Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 30 delves into the pro­tag­o­nist’s return to her famil­ial home, a jour­ney marked by a mix of dis­dain, relief, and com­plex rev­e­la­tions. Ini­tial­ly greet­ed with the vil­lagers’ curi­ous and some­what envi­ous glances, she res­olute­ly ignores them, pre­serv­ing her pri­va­cy from pry­ing eyes and gos­sip. Her mis­sion involves dis­trib­ut­ing wealth among the vil­lage’s less fortunate—an act of qui­et benev­o­lence dis­tin­guish­ing her from the curios­i­ty and some­times mali­cious inten­tions of her wealth­i­er neigh­bors.

The encounter with Tomas Man­dray and his asso­ciates near the vil­lage foun­tain high­lights a con­trast in val­ues and inten­tions, fur­ther empha­siz­ing her alien­ation from the vil­lagers’ mun­dane cru­el­ties and pre­oc­cu­pa­tions. The brief, awk­ward reunion with Isaac Hale and his wife reveals the pas­sage of time and the trans­for­ma­tions it has brought upon everyone—Isaac from boy to man, marked by love and domes­tic bliss, con­trast­ed stark­ly with the pro­tag­o­nist’s soli­tary strug­gles and per­son­al growth.

The nar­ra­tive weaves through the pro­tag­o­nist’s inter­nal con­tem­pla­tion as she assists in the gar­den of her father’s manor, a sym­bol­ic ges­ture towards nor­mal­cy and heal­ing in the famil­iar yet changed domes­tic space. Her sis­ter Nes­ta’s return and their inter­ac­tion reveals the endur­ing impact of the pro­tag­o­nist’s absence on fam­i­ly dynamics—a mix­ture of resent­ment, mis­un­der­stand­ing, and a deeply buried, yet potent, bond of love and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Nes­ta’s cold courage and unwa­ver­ing resolve unveil the depth of her affec­tion and her fierce inde­pen­dent spir­it, chal­leng­ing the protagonist’s per­cep­tion of her and their rela­tion­ship.

Nes­ta’s rev­e­la­tion about the failed glam­our, intend­ed to mask the pro­tag­o­nist’s abduc­tion, and her own efforts to res­cue her, albeit futile, unrav­el lay­ers of famil­ial loy­al­ty and untold sac­ri­fices. This new­found under­stand­ing prompts a heart­felt exchange between the sis­ters, mend­ing silences and mis­un­der­stand­ings with the hon­est, raw nar­ra­tive of the protagonist’s tri­als and tribu­la­tions.

As prepa­ra­tions for an extrav­a­gant ball thrown in the pro­tag­o­nist’s hon­or stir the manor into a fren­zy of activ­i­ty, she and Nes­ta seek refuge in the serene soli­tude of paint­ing, an act of shared cre­ativ­i­ty and sym­bol­ic rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. The nar­ra­tive clos­es on a reflec­tive note, as the sis­ters con­front the com­plex tapes­try of their famil­ial rela­tions and indi­vid­ual jour­neys, bridg­ing gaps with new­found under­stand­ing and a cau­tious opti­mism for repaired bonds.

The chap­ter encap­su­lates a piv­otal moment of recon­nec­tion, self-reflec­tion, and tran­si­tions, as char­ac­ters nav­i­gate the tor­ment­ed waters of their past inter­ac­tions towards a sem­blance of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and mutu­al recog­ni­tion, under­lined by the pro­tag­o­nist’s ongo­ing strug­gle to find her place with­in a world that has irrev­o­ca­bly changed.

In the thir­ti­eth chap­ter, the absence of Cecelia casts a notable silence over the Win­ches­ter house­hold, con­trast­ing with Nina’s unex­pect­ed cheer­ful­ness. The pro­tag­o­nist, Mil­lie, is nav­i­gat­ing a tense avoid­ance with Andrew fol­low­ing an undis­closed event that has strained their inter­ac­tion. While prepar­ing din­ner, an acci­den­tal col­li­sion with Andrew, marked by the break­ing of a glass, trig­gers a moment of inti­mate ten­sion quick­ly inter­rupt­ed by Nina’s entrance.

The inci­dent not only high­lights the exist­ing chem­istry between Mil­lie and Andrew but also under­lines the stark dif­fer­ences in their social posi­tions with­in the house­hold. Nina’s lat­er rev­e­la­tion of Mil­lie’s past impris­on­ment dur­ing din­ner, framed as a casu­al inquiry, serves both to assert her dom­i­nance and to pub­licly mark Mil­lie’s social stand­ing, effec­tive­ly under­min­ing any con­nec­tion between Mil­lie and Andrew in the process.

Nina’s delib­er­ate men­tion of Mil­lie’s incar­cer­a­tion not only reveals her knowl­edge of Mil­lie’s past but also her intent to main­tain con­trol and rein­force Mil­lie’s mar­gin­al sta­tus. This con­fronta­tion leads Mil­lie to a moment of intro­spec­tion, ques­tion­ing the length of Nina’s aware­ness of her past and the motive behind her own employ­ment. The dis­cov­ery of a play­bill from a show she attend­ed with Andrew, which she had kept as a per­son­al memen­to, now placed on her night­stand, hints at a breach of pri­va­cy and sug­gests Nina’s manip­u­la­tive sur­veil­lance to lever­age infor­ma­tion against her.

The chap­ter delves into themes of pow­er dynam­ics, the lin­ger­ing impact of past mis­takes on present iden­ti­ty, and the com­plex­i­ty of human emo­tions in a struc­tured social set­ting. Mil­lie’s inter­nal con­flict, cou­pled with her recog­ni­tion of the hur­dles her his­to­ry pos­es to any future aspi­ra­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Andrew, under­scores a nar­ra­tive of resilience against judg­ment and manip­u­la­tion.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
30
Cass­ian might have been cocky grins and vul­gar­i­ty most of the time, but in
the spar­ring ring in a rock-carved court­yard atop the House of Wind the
next after­noon, he was a stone-cold killer.
And when those lethal instincts were turned on me …
Beneath the fight­ing leathers, even with the brisk tem­per­a­ture, my skin
was slick with sweat. Each breath rav­aged my throat, and my arms trem­bled
so bad­ly that any time I so much as tried to use my fin­gers, my pinkie
would start shak­ing uncon­trol­lably.
I was watch­ing it wob­ble of its own accord when Cass­ian closed the gap
between us, gripped my hand, and said, “This is because you’re hit­ting on
the wrong knuck­les. Top two—pointer and mid­dle finger—that’s where the
punch­es should con­nect. Hit­ting here,” he said, tap­ping a cal­lused fin­ger on
the already-bruised bit of skin in the vee between my pinkie and ring fin­ger,
“will do more dam­age to you than to your oppo­nent. You’re lucky the Attor
didn’t want to get into a fist­fight.”
We’d been going at it for an hour now, walk­ing through the basic steps of
hand-to-hand com­bat. And it turned out that I might have been good at
hunt­ing, at archery, but using my left side? Pathet­ic. I was as unco­or­di­nat­ed
as a new­born fawn attempt­ing to walk. Punch­ing and step­ping with the left
side of my body at once had been near­ly impos­si­ble, and I’d stum­bled into
Cass­ian more often than I’d hit him. The right punches—those were easy.
“Get a drink,” he said. “Then we’re work­ing on your core. No point in
learn­ing to punch if you can’t even hold your stance.”
I frowned toward the sound of clash­ing blades in the open spar­ring ring
across from us.
Azriel, sur­pris­ing­ly, had returned from the mor­tal realm by lunch. Mor
had inter­cept­ed him first, but I’d got­ten a sec­ond­hand report from Rhys that
he’d found some sort of bar­ri­er around the queens’ palace, and had need­ed
to return to assess what might be done about it.
Assess—and brood, it seemed, since Azriel had bare­ly man­aged a polite
hel­lo to me before launch­ing into spar­ring with Rhysand, his face grim and
tight. They’d been at it now for an hour straight, their slen­der blades like
flash­es of quick­sil­ver as they moved around and around. I won­dered if it
was as much for prac­tice as it was for Rhys to help his spy­mas­ter work off
his frus­tra­tion.
At some point since I’d last looked, despite the sun­ny win­ter day, they’d
removed their leather jack­ets and shirts.
Their tan, mus­cled arms were both cov­ered in the same man­ner of tat­toos
that adorned my own hand and fore­arm, the ink flow­ing across their
shoul­ders and over their sculpt­ed pec­toral mus­cles. Between their wings, a
line of them ran down the col­umn of their spine, right beneath where they
typ­i­cal­ly strapped their blades.
“We get the tat­toos when we’re ini­ti­at­ed as Illyr­i­an warriors—for luck
and glo­ry on the bat­tle­field,” Cass­ian said, fol­low­ing my stare. I doubt­ed
Cass­ian was drink­ing in the rest of the image, though: the stom­ach mus­cles
gleam­ing with sweat in the bright sun, the bunch­ing of their pow­er­ful
thighs, the rip­pling strength in their backs, sur­round­ing those mighty,
beau­ti­ful wings.
Death on swift wings.
The title came out of nowhere, and for a moment, I saw the paint­ing I’d
cre­ate: the dark­ness of those wings, faint­ly illu­mi­nat­ed with lines of red and
gold by the radi­ant win­ter sun, the glare off their blades, the harsh­ness of
the tat­toos against the beau­ty of their faces—
I blinked, and the image was gone, like a cloud of hot breath on a cold
night.
Cass­ian jerked his chin toward his broth­ers. “Rhys is out of shape and
won’t admit it, but Azriel is too polite to beat him into the dirt.”
Rhys looked any­thing but out of shape. Caul­dron boil me, what the hell
did they eat to look like that?
My knees wob­bled a bit as I strode to the stool where Cass­ian had
brought a pitch­er of water and two glass­es. I poured one for myself, my
pinkie trem­bling uncon­trol­lably again.
My tat­too, I real­ized, had been made with Illyr­i­an mark­ings. Per­haps
Rhys’s own way of wish­ing me luck and glo­ry while fac­ing Ama­ran­tha.
Luck and glo­ry. I wouldn’t mind a lit­tle of either of those things these
days.
Cass­ian filled a glass for him­self and clinked it against mine, so at odds
from the bru­tal taskmas­ter who, moments ago, had me walk­ing through
punch­es, hit­ting his spar­ring pads, and try­ing not to crum­ple on the ground
to beg for death. So at odds from the male who had gone head to head with
my sis­ter, unable to resist match­ing him­self against Nesta’s spir­it of steel
and flame.
“So,” Cass­ian said, gulp­ing down the water. Behind us, Rhys and Azriel
clashed, sep­a­rat­ed, and clashed again. “When are you going to talk about
how you wrote a let­ter to Tam­lin, telling him you’ve left for good?”
The ques­tion hit me so vicious­ly that I sniped, “How about when you talk
about how you tease and taunt Mor to hide what­ev­er it is you feel for her?”
Because I had no doubt that he was well aware of the role he played in their
lit­tle tan­gled web.
The beat of crunch­ing steps and clash­ing blades behind us stum­bled—
then resumed.
Cass­ian let out a star­tled, rough laugh. “Old news.”
“I have a feel­ing that’s what she prob­a­bly says about you.”
“Get back in the ring,” Cass­ian said, set­ting down his emp­ty glass. “No
core exer­cis­es. Just fists. You want to mouth off, then back it up.”
But the ques­tion he’d asked swarmed in my skull. You’ve left for good;
you’ve left for good; you’ve left for good.
I had—I’d meant it. But with­out know­ing what he thought, if he’d even
care that much … No, I knew he’d care. He’d prob­a­bly trashed the manor
in his rage.
If my mere men­tion of him suf­fo­cat­ing me had caused him to destroy his
study, then this … I had been fright­ened by those fits of pure rage, cowed
by them. And it had been love—I had loved him so deeply, so great­ly, but
…
“Rhys told you?” I said.
Cass­ian had the wis­dom to look a bit ner­vous at the expres­sion on my
face. “He informed Azriel, who is … mon­i­tor­ing things and needs to know.
Az told me.”
“I assume it was while you were out drink­ing and danc­ing.” I drained the
last of my water and walked back into the ring.
“Hey,” Cass­ian said, catch­ing my arm. His hazel eyes were more green
than brown today. “I’m sor­ry. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. Az only told me
because I told him I need­ed to know for my own forces; to know what to
expect. None of us … we don’t think it’s a joke. What you did was a hard
call. A real­ly damn hard call. It was just my shit­ty way of try­ing to see if
you need­ed to talk about it. I’m sor­ry,” he repeat­ed, let­ting go.
The stum­bling words, the earnest­ness in his eyes … I nod­ded as I
resumed my place. “All right.”
Though Rhysand kept at it with Azriel, I could have sworn his eyes were
on me—had been on me from the moment Cass­ian had asked me that
ques­tion.
Cass­ian shoved his hands into the spar­ring pads and held them up.
“Thir­ty one-two punch­es; then forty; then fifty.” I winced at him over his
gloves as I wrapped my hands. “You didn’t answer my ques­tion,” he said
with a ten­ta­tive smile—one I doubt­ed his sol­diers or Illyr­i­an brethren ever
saw.
It had been love, and I’d meant it—the hap­pi­ness, the lust, the peace …
I’d felt all of those things. Once.
I posi­tioned my legs at twelve and five and lift­ed my hands up toward my
face.
But maybe those things had blind­ed me, too.
Maybe they’d been a blan­ket over my eyes about the tem­per. The need
for con­trol, the need to pro­tect that ran so deep he’d locked me up. Like a
pris­on­er.
“I’m fine,” I said, step­ping and jab­bing with my left side. Fluid—smooth
like silk, as if my immor­tal body at last aligned.
My fist slammed into Cassian’s spar­ring pad, snatch­ing back as fast as a
snake’s bite as I struck with my right, shoul­der and foot twist­ing.
“One,” Cass­ian count­ed. Again, I struck, one-two. “Two. And fine is
good—fine is great.”
Again, again, again.
We both knew “fine” was a lie.
I had done everything—everything for that love. I had ripped myself to
shreds, I had killed inno­cents and debased myself, and he had sat beside
Ama­ran­tha on that throne. And he couldn’t do any­thing, hadn’t risked it—
hadn’t risked being caught until there was one night left, and all he’d
want­ed to do wasn’t free me, but fuck me, and—
Again, again, again. One-two; one-two; one-two—
And when Ama­ran­tha had bro­ken me, when she had snapped my bones
and made my blood boil in its veins, he’d just knelt and begged her. He
hadn’t tried to kill her, hadn’t crawled for me. Yes, he’d fought for me—but
I’d fought hard­er for him.
Again, again, again, each pound of my fists on the spar­ring pads a
ques­tion and an answer.
And he had the nerve once his pow­ers were back to shove me into a cage.
The nerve to say I was no longer use­ful; I was to be clois­tered for his peace
of mind. He’d giv­en me every­thing I need­ed to become myself, to feel safe,
and when he got what he wanted—when he got his pow­er back, his lands
back … he stopped try­ing. He was still good, still Tam­lin, but he was just
… wrong.
And then I was sob­bing through my clenched teeth, the tears wash­ing
away that infect­ed wound, and I didn’t care that Cass­ian was there, or Rhys
or Azriel.
The clash­ing steel stopped.
And then my fists con­nect­ed with bare skin, and I real­ized I’d punched
through the spar­ring pads—no, burned through them, and—
And I stopped, too.
The wrap­pings around my hands were now mere smudges of soot.
Cassian’s upraised palms remained before me—ready to take the blow, if I
need­ed to make it. “I’m all right,” he said qui­et­ly. Gen­tly.
And maybe I was exhaust­ed and bro­ken, but I breathed, “I killed them.”
I hadn’t said the words aloud since it had hap­pened.
Cassian’s lips tight­ened. “I know.” Not con­dem­na­tion, not praise. But
grim under­stand­ing.
My hands slack­ened as anoth­er shud­der­ing sob worked its way through
me. “It should have been me.”
And there it was.
Stand­ing there under the cloud­less sky, the win­ter sun beat­ing on my
head, noth­ing around me save for rock, no shad­ows in which to hide,
noth­ing to cling to … There it was.
Then dark­ness swept in, sooth­ing, gen­tle darkness—no, shade—and a
sweat-slick male body halt­ed before me. Gen­tle fin­gers lift­ed my chin until
I looked up … at Rhysand’s face.
His wings had wrapped around us, cocooned us, the sun­light cast­ing the
mem­brane in gold and red. Beyond us, out­side, in anoth­er world, maybe,
the sounds of steel on steel—Cassian and Azriel sparring—began.
“You will feel that way every day for the rest of your life,” Rhysand said.
This close, I could smell the sweat on him, the sea-and-cit­rus scent beneath
it. His eyes were soft. I tried to look away, but he held my chin firm. “And I
know this because I have felt that way every day since my moth­er and sis­ter
were slaugh­tered and I had to bury them myself, and even ret­ri­bu­tion didn’t
fix it.” He wiped away the tears on one cheek, then anoth­er. “You can either
let it wreck you, let it get you killed like it near­ly did with the Weaver, or
you can learn to live with it.”
For a long moment, I just stared at the open, calm face—maybe his true
face, the one beneath all the masks he wore to keep his peo­ple safe. “I’m
sorry—about your fam­i­ly,” I rasped.
“I’m sor­ry I didn’t find a way to spare you from what hap­pened Under
the Moun­tain,” Rhys said with equal qui­et. “From dying. From want­i­ng to
die.” I began to shake my head, but he said, “I have two kinds of
night­mares: the ones where I’m again Amarantha’s whore or my friends are
… And the ones where I hear your neck snap and see the light leave your
eyes.”
I had no answer to that—to the tenor in his rich, deep voice. So I
exam­ined the tat­toos on his chest and arms, the glow of his tan skin, so
gold­en now that he was no longer caged inside that moun­tain.
I stopped my perusal when I got to the vee of mus­cles that flowed
beneath the waist of his leather pants. Instead, I flexed my hand in front of
me, my skin warm from the heat that had burned through those pads.
“Ah,” he said, wings sweep­ing back as he fold­ed them grace­ful­ly behind
him. “That.”
I squint­ed at the flood of sun­light. “Autumn Court, right?”
He took my hand, exam­in­ing it, the skin already bruised from spar­ring.
“Right. A gift from its High Lord, Beron.”
Lucien’s father. Lucien—I won­dered what he made of all this. If he
missed me. If Ianthe con­tin­ued to … prey on him.
Still spar­ring, Cass­ian and Azriel were try­ing their best not to look like
they were eaves­drop­ping.
“I’m not well versed in the com­plex­i­ties of the oth­er High Lords’
ele­men­tal gifts,” Rhys said, “but we can fig­ure it out—day by day, if need
be.”
“If you’re the most pow­er­ful High Lord in his­to­ry … does that mean the
drop I got from you holds more sway over the oth­ers?” Why I’d been able
to break into his head that one time?
“Give it a try.” He jerked his chin toward me. “See if you can sum­mon
dark­ness. I won’t ask you to try to win­now,” he added with a grin.
“I don’t know how I did it to begin with.”
“Will it into being.”
I gave him a flat stare.
He shrugged. “Try think­ing of me—how good-look­ing I am. How
tal­ent­ed—”
“How arro­gant.”
“That, too.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, the move­ment
mak­ing the mus­cles in his stom­ach flick­er.
“Put a shirt on while you’re at it,” I quipped.
A feline smile. “Does it make you uncom­fort­able?”
“I’m sur­prised there aren’t more mir­rors in this house, since you seem to
love look­ing at your­self so much.”
Azriel launched into a cough­ing fit. Cass­ian just turned away, a hand
clamped over his mouth.
Rhys’s lips twitched. “There’s the Feyre I adore.”
I scowled, but closed my eyes and tried to look inward—toward any dark
cor­ner of myself I could find. There were too many.
Far too many.
And right now—right now they each con­tained that let­ter I’d writ­ten
yes­ter­day.
A good-bye.
For my own san­i­ty, my own safe­ty …

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

Y OU AND CELIA DIDN’T HAVE any con­tact at all?” I ask.
Eve­lyn shakes her head. She stands up and walks over to the
win­dow and opens it a crack. The breeze that streams in is wel­come.
When she sits back down, she looks at me, ready to move on to
some­thing else. But I’m too baf­fled.
“How long were the two of you togeth­er by that point?”
“Three years?” Eve­lyn says. “Just about.”
“And she just left? With­out anoth­er word?”
Eve­lyn nods.
“Did you try to call her?”
She shakes her head. “I was  .  .  . I didn’t yet know that it is OK to
grov­el for some­thing you real­ly want. I thought that if she didn’t want
me, if she didn’t under­stand why I did what I did, then I didn’t need
her.”
“And you were OK?”
“No, I was mis­er­able. I was hung up on her for years. I mean, sure, I
spent my time hav­ing fun. Don’t get me wrong. But Celia was nowhere
in sight. In fact, I would read copies of Sub Rosa because Celia’s
pic­ture was in them, ana­lyz­ing the oth­er peo­ple with her in the pho­tos,
won­der­ing who they were to her, how she knew them. I know now that
she was just as heart­bro­ken as I was. That some­where in her head,
she was wait­ing for me to call her and apol­o­gize. But at the time, I just
ached all alone.”
“Do you regret that you didn’t call her?” I ask her. “That you lost
that time?”
Eve­lyn looks at me as if I am stu­pid. “She’s gone now,” Eve­lyn says.
“The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sor­ry
and have her come back. She’s gone for­ev­er. So yes, Monique, that is
some­thing I do regret. I regret every sec­ond I didn’t spend with her. I
regret every stu­pid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I
should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should
have begged her to stay. I should have apol­o­gized and sent ros­es and
stood on top of the Hol­ly­wood sign and shout­ed, ‘I’m in love with Celia
St. James!’ and let them cru­ci­fy me for it. That’s what I should have
done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more mon­ey than I
could ever use in this life­time, and my name is cement­ed in Hol­ly­wood
his­to­ry, and I know how hol­low it is, I am kick­ing myself for every
sin­gle sec­ond I chose it over lov­ing her proud­ly. But that’s a lux­u­ry.
You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that
wealth and renown are worth­less when you have them. Back then, I
still thought I had all the time I need­ed to do every­thing I want­ed. That
if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.”
“You thought she’d come back to you,” I say.
“I knew she’d come back to me,” Eve­lyn says. “And she knew it, too.
We both knew our time wasn’t over.”
I hear the dis­tinct sound of my phone. But it isn’t the famil­iar tone
of a reg­u­lar text mes­sage. It is the beep I set just for David, last year
when I got the phone, just after we were mar­ried, when it nev­er
occurred to me that he’d ever stop tex­ting.
I look down briefly to see his name. And beneath it: I think we
should talk. This is too huge, M. It’s hap­pen­ing too fast. We have to talk
about it. I put it out of my mind instant­ly.
“So you knew she was com­ing back to you, but you mar­ried Rex
North any­way?” I ask, refo­cused.
Eve­lyn low­ers her head for a moment, prepar­ing to explain her­self.
“Anna Karen­i­na was way over bud­get. We were weeks behind
sched­ule. Rex was Count Vron­sky. By the time the director’s cut came
in, we knew the entire thing had to be reed­it­ed, and we need­ed to
bring some­one else in to save it.”
“And you had a stake in the box office.”
“Both Har­ry and I did. It was his first movie after leav­ing Sun­set
Stu­dios. If it flopped, he would have a hard time get­ting anoth­er
meet­ing in town.”
“And you? What would have hap­pened to you if it flopped?”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

30
As every­thing was falling apart for me, my moth­er was writ­ing a mem­oir. She
wrote about watch­ing her beau­ti­ful daugh­ter shav­ing o� her hair and won­der­ing
how that was pos­si­ble. She said that I used to be “the hap­pi­est lit­tle girl in the
world.”
When I made the wrong move, it was like my moth­er wasn’t con­cerned. She
would share my every mis­take on tele­vi­sion, pro­mot­ing her book.
She wrote it trad­ing on my name and talk­ing about her par­ent­ing of me and
my broth­er and sis­ter at a time when all three of us kids were bas­ket cas­es. Jamie
Lynn was a preg­nant teenag­er. Bryan was strug­gling to �nd his place in the
world and still con­vinced he was let­ting our father down. And I was in full
melt­down.
When the book came out, she appeared on every morn­ing show to pro­mote
it. I would turn on the TV to see B‑roll of my videos and my shaved head
�ash­ing on the screen. My moth­er was telling Mered­ith Vieira on the Today
show that she’d spent hours won­der­ing how things went so wrong with me. On
anoth­er show, the audi­ence clapped when she said my sis­ter was preg­nant at
six­teen. That was classy as shit, appar­ent­ly, because she was still with the father!
Yes, how wonderful—she was mar­ried to her hus­band and hav­ing a baby at
sev­en­teen. They’re still togeth­er! Great! It doesn’t mat­ter that she’s a child hav­ing
a child!
I was in one of the dark­est times in my life, and my mom was telling the
audi­ence, “Oh yeah, and here’s… Brit­ney.”
And every show was plas­ter­ing images of me with my shaved head on the
screen.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 30
Elec­tric­i­ty raced down Patricia’s arms and legs, root­ing her to the
spot.
“…can wrap up,” she heard James Har­ris say. “…want to go
upstairs and get some rest.”
A hor­ri­ble thought gripped Patricia’s brain: any minute Slick was
going to stroll up to the back door and knock. Slick couldn’t lie to
save her life. She’d say she was there to meet Patri­cia.
A voice she couldn’t hear spoke, and then James Har­ris said, “Lora
here today?”
Patri­cia looked down and her heart banged so hard it left a bruise
against her ribs. Lora stood in the door of the guest room, a dust rag
in one hand, look­ing up at Patri­cia.
“Lora,” Patri­cia whis­pered.
Lora blinked, slow­ly.
“Close the stairs,” Patri­cia begged. Lora just stared. “Please. Close
the stairs.”
James Har­ris was say­ing some­thing to Mrs. Greene that Patri­cia
couldn’t hear because every­thing in her body was direct­ed at Lora,
will­ing her to under­stand. Then Lora moved: she held out one yel­low
gloved hand, palm up in a uni­ver­sal ges­ture. Patri­cia remem­bered
the oth­er ten-dol­lar bill. She jammed her hand into her pock­et,
bend­ing the nail of her fore­fin­ger back­ward, and pulled it out. She
dropped it and it flut­tered down slow­ly, right into Lora’s hand.
Down­stairs, she heard James Har­ris say, “Has any­one stopped
by?”
Lora leaned down, grabbed the bot­tom of the stairs, and pushed
them up. The springs didn’t groan this time but they were clos­ing too
fast and she squat­ted, extend­ing her hands, catch­ing the trap­door,
bring­ing it to a gen­tle close with a qui­et bump.
She had to replace the suit­case before he came upstairs. She stood
and wedged her right foot beneath it, feel­ing its weight crush her
bones, and lift­ed, step­ping her foot for­ward, using her shoe as a
bumper when she brought the suit­case down, swing­ing it for­ward a
step at a time. It was loud, but not as loud as drag­ging. Limp­ing
wild­ly, bruis­ing her shin with every step, her pulse snap­ping in her
wrists, the suit­case scrap­ing the top of her foot raw, she slow­ly made
it to the end of the attic and slid the Sam­sonite back into place. Then
she saw that there were moth­balls scat­tered all over the floor,
glow­ing like pearls in the dim attic light.
She scooped them up and, with nowhere else to put them, dropped
them into her pock­ets. Her head spun; she thought she might faint.
She had to know where he was. Step­ping from joist to joist, she made
her way back to the trap­door, brushed three dead cock­roach­es out of
her way and knelt on the floor, bring­ing her ear close to the grit­ty
ply­wood.
She heard the muf­fled thumps of bed­room doors open­ing and
clos­ing. She prayed that Lora had closed the one with the attic stairs
in it, and then she heard it open, and foot­steps right beneath her, and
her heart clenched. She won­dered if the marks from the lad­der could
be seen in the carpet’s pile. Then more foot­steps and the door closed.
Every­thing went qui­et. She pushed her­self up. Every joint in her
body ached. How could she get out of here? And why had he trav­eled
in day­light? She knew he was capa­ble of doing it but would only take
the risk in des­per­a­tion. What had hap­pened to make him hur­ry
home? Did he know she was here? And what was going to hap­pen
when Slick showed up?
She heard faint voic­es float­ing up from down­stairs:
“…come again next…”
He was send­ing them home. She heard a dis­tant, final thump and
real­ized it was the front door clos­ing. She was in the house alone.
With James Har­ris. Every­thing was silent for a few min­utes and
then, from right beneath the trap­door, a singsong voice drift­ed up.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris sang. “I know you’re in here.”
She froze. He was going to come up. She want­ed to scream but
caught it before it could slip out between her lips.
“I’m going to find you, Patri­cia,” he singsonged.
He would come up the lad­der. Any sec­ond she would hear the
springs stretch and see the light around the edges get brighter, she’d
hear his heavy steps on the rungs, and she’d see his head and
shoul­ders emerge into the attic, look­ing right at her, mouth split­ting
wide into a grin, and that thing, that long black thing boil­ing up out
of his throat. She was trapped.
Below her, a bed­room door opened, then anoth­er. She heard clos­et
doors rat­tling open and shut, near­er and far­ther away, and then a
bed­room door slammed with a bang and she jumped a lit­tle inside
her skin. Anoth­er bed­room door opened.
It was only a mat­ter of time before he remem­bered the attic. She
had to find a hid­ing place.
She squeezed the pen­light and looked at the floor, try­ing to see if
she’d giv­en her­self away. The white cock­roach poi­son had her tracks
all through it as well as drag marks from the suit­case. Squat­ting,
forc­ing her­self to move slow­ly and care­ful­ly, she used her palms to
whisk the poi­son smooth, leav­ing the grit­ty white lay­er thin­ner, but
undis­turbed. She walked back­ward, hunched over, brush­ing the floor
light­ly, the small of her back on fire until she reached the suit­cas­es
and stood. She used the pen­light to check her work and was pleased.
She exam­ined the suit­case and real­ized the one with Francine’s
body in it was rubbed clean. She scooped up roach pow­der and
mouse drop­pings and used them to dirty the suit­case. It would do the
job if he didn’t look close­ly.
Stand­ing made her feel exposed, so she forced her­self to lie down
behind the draped mound of Mrs. Savage’s things. With her ear
pressed to the filthy ply­wood floor, she heard the house vibrat­ing
beneath her. She heard doors open­ing and clos­ing. She heard
foot­steps. Then she heard noth­ing. The silence made her ner­vous.
She checked her wrist­watch: 4:56. The silence lulled her into a
trance. She could stay here, he wouldn’t look for her here, she’d wait
as long as she need­ed, and she’d lis­ten, and when it got dark he’d
leave the house and she could sneak out. She would be strong. She
would be smart. She would be safe.
She heard the springs groan as the trap­door opened, and light
flood­ed the far end of the attic.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris said loud­ly, com­ing up the steps, springs
scream­ing crazi­ly beneath his feet. “I know you’re up here.”
She looked at the filthy blan­kets draped over the box­es and
real­ized that even get­ting under them wouldn’t help. The fur­ni­ture
was too sparse to hide her. If he walked around to this side of the
stacks he’d see her. There was nowhere to go.
“I’m com­ing for you, Patri­cia,” he called, hap­pi­ly, as he got to the
top of the lad­der.
Then she saw the pile of clothes on the edge of the attic where the
ply­wood floor­ing end­ed. Sev­er­al box­es had split open and dis­gorged
their con­tents into a huge mound.
If she could bur­row into that pile she would be hid­den. She
crawled clos­er, stay­ing low, the reek­ing stench of rot­ting fab­ric
scrap­ing her sinus­es raw. Her gorge slapped against the back of her
throat. The foot­steps com­ing up the lad­der stopped.
“Pat­ty,” James’s voice said from the mid­dle of the attic. “We need
to talk.”
She heard the ply­wood creak beneath his weight.
She raised the stiff edge of the pile and began to slith­er under,
head first. Spi­ders fled from the dis­tur­bance, and roach eggs
loos­ened from the fab­ric and rained down on her face. Cen­tipedes
fell out and squirmed against the hol­low of her throat. She heard
James Har­ris com­ing across the attic floor and she forced her­self to
fight down her gorge and slith­er in, mov­ing care­ful­ly so she didn’t
dis­turb the blan­kets draped over­head. His feet came clos­er; they
were at the edge of the box­es now, and she pulled her feet in under
the rot­ting pile of clothes and lay there, try­ing not to breathe.
Insects seethed across her body, and she real­ized she’d dis­turbed a
mouse nest. Clawed feet squirmed over her stom­ach, writhed over
her hip. She want­ed to scream. She kept her mouth clamped shut,
tak­ing small shal­low breaths through her nose, feel­ing the stink­ing
fab­ric around her crawl­ing with mites, roach­es, and mice.
Des­ic­cat­ed insect husks lay on her face, but she didn’t dare brush
them away. Spi­ders crept across her knuck­les. She made her­self hold
very still. She heard anoth­er step and she could tell he was lift­ing the
blan­kets draped over Ann Savage’s box­es, look­ing under­neath, and
she pre­tend­ed she was invis­i­ble.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris said, con­ver­sa­tion­al­ly. “Why are you
hid­ing in my attic? What are you look­ing for up here?”
She thought about how he’d got­ten Francine’s body into the
suit­case, how he’d prob­a­bly had to take his big hands and break her
arms, shat­ter her shoul­ders, crush her elbows, pull her legs out of
their sock­ets and twist them into splin­ters to make them fit. He was
so strong. And he was stand­ing direct­ly over her.
The pile of rot­ten fab­ric shift­ed and moved, and she willed her­self
to become small­er and small­er until there was noth­ing left.
Some­thing extend­ed a del­i­cate, gen­tle leg onto her chin, then moved
over her lips, del­i­cate­ly scrap­ing them with its hairy legs, and she felt
the roach’s anten­na brush the rim of her nos­trils like long, wav­ing
hairs. She want­ed to scream but she pre­tend­ed she was made of
stone.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris said. “I can see you.”
Please, please, please don’t go up my nose, she silent­ly begged the
cock­roach.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris said from right beside her. What if her
feet were stick­ing out? What if he could see them? “It’s time to stop
play­ing. You know how much it hurts me to go out­side dur­ing the
day. I don’t feel very good right now, and I’m not in the mood for
games.”
The roach stepped past her nose, brushed over her cheek­bone, and
she squeezed her eyes shut, grit­ty in their sock­ets with all the rot­ting
fab­ric flak­ing into them, and the roach’s progress across her face
tick­led so bad­ly she had to brush her cheek or she would go insane.
The roach crawled down the side of her face, over her ear, prob­ing
inside her ear canal with its anten­na, then, drawn by the warmth, its
legs began to scrab­ble into her ear.
Oh, God, she want­ed to moan.
Please, please, please, please…
She felt the anten­na wav­ing, explor­ing deep inside her ear, and it
sent cold shiv­ers down her spine, and bile boiled up her throat, and
she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and felt the
bile fill her sinus­es, and the legs were inside her ear now, and its
wings were flut­ter­ing del­i­cate­ly against the top of her ear canal, and
she felt it crush its body into her ear.
“Patri­cia!” James Har­ris shout­ed, and some­thing moved vio­lent­ly,
and crashed over, and she almost screamed but she held on, and the
roach forced its way deep­er into her ear, three quar­ters in, its legs
scrab­bling deep­er, and soon she wouldn’t be able to get it out, and
James Har­ris kicked over fur­ni­ture, and she felt the blan­kets move.
Then loud stomps moved away from her, and she heard the
springs moan, and the roach flut­tered its wings, try­ing to force itself
deep­er, but it was jammed, and she felt like it was flut­ter­ing its front
legs against the side of her brain, and she knew James Har­ris was
only pre­tend­ing to go down, and then there was a bang and the floor
jumped, and silence, and she knew he was wait­ing for her.
She got her left hand ready to catch the back legs of the roach
before it dis­ap­peared into her ear, and she lis­tened, wait­ing to hear
James Har­ris give him­self away, but then, far away, deep down
inside the house she heard a door slam.
Patri­cia scram­bled out from under the pile of clothes, feel­ing
mouse drop­pings show­er from her body, tear­ing at her ear, and she
couldn’t catch the roach, and it pan­icked and squirmed, push­ing its
way into her ear, and she grabbed her soft tis­sue all around it, and
crum­pled her ear closed. Some­thing crunched and popped and warm
flu­id oozed deep inside her ear canal, and she pulled out the man­gled
corpse of the roach, and scraped the hot gunk out with her lit­tle
fin­ger.
Spi­ders crawled from her hair onto her neck. She slapped at them,
pray­ing they weren’t black wid­ows.
Final­ly, she stopped. She looked at the pile of old clothes and knew
that even if he came back, there was no way she could make her­self
go under them again.
She watched the lou­vers get dim­mer on the side of the attic fac­ing
the back of the house, and get brighter behind the lou­vers fac­ing the
har­bor, and then the light turned rose, then red, then orange, and
then it was gone. She began to shiv­er. How was she going to get out?
What if he stayed in the house all night? What if he came back up
after she’d fall­en asleep? What if Carter called home? Did Blue and
Korey know where she was?
She checked her watch. 6:11. Her thoughts chased them­selves
around and around inside her head as the sun went down and the
heat leached out of the attic. She felt thirsty, hun­gry, scared, and
filthy. Even­tu­al­ly she put her feet back under the molder­ing pile of
clothes to keep them warm.
Occa­sion­al­ly, she dropped off to sleep and would wake up with a
jerk of her head that made her neck snap. She lis­tened for James
Har­ris, shiv­ered uncon­trol­lably, and stopped look­ing at her watch
because she’d think an hour had passed and each time dis­cov­ered it
had only been five min­utes.
She won­dered what had hap­pened to Slick, and she won­dered why
he had come back ear­ly, and why he had risked going out in day­light,
and inside her cold, gum­my head, these thoughts went slow­er and
slow­er and melt­ed togeth­er and sud­den­ly she knew it was Slick.
Slick had told him she was here. That was why Slick hadn’t come.
She had called James Har­ris in Flori­da because her Chris­t­ian val­ues

In Chap­ter 30 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të, the pro­tag­o­nist, Helen, nav­i­gates the trou­bled waters of her mar­riage with Arthur Hunt­ing­don, whose return home brings both relief and renewed chal­lenges. Arthur’s behav­ior, wors­ened by drink and dis­re­gard for his health, prompts Helen to con­front him gen­tly, hop­ing for a change. Despite his ini­tial defen­sive­ness and com­plaints toward domes­tic triv­i­al­i­ties, moments of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty reveal the depth of Arthur’s self-destruc­tive ten­den­cies, marked by a con­fes­sion of an “infer­nal fire in [his] veins” that no amount of drink can quench. Helen, attempt­ing to coax him into bet­ter habits, faces a bat­tle of patience and resilience, endur­ing Arthur’s petu­lance and lack of appre­ci­a­tion for her efforts.

The nar­ra­tive delves into the every­day strug­gles of their mar­riage, show­cas­ing Helen’s attempts to mit­i­gate Arthur’s drink­ing and to fos­ter a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy and affec­tion in their rela­tion­ship. Her endeav­ors are com­pli­cat­ed by the pres­ence of Mr. Har­grave, whose inten­tions, while seem­ing­ly sup­port­ive, stir uneasy feel­ings in Helen due to the under­cur­rents of attrac­tion and sym­pa­thy he holds for her plight.

Helen’s love for Arthur is por­trayed as a dou­ble-edged sword, embody­ing both her strength in fac­ing his fail­ings and her own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to being dragged down by his self-destruc­tive spi­ral. Despite moments of despair and frus­tra­tion, she remains com­mit­ted to her mar­riage, con­flict­ed by her moral and emo­tion­al incli­na­tions towards loy­al­ty and hope for redemp­tion.

The chap­ter artic­u­lates the themes of love’s com­plex­i­ties, the strug­gle for moral integri­ty, and the pain of watch­ing a loved one suc­cumb to their demons. Helen’s inter­nal con­flict, cou­pled with her endur­ing hope for Arthur’s bet­ter­ment, paints a poignant pic­ture of mar­i­tal dis­cord and the resilience of the human spir­it amidst adver­si­ty. As spring approach­es, bring­ing with it a sense of fore­bod­ing for Helen, her nar­ra­tive con­tin­ues to unfold against the back­drop of soci­etal expec­ta­tions and per­son­al con­vic­tions.