she felt the same way about her. Their secret and sensual affair had started off as a slow burn, an experiment between two friends who were figuring themselves out, but as the years passed, the spark between them had grown into a more serious flame.
"Yes, I will," Ren assured her, running her fingers through the tangle of Carmen's hair as she leaned in closer for a slow, passionate kiss. Carmen grabbed her by the waist with one hand while the other lightly grazed the side of Ren's breast.
"I just have to wait until I finish my last year of school," Ren continued speaking between light kisses on Carmen's lips. "It was hard enough getting my parents to agree to pay for Bedlam instead of Brown. Can you imagine what they'd say if they found out they were losing their precious centerfold in Bedlam Family Living?"
"Oh, they'd lose their minds. So would the Nottingham's, I'd imagine. That's how I know you won't do it," Carmen replied, finally pulling herself away from Ren's arms to look directly into her almond eyes. "You'll graduate. Join a dance company. Enjoy a successful career. And then you'll get married, have babies, and retire into an indifferent middle age — at best — just like the rest of us."
Deep down, Ren knew Carmen was right. When she pictured a future with Carmen, it was more like a drunken daydream than anything she could ever realistically imagine. They talked about packing up, moving to Los Angeles, and kissing it all goodbye more times than she could count. In Los Angeles, they'd be far enough away from their family's influence that no one would care about another gay couple on the streets. In Los Angeles, they wouldn't be the most famous faces in the city.
But ever since she had started college, she had spent so much time listening to her parents talk about the wedding she and Matthias would have, the house they would buy, and musing over the names of their grandchildren that it had become almost impossible to envision a future of living out the secret half of her double-life full-time.
"Life is so strange, isn't it?" Ren sighed, breaking eye contact with Carmen to look down at her hands.
"I'll just be a distant memory." There was a sadness in Carmen's voice as she brought her face down to look at her own hands.
"No, you won't," Ren tried to assure her.
She placed a hand on Carmen's chin and pulled her face up to hers, looking into Carmen's eyes again before planting another fervent kiss on her lips. Just like that, they melted back into each other. This time, Ren's hands traipsed down Carmen's breasts to meet her waist while Carmen's hands explored Ren's thighs and low back before grabbing at her hips, almost pulling Ren on top of her.
Lost in each other, Ren and Carmen jumped when the curtain ripped open, exposing them in a passionate embrace to their unexpected audience. Ren's parents stood outside of the photo booth gaping at Ren and Carmen incredulously. Lawrence was clutching a string of photographs containing blurs of red mixed with light pink and the dark of the girls' hair in one hand and held the dark blue curtain of the photo booth in his other.
"Oh my god!" Natsumi exclaimed. She grabbed Ren by the shoulders and ripped her out of Carmen's arms and into the ballroom.
A small group of onlookers shuffled around nearby, trying to hide their curious gaze from Lawrence and Natsumi as they whispered amongst themselves.
"Lauren!" Lawrence barked through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice low through his anger. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Lauren, get upstairs now!" Natsumi ordered in the same low, angry tone as Ren's father. She brought her hand up to her brow to shield herself from the gaze of the small crowd that was growing nearby. "Oh, I can't believe this is happening."
"Can you guys just calm down?" Ren pleaded.
"It's time for you to leave, Ms. Menendez," Lawrence said, ignoring Ren's pleas and addressing Carmen, who was still sitting petrified in the photo booth, with disgust.
Carmen slid across the bench and stumbled awkwardly out of the booth. She stole a quick glance toward Ren before fixing her drunken, tearful eyes back on Ren's parents.
"Of course," Carmen said, blinking her wide eyes back and forth between Lawrence and Natsumi, still clearly caught off guard. "I'm so sorry Mr. And Mrs. Prescott. I —"
"Get out!" Natsumi snapped, her voice a soft sort of shriek. "Lauren, get upstairs! Now!"
Natsumi held Ren by the forearm in a vice-grip all the way up the stairs to their suite. Lawrence trailed quickly behind them, his long legs marching up the steps two at a time. As they made their way down the empty hall, Ren could hear her mother's cries growing gradually louder. Natsumi's hands shook as she crammed the key into the lock and flung the door to their suite open. She let go of Ren's arm and began to shove her toward the bed, forcing Ren to sit down and look up at her angry, tear-stained face as Natsumi glared down at her. Lawrence stormed into the suite and slammed the door behind him.
"How could you do this to us?" Natsumi cried as soon as her husband joined her side, his hands on his hips as he looked down venomously at Ren.
"I'm not doing anything to you!" Ren said with frustrated tears forming in her eyes.
"Oh, I just knew that Carmen was trouble," Natsumi said haughtily.
"You're not doing anything to us?" Lawrence scoffed, ignoring his wife's comments and focusing his glare solely on Ren. "How am I going to win the conservative vote with a gay daughter?"
It hadn't surprised Ren that her father would bring up politics during a moment like this. It had unfolded almost exactly as she had always imagined it would, although she had sometimes hoped it would go differently. Instead of being angry, maybe her father could see it as an opportunity to modernize his platform or make a deeper connection with Carmen's father in Mexico. Instead, he looked at Ren like she had just set fire to the whole world.
"Nathan works so hard on your father's campaign, and then you come along and —"
Natsumi started before being interrupted by her husband.
"Did you know that Matthias was going to propose to you tonight?" he asked, crossing his arms against his chest and staring at Ren indignantly.
"He was?" Ren asked, her heavy voice beginning to break.
It wasn't until then that Ren realized that Matthias hadn't wanted to show her some new addition to the West wing or a secret cake he had gotten specially made for her — he had wanted to give her an engagement ring. She couldn't help but wonder what it looked like. Her heart sank with guilt as she imagined him walking up to the counter at Whitney's in the Upper East Side to browse through the variety of rings her mother had put on hold over the years, all of them princess cut and no less than 14 karat gold. It sank even further when she imagined him practicing what he was going to say to her during the proposal with Nathan shortly before her parents had ripped her out of Carmen's arms.
"You need to make this right with him," Lawrence demanded. "I can't imagine he stayed, but Nathan is looking for him nonetheless. He'll go to Nottingham Manor if need be."
Lawrence swiped his hand across his mouth in obvious distress and turned away from Ren. Natsumi placed a nervous hand on her husband's back in a feeble attempt to comfort him, making sure to keep her angry eyes fixed on her daughter.
"Now, there's an obvious way we can spin this —" Natsumi started as she rubbed her hand across her husband's back.
"Spin this?" Ren interrupted her, her voice growing louder with exasperation. "You just found out your daughter is gay and all you can think about is spinning some story for the press?"
"You're not gay, Lauren," Natsumi scoffed. "You're drunk."
"Oh, is that the story?" Ren scoffed back as she wiped at her eyes.
"I booked Karl Lexington for your engagement photos. Can you believe that?" Lawrence said through gritted teeth as he turned back to face Ren. "Do you have any idea what people are going to say if this doesn't happen?"
"Do I get a say in this at all?" Ren cried out.
Just then, Lawrence reached out his hand and slapped Ren across the face. The impact let out a pop of sound that silenced the commotion in the suite. Wide-eyed, Natsumi removed her hand from her husband's back and reached toward her daughter before letting it drop back down toward her side. Judging by the sudden flash of regret on her father's face, the slap seemed to surprise him just as much as it had surprised anyone else in the room. Ren pulled a hand up to cover her cheek, which was beginning to turn almost as red as Carmen's dress had been. Ren blinked up at her father. She wanted him to apologize or reach out to comfort her, but his face had already contorted back to anger.
"Lauren, what are you even talking about?" Natsumi cried, looking back and forth between her husband and daughter, her voice frantic. "Have you lost your mind?"
Ren slowly lowered her hand to reveal the bright red hand print on her cheek. "You know what? Maybe I have." She had stopped crying and found the strength to stand up. She straightened out her posture to its usual ballerina stance, pulling her shoulders back and sticking her nose up to her parents. "I'm going to go find it."
Her parents stared at her as she brushed past them both, flung the door open, and ran out into the hallway. Like her father, she leapt down the stairs two at a time. She kept running all the way out the doors of Nottingham Palace and through the parking lot, hardly slowing her pace at all to make sure she didn't trip on any of the ice forming on the walkway. She didn't stop until she reached one of the black town cars her parents had on hold for their guests. She didn't even wait for the driver to get out and open the door, but instead opened it for herself and practically jumped into the back seat.
Rather than asking the driver to take her to Nottingham Manor, however, she spent the rest of the night trying to find Carmen.
The fallout was brutal. Ren's parents weren't the only people who had seen what had happened between Ren and Carmen in that photo booth, and the other onlookers had wasted no time in calling Carmen's father to give him the news. Carmen's father immediately arranged for her to fly back to Mexico, pulling her out of Bedlam University without a moment's notice. She ended up finishing her degree at a private school closer to home where she had eyes on her at all times. Ren didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.
Suddenly, the sound of Rebecca's voice startles Ren out of her memories.
"Do you still talk to Matthias?" Rebecca asks as if she had sensed where Ren's mind had wandered off to.
"We're still friends." Ren tries to smile, but she can hear the sadness in her own voice. "Anyways, I think I've taken enough pictures for tonight. I should probably head home. It was so nice to see you again."
"Likewise." Rebecca bows her head politely. "Get home safely."
"Smile," Ren says back, lifting her camera up to her eye and centering her shot on Rebecca's toothy, lipstick-laden grin. "Perfect. You get home safely, too."
Luckily it isn't a long walk from the wedding venue back to the penthouse Ren shares with Dahlia in the Upper West Side, and it's far enough from the seediness of the Badlands that Ren doesn't mind foregoing a taxi in order to enjoy the cool night air. Of course, there's still the paparazzi to worry about, but at a party like this, they have plenty more prey to choose from than the disinterested girlfriend of Dahlia Sinclair — or the doe-eyed darling of Bedlam's rock scene, as they liked to call her. All she would have to do is ignore them.
The elevator doors ding, and Ren steps into the lobby of the building. A tuxedoed man stands at a pay phone, clutching the metal cord attached to the phone like a rosary. "The bachelor party was a mistake, Gwyneth! I love you!" he pleads.
Ren chuckles to herself as she grabs her Walkman out of her satchel and pulls the headphones over her head. After she pushes play, she's greeted by Dahlia's most loathed rival in the music industry, Infinite Vendetta. Dahlia always says this is the band's only good song, but Ren has never understood the appeal. Crimes' voice croons in her ear.
I miss you like bereaving… You might not believe me… But I'm blue…
Ren rolls her eyes and skips to the next song.
She keeps her eyes trained on the ground as she marches through the lobby. She doesn't want to make accidental eye contact with any of the departing guests that might lead to any more awkward conversations. Remembering the night of her twenty-first birthday party had inserted her directly back into the shame that followed her for years afterward, and she suddenly feels as if she's just been ostracized from high society all over again. The last thing she wants to do is ruin anyone's celebration with what is surely an inexorable look of despair on her face.
While she and Matthias had remained friends and there were many people who had applauded her bravery for coming out about her sexuality, there are just as many people who still resent her for breaking Matthias's heart and ruining what could have been the most perfect pairing of the century. There are times when even Ren regrets what she did, especially when her relationship with Dahlia turned south, which seemed to be the case in recent months. Ren can hardly remember the last time she and Dahlia were seen in public together for a romantic night out.
Outside, lights flash in her eyes, bright against the night sky.
"Ren! Over here!"
"Ren! How do you feel about your father's latest —?"
"Ren! Where's Dahlia?"
Ren shields her eyes from the lights and stumbles over her black high heels as she fights her way through the brightness.
"Ren! Did Dahlia go to Gerald Quincy's party tonight?"
Ren's eyes turn to slits as she glares at the man behind the camera. Ignoring the rational part of her mind that's telling her to ignore him, she takes the bait. "Only for a few hours. She's probably home by now — you must have missed her."
Gerald was a socialite and film producer who had worked on a biographical film about Dahlia's life and rise to fame after she had stopped doing female lead vocals for her ex-boyfriend's band, The Dead Vixens, and formed her own band called The Black Dahlia's Murderers. He was also the last man Dahlia had dated before leaving him for Ren.
Gerald and Dahlia's relationship was plastered all over the headlines after Dahlia left the lead singer of The Dead Vixens, a bulky brunette named Jason Howell whom she had been dating since she was a teenage runaway from St. Mary's Orphanage in Seattle. Their affair had been a public relations dream come true that helped both of them increase their celebrity across Bedlam and mainland America, especially after the release of Dahlia's documentary.
"You never get jealous?" the man behind the camera shouts after her. Just as Ren had predicted, he stays near the doors of the building to wait for the more famous faces to leave the party.
Ren ignores him, but she doesn't want to. The truth is, she does get jealous, all the time. But she had agreed to let Dahlia maintain a working relationship with Gerald. Gerald's connections had gotten Dahlia her a new manager and a whole new band, after all. Severing that connection was just bad business.
After a few minutes, Ren rounds the corner and comes upon the grand entrance to their apartment building. She raises her hand and wiggles her fingers at the doorman as he holds the massive front door open for her.
"Thanks, Hal," she says to him.
"My pleasure, Ms. Prescott," he replies, tipping his hat.
Ren can't help but appreciate being addressed with an air of formality after the low mood she was put in by her conversation with Rebecca. She walks over to the private elevator that takes her up to her penthouse with her shoulders slouching. She's so tired from the wedding reception that she doesn't even notice that the elevator opens immediately instead of slowly chugging down the shaft before opening its doors to her like usual. She slips through the doors and presses the button that will take her up to the penthouse she shares with Dahlia, pulling the headphones off her head and gently wrapping the cord around her Walkman before placing it back into her black chiffon bag.
Distant rock music fills the elevator as it nears its destination. The elevator makes a soft ding as the heavy doors open. Ren steps into the living room, pulling her camera over her head and placing it on the coffee table along with her bag before dropping down to lay on the over-sized couch, exhausted.
When she had heard the music in the elevator, she figured that Dahlia would have guests over, but there isn't a single sign that anyone is in the apartment at all except for the open bottle of an expensive French wine sitting next to Ren's camera on the coffee table. She thinks Dahlia must be drunk somewhere in their apartment and doing something to entertain herself. Maybe she's trying on the clothes that had recently been sent to them by a few select designers in New York City. Ren grabs the bottle of wine and takes a swig before lifting herself off the couch.
"Dahlia!" she shouts out over the music. "Dahlia, I'm turning the music off!"
Ren grabs the remote to the stereo and clicks the power button before starting toward the kitchen to grab a wine glass from the cupboard. As the music stops playing from the stereo speakers, the apartment fills with a dead silence. There's no sound of Dahlia protesting the sudden lack of music, no ruffle of clothes hitting the bedroom floor, no pop of another bottle of wine being opened in the kitchen, and no trickle of water running in the bathroom. The only sound in the apartment is the click of Ren's high heels slowly coming to a halt on the dark, hardwood floors as she turns her head to look down the hall.
Then, there's dead silence.
Dahlia often lets music play throughout their apartment while she's home, but it isn't like her to leave it on if she leaves. Ren knows Dahlia has to be home, but the question is where.
Her stomach sinks as she imagines Dahlia cowering in bed with Gerald, unsure of what to do now that Ren is home early from the event she was photographing.
"Dahlia!" Ren calls out, turning away from the kitchen to make a beeline for their bedroom. She speeds to the bed, but it's still perfectly made up the way Ren likes it from that morning, its black comforter crisply folded over the edges of the bed and its dark green and lavender pillows gathered up by the headboard.
"Dahlia?" Ren calls out again.
She quickly searches the rooms of the penthouse, mortified that she might catch Dahlia in the act of cheating on her with Gerald. She checks Dahlia's music studio where she creates most of the songs that dominate the radio, the small outdoor patio where they smoke pot and drink sake with their friends, and finally makes her way back to the kitchen where Ren prepares the cuisine for their more intimate gatherings. There's no sign of Dahlia.
Ren begins to sweat as she realizes an alternate possibility.
"Dahlia!" she calls out frantically as she races toward the bathroom.
Dahlia lies crumpled on the rug beside the toilet, her wiry body terrifyingly still. In the dim bathroom light, she is almost unrecognizable — nothing like the bright, electric woman Ren fell in love with. Her green eyes, usually sparkling with mischief or music, are shut tight, and her skin has gone a haunting, bloodless white. Damp strands of hot-pink hair cling to her forehead and cheeks, darkened with sweat.
Ren shoves Dahlia's discarded denim jacket aside and drops to her knees, her hands trembling as she grasps Dahlia's shoulders. She shakes her, desperate, calling her name with the same force she had shouted over the blasting speakers in the living room minutes earlier.
"Dahlia!" she shouts. "Doll!" But only silence answers back.
Ren gapes down at Dahlia's fragile body, grabbing her arm as her tearful eyes take in the track marks Dahlia had been hiding from her all this time before checking her wrist for a pulse. She feels a slow beat and breathes a sigh of relief before darting back toward the kitchen to dial 911. The phone shakes in her hands.
"911, what's your emergency?" the dispatcher says after a few moments.
"I need an ambulance!" Ren sobs into the phone. "Please, hurry!"
"What's your emergency?" the dispatcher repeats.
"This is Ren Prescott! Dahlia Sinclair is overdosing!" Ren's voice cracks as she says Dahlia's name. "She's completely unresponsive! Please, you have to come now!"
She's surprised when the dispatcher asks for the address, but she stammers it into the phone all the same.
Almost tripping over her black high heels, she rushes back to the bathroom to try to stir Dahlia awake. She grabs Dahlia by the hand and gasps at how cold she is before giving a strong squeeze. She can hardly hear Dahlia's shallow rattle of breath over her own cries as she repeats every variation of Dahlia's name she had ever used in a futile effort to get some response. She grabs Dahlia by the shoulders to shake her limp body from side to side, but no matter what Ren does, Dahlia remains as still and quiet as a high-society secret.
She places a shaking hand on Dahlia's arm and lets her tears fall to the ground beside her.
And then, she waits.