Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 37 presents a har­row­ing scene where the pro­tag­o­nist, trapped and wound­ed, teeters on the brink of despair. After her vic­to­ry, her arm remains untreat­ed, pain and infec­tion threat­en­ing her life. Alone in a dun­geon, filth and fever are her only com­pan­ions, until Rhysand, a fig­ure of both fear and allure, appears from the shad­ows, offer­ing a dev­il’s bar­gain for her heal­ing. The pro­tag­o­nist’s sit­u­a­tion is dire—she is cov­ered in mud, the food is ined­i­ble, the cell is cold, and her fever sug­gests an impend­ing death rather than a mere infec­tion.

Rhysand’s appear­ance marks a turn­ing point. He observes her with a mix of mock­ery and gen­uine inter­est, propos­ing to heal her in exchange for her spend­ing two weeks every month with him at the Night Court. This offer, couched in cru­el­ty and twist­ed grace, forces her to cal­cu­late the cost of refusal against the ter­ri­fy­ing uncer­tain­ty of her cur­rent predica­ment.

Despite her ini­tial resis­tance, Rhysand’s manip­u­la­tive argu­men­ta­tion and her own acknowl­edge­ment of her like­ly demise com­pel her to recon­sid­er. His reminder of her iso­la­tion, the poten­tial con­se­quences of her rejec­tion, and the implied threat against Lucien—should she decline—highlight the grim real­i­ty of her pow­er­less­ness and the strate­gic cru­el­ty of her cap­tors.

Ulti­mate­ly, her deci­sion to accept Rhysand’s offer reveals the depth of her des­per­a­tion and the lim­its of her endurance. It is a choice made under duress, illus­trat­ing the grim cal­cu­lus of sur­vival in the face of seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able odds. This chap­ter, dense with despair, ten­sion, and the flick­er of twist­ed hope, show­cas­es the pro­tag­o­nist’s resilience but also the har­row­ing com­pro­mis­es she must enter­tain to pre­serve not just her life but pos­si­bly the lives of those she holds dear. The style retains the orig­i­nal’s inten­si­ty, with undi­min­ished stakes and pre­served char­ac­ter dynam­ics, encap­su­lat­ing the essence of the nar­ra­tive’s dark allure.

Chap­ter Thir­ty-Sev­en encap­su­lates a pro­found­ly per­son­al and trans­for­ma­tive night for the pro­tag­o­nist, jux­ta­posed against an under­ly­ing ten­sion that sim­mers qui­et­ly before inten­si­fy­ing towards the chapter’s end. After an inti­mate encounter with Andrew, the pro­tag­o­nist finds her­self in a moment of post-coital reflec­tion and new­found vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, nes­tled with­in the con­fines of an uncom­fort­ably small cot. This phys­i­cal dis­com­fort par­al­lels a deep­er sense of dis­com­fort root­ed in the pro­tag­o­nist’s break­ing of Nina’s strict house rules, hint­ing at a rebel­lion that car­ries both lib­er­a­tion and con­se­quences.

The nar­ra­tive grace­ful­ly tran­si­tions from an intro­spec­tive exam­i­na­tion of the pro­tag­o­nist’s unlike­ly evening to a sud­den awak­en­ing, pro­pelled by phys­i­cal need and a stark real­iza­tion of Andrew’s absence. This absence is not just physical—it’s a sym­bol of the ephemer­al­i­ty and iso­lat­ing aspects of their con­nec­tion, high­light­ed by the uncom­fort­able sleep­ing arrange­ment and the protagonist’s con­tem­pla­tion of join­ing Andrew, sug­gest­ing a desire for close­ness yet accep­tance of their sep­a­rate real­i­ties.

The cot, an object of phys­i­cal dis­com­fort, becomes emblem­at­ic of the pro­tag­o­nist’s cur­rent tran­si­tion­al phase—between the com­fort of past famil­iar­i­ty and the uncer­tain promise of future change, under­scored by her antic­i­pa­tion of this being the last night in such a set­ting. Andrew’s depar­ture from the cot, dri­ven by prac­ti­cal dis­com­fort, mir­rors the protagonist’s own emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal jour­ney towards seek­ing more in life, beyond the con­straints of uncom­fort­able cir­cum­stances and strin­gent rules.

As the chap­ter clos­es, the pro­tag­o­nist’s attempt to leave the room is met with resis­tance, a metaphor­i­cal por­tray­al of the obsta­cles she faces on her path to change. The stuck door­knob is not just a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er but a nar­ra­tive device sym­bol­iz­ing the chal­lenges in mov­ing for­ward from a place of emo­tion­al con­fine­ment to lib­er­a­tion.

This chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly mar­ries the themes of inti­ma­cy, per­son­al growth, and the con­fronta­tion of phys­i­cal and metaphor­i­cal bar­ri­ers, weav­ing a com­pelling nar­ra­tive that push­es the pro­tag­o­nist towards intro­spec­tion and the immi­nent chal­lenge of tran­scend­ing her cur­rent cir­cum­stances.

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
37
“NO!” Amren screamed, at the door in an instant, her fist a radi­ant forge as
she slammed it into the lead—once, twice.
And above—the rush and gar­gle of water tum­bling down­stairs, fill­ing the
cham­ber—
No, no, no—
I reached the door, slid­ing the box into the wide inside pock­et of my
leather jack­et while Amren’s blaz­ing palm flat­tened against the door,
burn­ing, heat­ing the met­al, swirls and whorls radi­at­ing out through it as if
they were a lan­guage all her own, and then—
The door burst open.
Only for a flood to come crash­ing in.
I grap­pled for the thresh­old, but missed as the water slammed me back,
sweep­ing me under the dark, icy sur­face. The cold stole the breath from my
lungs. Find the floor, find the floor—
My feet con­nect­ed and I pushed up, gulp­ing down air, scan­ning the dim
cham­ber for Amren. She was clutch­ing the thresh­old, eyes on me, hand out
—glow­ing bright.
The water already flowed up to my breasts, and I rushed to her, fight­ing
the onslaught flood­ing the cham­ber, will­ing that new strength into my body,
my arms—
The water became eas­i­er, as if that ker­nel of pow­er soothed its cur­rent, its
wrath, but Amren was now climb­ing up the thresh­old. “You have it?” she
shout­ed over the roar­ing water.
I nod­ded, and I real­ized her out­stretched hand wasn’t for me—but for the
door she’d forced back into the wall. Hold­ing it away until I could get out.
I shoved through the arch­way, Amren slip­ping around the threshold—just
as the door rolled shut again, so vio­lent­ly that I won­dered at the pow­er
she’d used to push it back.
The only down­side was that the water in the hall now had much less
space to fill.
“Go,” she said, but I didn’t wait for her approval before I grabbed her,
hook­ing her feet around my stom­ach as I hoist­ed her onto my back.
“Just—do what you have to,” I grit­ted out, neck craned above the ris­ing
water. Not too much far­ther to the stairs—the stairs that were now a
cas­cade. Where the hell was Rhysand?
But Amren held out a palm in front of us, and the water buck­led and
trem­bled. Not a clear path, but a break in the cur­rent. I direct­ed that ker­nel
of Tarquin’s power—my pow­er now—toward it. The water calmed fur­ther,
strain­ing to obey my com­mand.
I ran, grip­ping her thighs prob­a­bly hard enough to bruise. Step by step,
water now rag­ing down, now at my jaw, now at my mouth—
But I hit the stairs, almost slip­ping on the slick step, and Amren’s gasp
stopped me cold.
Not a gasp of shock, but a gasp for air as a wall of water poured down the
stairs. As if a mighty wave had swept over the entire site. Even my own
mas­tery over the ele­ment could do noth­ing against it.
I had enough time to gulp down air, to grab Amren’s legs and brace
myself—
And watch as that door atop the stairs slid shut, seal­ing us in a watery
tomb.
I was dead. I knew I was dead, and there was no way out of it.
I had con­sumed my last breath, and I would be aware for every sec­ond
until my lungs gave out and my body betrayed me and I swal­lowed that
fatal mouth­ful of water.
Amren beat at my hands until I let go, until I swam after her, try­ing to
calm my pan­ick­ing heart, my lungs, try­ing to con­vince them to make each
sec­ond count as Amren reached the door and slammed her palm into it.
Sym­bols flared—again and again. But the door held.
I reached her, shov­ing my body into the door, over and over, and the lead
dent­ed beneath my shoul­ders. Then I had talons, talons not claws, and I was
slic­ing and punch­ing at the met­al—
My lungs were on fire. My lungs were seiz­ing—
Amren pound­ed on the door, that bit of fae­light gut­ter­ing, as if it were
count­ing down her heart­beats—
I had to take a breath, had to open my mouth and take a breath, had to
ease the burn­ing—
Then the door was ripped away.
And the fae­light remained bright enough for me to see the three beau­ti­ful,
ethe­re­al faces hiss­ing through fish’s teeth as their spindly webbed fin­gers
snatched us out of the stairs, and into their frogskin arms.
Water-wraiths.
But I couldn’t stand it.
And as those spiny hands grabbed my arm, I opened my mouth, water
shov­ing in, cut­ting off thought and sound and breath. My body seized, those
talons van­ish­ing—
Debris and sea­weed and water shot past me, and I had the vague sense of
being hur­tled through the water, so fast the water burned beneath my
eye­lids.
And then hot air—air, air, air, but my lungs were full of water as—
A fist slammed into my stom­ach and I vom­it­ed water across the waves. I
gulped down air, blink­ing at the bruised pur­ple and blush­ing pink of the
morn­ing sky.
A sput­ter and gasp not too far from me, and I tread­ed water as I turned in
the bay to see Amren vom­it­ing as well—but alive.
And in the waves between us, onyx hair plas­tered to their strange heads
like hel­mets, the water-wraiths float­ed, star­ing with dark, large eyes.
The sun was ris­ing beyond them—the city encir­cling us stir­ring.
The one in the cen­ter said, “Our sister’s debt is paid.”
And then they were gone.
Amren was already swim­ming for the dis­tant main­land shore.
Pray­ing they didn’t come back and make a meal of us, I hur­ried after her,
try­ing to keep my move­ments small to avoid detec­tion.
We both reached a qui­et, sandy cove and col­lapsed.
A shad­ow blocked out the sun, and a boot toed my calf. “What,” said
Rhysand, still in bat­tle-black, “are you two doing?”
I opened my eyes to find Amren hoist­ing her­self up on her elbows.
“Where the hell were you?” she demand­ed.
“You two set off every damned trig­ger in the place. I was hunt­ing down
each guard who went to sound the alarm.” My throat was ravaged—and
sand tick­led my cheeks, my bare hands. “I thought you had it cov­ered,” he
said to her.
Amren hissed, “That place, or that damned book, near­ly nul­li­fied my
pow­ers. We almost drowned.”
His gaze shot to me. “I didn’t feel it through the bond—”
“It prob­a­bly nul­li­fied that, too, you stu­pid bas­tard,” Amren snapped.
His eyes flick­ered. “Did you get it?” Not at all con­cerned that we were
half-drowned and had very near­ly been dead.
I touched my jacket—the heavy met­al lump with­in.
“Good,” Rhys said, and I looked behind him at the sud­den urgency in his
tone.
Sure enough, in the cas­tle across the bay, peo­ple were dart­ing about.
“I missed some guards,” he grit­ted out, grabbed both our arms, and we
van­ished.
The dark wind was cold and roar­ing, and I had bare­ly enough strength to
cling to him.
It gave out entire­ly, along with Amren’s, as we land­ed in the town house
foyer—and we both col­lapsed to the wood floor, spray­ing sand and water
on the car­pet.
Cass­ian shout­ed from the din­ing room behind us, “What the hell?”
I glared up at Rhysand, who mere­ly stepped toward the break­fast table.
“I’m wait­ing for an expla­na­tion, too,” he mere­ly said to wide-eyed Cass­ian,
Azriel, and Mor.
But I turned to Amren, who was still hiss­ing on the floor. Her red-
rimmed eyes nar­rowed. “How?”
“Dur­ing the Tithe, the water-wraith emis­sary said they had no gold, no
food to pay. They were starv­ing.” Every word ached, and I thought I might
vom­it again. He’d deserve it, if I puked all over the car­pet. Though he’d
prob­a­bly take it from my wages. “So I gave her some of my jew­el­ry to pay
her dues. She swore that she and her sis­ters would nev­er for­get the
kind­ness.”
“Can some­one explain, please?” Mor called from the room beyond.
We remained on the floor as Amren began qui­et­ly laugh­ing, her small
body shak­ing.
“What?” I demand­ed.
“Only an immor­tal with a mor­tal heart would have giv­en one of those
hor­ri­ble beasts the mon­ey. It’s so … ” Amren laughed again, her dark hair
plas­tered with sand and sea­weed. For a moment, she even looked human.
“What­ev­er luck you live by, girl … thank the Caul­dron for it.”
The oth­ers were all watch­ing, but I felt a chuck­le whis­per out of me.
Fol­lowed by a laugh, as rasp­ing and raw as my lungs. But a real laugh,
per­haps edged by hysteria—and pro­found relief.
We looked at each oth­er, and laughed again.
“Ladies,” Rhysand purred—a silent order.
I groaned as I got to my feet, sand falling every­where, and offered a hand
to Amren to rise. Her grip was firm, but her quick­sil­ver eyes were
sur­pris­ing­ly ten­der as she squeezed it before snap­ping her fin­gers.
We were both instant­ly clean and warm, our clothes dry. Save for a wet
patch around my breast—where that box wait­ed.
My com­pan­ions were solemn-faced as I approached and reached inside
that pock­et. The met­al bit into my fin­gers, so cold it burned.
I dropped it onto the table.
It thud­ded, and they all recoiled, swear­ing.
Rhys crooked a fin­ger at me. “One last task, Feyre. Unlock it, please.”
My knees were buckling—my head spin­ning and mouth bone-dry and
full of salt and grit, but … I want­ed to be rid of it.
So I slid into a chair, tug­ging that hate­ful box to me, and placed a hand
on top.
Hel­lo, liar, it purred.
“Hel­lo,” I said soft­ly.
Will you read me?
“No.”
The oth­ers didn’t say a word—though I felt their con­fu­sion shim­mer­ing
in the room. Only Rhys and Amren watched me close­ly.
Open, I said silent­ly.
Say please.
“Please,” I said.
The box—the Book—was silent. Then it said, Like calls to like.
“Open,” I grit­ted out.
Unmade and Made; Made and Unmade—that is the cycle. Like calls to
like.
I pushed my hand hard­er, so tired I didn’t care about the thoughts
tum­bling out, the bits and pieces that were a part of and not part of me: heat
and water and ice and light and shad­ow.
Curse­break­er, it called to me, and the box clicked open.
I sagged back in my chair, grate­ful for the roar­ing fire in the near­by
fire­place.
Cassian’s hazel eyes were dark. “I nev­er want to hear that voice again.”
“Well, you will,” Rhysand said bland­ly, lift­ing the lid. “Because you’re
com­ing with us to see those mor­tal queens as soon as they deign to vis­it.”
I was too tired to think about that—about what we had left to do. I peered
into the box.
It was not a book—not with paper and leather.
It had been formed of dark met­al plates bound on three rings of gold,
sil­ver, and bronze, each word carved with painstak­ing pre­ci­sion, in an
alpha­bet I could not rec­og­nize. Yes, it indeed turned out my read­ing lessons
were unnec­es­sary.
Rhys left it inside the box as we all peered in—then recoiled.
Only Amren remained star­ing at it. The blood drained from her face
entire­ly.
“What lan­guage is that?” Mor asked.
I thought Amren’s hands might have been shak­ing, but she shoved them
into her pock­ets. “It is no lan­guage of this world.”
Only Rhys was unfazed by the shock on her face. As if he’d sus­pect­ed
what the lan­guage might be. Why he had picked her to be a part of this
hunt.
“What is it, then?” Azriel asked.
She stared and stared at the Book—as if it were a ghost, as if it were a
miracle—and said, “It is the Leshon Hakodesh. The Holy Tongue.” Those
quick­sil­ver eyes shift­ed to Rhysand, and I real­ized she’d under­stood, too,
why she’d gone.
Rhysand said, “I heard a leg­end that it was writ­ten in a tongue of mighty
beings who feared the Cauldron’s pow­er and made the Book to com­bat it.
Mighty beings who were here … and then van­ished. You are the only one
who can uncode it.”
It was Mor who warned, “Don’t play those sorts of games, Rhysand.”
But he shook his head. “Not a game. It was a gam­ble that Amren would
be able to read it—and a lucky one.”
Amren’s nos­trils flared del­i­cate­ly, and for a moment, I won­dered if she
might throt­tle him for not telling her his sus­pi­cions, that the Book might
indeed be more than the key to our own sal­va­tion.
Rhys smiled at her in a way that said he’d be will­ing to let her try.
Even Cass­ian slid a hand toward his fight­ing knife.
But then Rhysand said, “I thought, too, that the Book might also con­tain
the spell to free you—and send you home. If they were the ones who wrote
it in the first place.”
Amren’s throat bobbed—slightly.
Cass­ian said, “Shit.”
Rhys went on, “I did not tell you my sus­pi­cions, because I did not want
to get your hopes up. But if the leg­ends about the lan­guage were indeed
right … Per­haps you might find what you’ve been look­ing for, Amren.”
“I need the oth­er piece before I can begin decod­ing it.” Her voice was
raw.
“Hope­ful­ly our request to the mor­tal queens will be answered soon,” he
said, frown­ing at the sand and water stain­ing the foy­er. “And hope­ful­ly the
next encounter will go bet­ter than this one.”
Her mouth tight­ened, yet her eyes were blaz­ing bright. “Thank you.”
Ten thou­sand years in exile—alone.
Mor sighed—a loud, dra­mat­ic sound no doubt meant to break the heavy
silence—and com­plained about want­i­ng the full sto­ry of what hap­pened.
But Azriel said, “Even if the book can nul­li­fy the Caul­dron … there’s
Juri­an to con­tend with.”
We all looked at him. “That’s the piece that doesn’t fit,” Azriel clar­i­fied,
tap­ping a scarred fin­ger on the table. “Why res­ur­rect him in the first place?
And how does the king keep him bound? What does the king have over
Juri­an to keep him loy­al?”

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.

C ELIA GOT ABSOLUTELY SMASHED DURING the wed­ding. She was
hav­ing a hard time not being jeal­ous, even though she knew the whole
thing was fake. Her own hus­band was stand­ing next to Har­ry, for
cry­ing out loud. And we all knew what we were.
Two men sleep­ing togeth­er. Mar­ried to two women sleep­ing
togeth­er. We were four beards.
And what I thought as I said “I do” was It’s all begin­ning now. Real
life, our life. We’re final­ly going to be a fam­i­ly.
Har­ry and John were in love. Celia and I were sky-high.
When we got back from Italy, I sold my man­sion in Bev­er­ly Hills.
Har­ry sold his. We bought this place in Man­hat­tan, on the Upper East
Side, just down the street from Celia and John.
Before I agreed to move, I had Har­ry look into whether my father
was still alive. I wasn’t sure I could live in the same city he lived in,
wasn’t sure I could han­dle the idea of run­ning into him.
But when Harry’s assis­tant searched for him, I learned that my
father had died in 1959 of a heart attack. What lit­tle he owned was
absorbed by the state when no one came for­ward to claim it.
My first thought when I heard he was gone was So that’s why he
nev­er tried to come after me for mon­ey. And my sec­ond was How sad
that I’m cer­tain that’s all he’d ever want.
I put it out of my head, signed the paper­work on the apart­ment, and
cel­e­brat­ed the pur­chase with Har­ry. I was free to go wher­ev­er I
want­ed. And what I want­ed was to move to the Upper East Side of
Man­hat­tan. I per­suad­ed Luisa to join us.
This apart­ment might be with­in a long walk’s dis­tance, but I was a
mil­lion miles away from Hell’s Kitchen. And I was world-famous,
mar­ried, in love, and so rich it some­times made me sick.
A month after we moved to town, Celia and I took a taxi to Hell’s
Kitchen and walked around the neigh­bor­hood. It looked so dif­fer­ent
from when I left. I brought her to the side­walk just below my old
build­ing and point­ed at the win­dow that used to be mine.
“Right there,” I said. “On the fifth floor.”
Celia looked at me, with com­pas­sion for all I had been through
when I lived there, for all I had done for myself since then. And then
she calm­ly, con­fi­dent­ly took my hand.
I bris­tled, unsure if we should be touch­ing in pub­lic, scared of what
peo­ple would do. But the rest of the peo­ple on the street just kept on
walk­ing, kept on liv­ing their lives, almost entire­ly unaware of or
unin­ter­est­ed in the two famous women hold­ing hands on the side­walk.
Celia and I spent our nights togeth­er in this apart­ment. Har­ry spent
his nights with John at their place. We went out to din­ner in pub­lic, the
four of us look­ing like two pairs of het­ero­sex­u­als, with­out a
het­ero­sex­u­al in the bunch.
The tabloids called us “America’s Favorite Dou­ble-Daters.” I even
heard rumors that the four of us were swingers, which wasn’t that
crazy for that peri­od of time. It real­ly makes you think, doesn’t it? That
peo­ple were so eager to believe we were swap­ping spous­es but would
have been scan­dal­ized to know we were monog­a­mous and queer?
I’ll nev­er for­get the morn­ing after the Stonewall riots. Har­ry was at
rapt atten­tion, watch­ing the news. John was on the phone all day with
friends of his who lived down­town.
Celia was pac­ing the liv­ing room floor, her heart rac­ing. She
believed every­thing was going to change after that night. She believed
that because gay peo­ple had announced them­selves, had been proud
enough to admit who they were and strong enough to stand up,
atti­tudes were going to change.
I remem­ber sit­ting out on our rooftop patio, look­ing south­ward, and
real­iz­ing that Celia, Har­ry, John, and I weren’t alone. It seems sil­ly to
say now, but I was so  .  .  . self-involved, so sin­gu­lar­ly focused, that I
rarely took time to think of the peo­ple out there like myself.
That isn’t to say that I wasn’t aware of the way the coun­try was
chang­ing. Har­ry and I cam­paigned for Bob­by Kennedy. Celia posed
with Viet­nam pro­test­ers on the cov­er of Effect. John was a vocal
sup­port­er of the civ­il rights move­ment, and I had been a very pub­lic
sup­port­er of the work of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. But this was
dif­fer­ent.
This was our peo­ple.
And here they were, revolt­ing against the police, in the name of
their right to be them­selves. While I was sit­ting in a gold­en prison of
my own mak­ing.
I was out on my ter­race, direct­ly in the sun, on the after­noon after
the ini­tial riots, wear­ing high-waist­ed jeans and a black sleeve­less top,
drink­ing a gib­son. And I start­ed cry­ing when I real­ized those men
were will­ing to fight for a dream I had nev­er even allowed myself to
envi­sion. A world where we could be our­selves, with­out fear and
with­out shame. Those men were braver and more hope­ful than I was.
There were sim­ply no oth­er words for it.
“There’s a plan to riot again tonight,” John said as he joined me on
the patio. He had such an intim­i­dat­ing phys­i­cal pres­ence. More than
six feet tall, two hun­dred and twen­ty-five pounds, with a tight crew cut.
He looked like a guy you didn’t want to mess with. But any­one who
knew him, and espe­cial­ly those of us who loved him, knew he was the
first guy you could mess with.
He may have been a war­rior on the foot­ball field, but he was the
sweet­heart of our four­some. He was the guy who asked how you slept
the night before, the guy who always remem­bered the small­est thing
you said three weeks ago. And he took it on as his job to pro­tect Celia
and Har­ry and, by exten­sion, me. John and I loved the same peo­ple,
and so we loved each oth­er. And we also loved play­ing gin rum­my. I
can’t tell you how many nights I stayed up late fin­ish­ing a hand of
cards with John, the two of us dead­ly com­pet­i­tive, trad­ing off who was
the gloat­ing win­ner and who was the sore los­er.
“We should go down there,” Celia said, join­ing us. John took a seat
in a chair in the cor­ner. Celia sat on the arm of the chair I was in. “We
should sup­port them. We should be a part of this.”
I could hear Har­ry call­ing John’s name from the kitchen. “We’re out
here!” I yelled to him, at the same moment as John said, “I’m on the
patio.”
Soon Har­ry appeared in the door­way.
“Har­ry, don’t you think we should go down there?” Celia said. She
lit a cig­a­rette, took a drag, and hand­ed it to me.
I was already shak­ing my head. John out­right told her no.
“What do you mean, no?” Celia said.
“You’re not going down there,” John said. “You can’t. None of us
can.”
“Of course I can,” she said, look­ing to me to back her up.
“Sor­ry,” I said, giv­ing her the cig­a­rette back. “I’m with John on
this.”
“Har­ry?” she said, hop­ing to make one final suc­cess­ful plea.
Har­ry shook his head. “We go down there, all we do is attract
atten­tion away from the cause and toward us. The sto­ry becomes
about whether we’re homo­sex­u­als and not about the rights of
homo­sex­u­als.”
Celia put the cig­a­rette to her lips and inhaled. She had a sour look
on her face as she blew the smoke into the air. “So what do we do,
then? We can’t sit here and do noth­ing. We can’t let them fight our
fight for us.”
“We give them what we have and they don’t,” Har­ry said.
“Mon­ey,” I said, fol­low­ing his train of thought.
John nod­ded. “I’ll call Peter. He’ll know how we can fund them. He’ll
know who needs resources.”
“We should have been doing that all along,” Har­ry said. “So let’s
just do it from now on. No mat­ter what hap­pens tonight. No mat­ter
what course this fight takes. Let’s just decide here and now that our
job is to fund.”
“I’m in,” I said.
“Yeah.” John nod­ded. “Of course.”
“OK,” Celia said. “If you’re sure that’s the way we can do the most
good.”
“It is,” Har­ry said. “I’m sure of it.”
We start­ed fil­ter­ing mon­ey pri­vate­ly that day, and I’ve con­tin­ued to
do so the rest of my life.
In the pur­suit of a great cause, I think peo­ple can be of ser­vice in a
num­ber of dif­fer­ent ways. I always felt that my way was to make a lot
of mon­ey and then chan­nel it to the groups that need­ed it. It’s a bit self-
serv­ing, that log­ic. I know that. But because of who I was, because of
the sac­ri­fices I made to hide parts of myself, I was able to give more
mon­ey than most peo­ple ever see in their entire life­time. I am proud of
that.
But it does not mean I wasn’t con­flict­ed. And of course, a lot of the
time, that ambiva­lence was even more per­son­al than it was polit­i­cal.
I knew it was imper­a­tive that I hide, and yet I did not believe I
should have to. But accept­ing that some­thing is true isn’t the same as
think­ing that it is just.
Celia won her sec­ond Oscar in 1970, for her role as a woman who
cross-dress­es to serve as a World War I sol­dier in the film Our Men.
I could not be in Los Ange­les with her that night, because I was
shoot­ing Jade Dia­mond in Mia­mi. I was play­ing a pros­ti­tute liv­ing in
the same apart­ment as a drunk. But Celia and I both knew that even if
I had been free as a bird, I could not go to the Acad­e­my Awards on her
arm.
That evening, Celia called me after she was home from the
cer­e­mo­ny and all the par­ties.
I screamed into the phone. I was so hap­py for her. “You’ve done it,”
I said. “Twice now you’ve done it!”
“Can you believe it?” she said. “Two of them.”
“You deserve them. The whole world should be giv­ing you an Oscar
every day, as far as I’m con­cerned.”
“I wish you were here,” she said petu­lant­ly. I could tell she’d been
drink­ing. I would have been drink­ing, too, if I’d been in her posi­tion.
But I was irri­tat­ed that she had to make things so dif­fi­cult. I want­ed to
be there. Didn’t she know that? Didn’t she know that I couldn’t be
there? And that it killed me? Why did it always have to be about what
all of this felt like for her?
“I wish I was, too,” I told her. “But it’s bet­ter this way. You know
that.”
“Ah, yes. So that peo­ple won’t know you’re a les­bian.”
I hat­ed being called a les­bian. Not because I thought there was
any­thing wrong with lov­ing a woman, mind you. No, I’d come to terms
with that a long time ago. But Celia only saw things in black and white.

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.

37
As per­form­ers, we girls have our hair. That’s the real thing guys want to see.
They love to see the long hair move. They want you to thrash it. If your hair’s
mov­ing, they can believe you’re hav­ing a good time.
In the most demor­al­iz­ing moments of my Las Vegas res­i­den­cy, I wore tight
wigs, and I’d dance in a way where I wouldn’t move a hair on my head. Every­one
who was mak­ing mon­ey o� me want­ed me to move my hair, and I knew it—and
so I did every­thing but that.
When I look back, I real­ize how much of myself I with­held onstage, how
much by try­ing to pun­ish the peo­ple who held me cap­tive I pun­ished every­one
else, too—including my loy­al fans, includ­ing myself. But now I know why I’d
been sleep­walk­ing through so much of the past thir­teen years. I was trau­ma­tized.
By hold­ing back onstage, I was try­ing to rebel in some way, even if I was the
only one who knew that was what was hap­pen­ing. And so I didn’t toss my hair
or �irt. I did the moves and I sang the notes, but I didn’t put the �re behind it
that I had in the past. Ton­ing down my ener­gy onstage was my own ver­sion of a
fac­to­ry slow­down.
As an artist, I didn’t feel able to reach the sense of free­dom that I’d had before.
And that’s what we have as artists—that free­dom is who we are and what we do.
I wasn’t free under the con­ser­va­tor­ship. I want­ed to be a woman in the world.
Under the con­ser­va­tor­ship, I wasn’t able to be a woman at all.
It was di�erent, though, with Glo­ry. As the Glo­ry sin­gles rolled out, I start­ed
get­ting more pas­sion­ate about my per­for­mances. I start­ed to wear high heels
again. When I wasn’t try­ing so hard and I just let myself ele­vate as a star onstage,
that’s when it came across the most pow­er­ful­ly. And that’s when I could real­ly
feel the audi­ences lift­ing me up.
Pro­mot­ing Glo­ry, I began to feel bet­ter about myself. That third year in Vegas I
got a lit­tle bit of �re back. I start­ed to appre­ci­ate the daz­zle of per­form­ing in Sin
City every night, and the spon­tane­ity of feel­ing alive in front of an audi­ence.
Even though I might not have been doing my best onstage, there were pieces of
me that began to awak­en again. I was able to tap back into that con­nec­tion
between a per­former and an audi­ence.
I have trou­ble explain­ing to peo­ple who haven’t been onstage what it’s like to
sense that cur­rent between your phys­i­cal body and the bod­ies of oth­er human
beings in a space. The only metaphor that real­ly works is elec­tric­i­ty. You feel
elec­tric. The ener­gy runs out of you and into the crowd and then back into you
in a loop. For such a long time, I’d had to be on autopi­lot: the only cur­rent I
could access was what­ev­er was inside of me that kept me mov­ing.
Slow­ly, I began to believe in my capa­bil­i­ties again. For a while I didn’t tell
any­one. I kept it a secret. Just as I escaped into my dreams to get away from the
chaos of my par­ents when I was a lit­tle girl, in Las Vegas, now as an adult but
with less free­dom than I’d had as a child, I began to escape into a new dream—
free­dom from my fam­i­ly and a return to being the artist I knew I had in me.
Every­thing began to seem pos­si­ble. Hesam and I became so close that we
start­ed to talk about hav­ing a baby togeth­er. But I was in my thir­ties, so I knew
that time was run­ning out.
At the begin­ning of the con­ser­va­tor­ship I was over­whelmed with doc­tor
appoint­ments. Doc­tor after doc­tor after doctor—probably twelve doc­tors a
week—coming to my home. And yet, my father wouldn’t let me go to the
doc­tor when I asked for an appoint­ment to get my IUD removed.
When the con­ser­va­tor­ship hap­pened, every­thing became con­trolled, with
secu­ri­ty guards every­where. My whole life changed in a way that might have
been safer for me phys­i­cal­ly but was absolute­ly hor­ri­ble for my sense of joy and

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 37
Patri­cia told Carter that Korey was on drugs. Korey was so sick and
con­fused from James Har­ris that Carter believed her imme­di­ate­ly. It
helped that this was one of his biggest night­mares.
“This is from your side,” he said as they threw Korey’s clothes into
an overnight bag. “No one on my side of the fam­i­ly has ever had this
kind of prob­lem.”
No, Patri­cia thought. They just mur­dered a man and buried his
body in the back­yard.
She prayed for for­give­ness. She prayed hard. Then they took Korey
to South­ern Pines, the local psy­chi­atric and sub­stance abuse
treat­ment cen­ter.
“You’ll make sure she’s mon­i­tored twen­ty-four hours a day?”
Patri­cia asked the intake admin­is­tra­tor.
Her night­mare was that Korey would do what the oth­er chil­dren
had done. She thought of Des­tiny Tay­lor and the den­tal floss, Orville
Reed step­ping in front of the car, Latasha Burns and the knife. They
had the mon­ey to weigh the odds in their favor, but she didn’t want
odds when it came to her daugh­ter. She want­ed a guar­an­tee.
She tried to talk to Korey, she tried to say she was sor­ry, she tried
to explain things, she tried hard, but whether it was because of
James Har­ris or because of what they were doing to her, Korey didn’t
even acknowl­edge she was in the room.
“Some of them do this,” the intake admin­is­tra­tor said. “I saw one
kid break his mother’s nose dur­ing intake. Oth­ers just shut down.”
When they got home the qui­et in the house ate at Patri­cia,
remind­ing her of the dam­age she had done to her fam­i­ly. She felt a
sense of urgency. She had to fin­ish this. She had to get her fam­i­ly
back and glue the pieces togeth­er before it got any worse. It was only
a mat­ter of time before they hit a point beyond which noth­ing could
be fixed.
That night, Carter left to bury him­self in work at his office. Half an
hour lat­er, the phone rang. She answered.
“Where’s Korey?” James Har­ris asked.
“She’s sick,” Patri­cia said.
“She wouldn’t be sick if she were still with me,” he said. “I can
make her bet­ter.”
“I need time,” she said. “I need time to fig­ure things out.”
“What am I sup­posed to do while you dither?” he asked.
“You have to be patient,” she said. “This is hard for me. It’s my
entire life. My fam­i­ly. It’s every­thing I know.”
“Think fast,” he said.
“Until the end of the month,” she said, try­ing to buy time.
“I’ll give you ten days,” he said, and hung up.
She tried to be around Blue as much as pos­si­ble. She and Carter
asked if he had any ques­tions, they told him it wasn’t his fault, they
said that he could see Korey in a week or two, when­ev­er her doc­tors
said it was all right, but Blue bare­ly spoke. She sat next to him while
he played games on the com­put­er in the lit­tle study. He clat­tered
away on the key­board, mov­ing col­ored shapes and lines onscreen.
“What does this one do?” she asked about a but­ton, and then
point­ed to a num­ber at the top of the mon­i­tor. “Does that mean
you’re win­ning? Look at your score, it’s so high.”
“That’s the amount of dam­age I’ve tak­en,” he said.
She want­ed to tell him she was sor­ry she hadn’t pro­tect­ed him and
his sis­ter bet­ter. But when­ev­er she began, it sound­ed like a farewell
speech and she stopped. Let him have one more untrou­bled week.
Before she was ready, Sat­ur­day arrived and Patri­cia woke up
scared. She cleaned Korey’s room to keep her­self busy, stripped her
bed, col­lect­ed all her clothes off the floor and washed them, fold­ed
them, put them back into draw­ers in neat stacks, ironed her dress­es
and hung them up, stacked her mag­a­zines, found the cas­es for all her
CDs. She recov­ered $8.63 in change from the car­pet and put it in a
jar for when Korey came home.
Around four, Carter stood in the door and watched her work.
“We have to go soon if we want to see the pregame,” he said.
They had made plans to watch the Clem­son-Car­oli­na game
down­town near the hos­pi­tal with Leland and Slick’s chil­dren.
“You go on,” Patri­cia said. “I have things to do.”
“You sure you don’t want to come?” he asked. “It’ll be good to do
some­thing nor­mal. It’s mor­bid to sit around the house alone.”
“I need to be mor­bid,” she said, and gave him her “brave sol­dier”
smile. “Have a nice time.”
“I love you,” he said.
It took her by sur­prise and she fal­tered for a moment, think­ing of
every­thing James Har­ris had told her about Carter’s out-of-town
trips and won­der­ing how much of it was true.
“I love you, too,” she made her­self say back.
He left and she wait­ed until she heard his car back out of the
dri­ve­way, and then she got ready to die.
Patricia’s stom­ach felt emp­ty. Her whole body felt drained. She felt
sick, light-head­ed, flut­tery. Every­thing felt hol­low, like it was all
about to float away.
In her bath­room, she put on her new black vel­vet dress. It felt tight
and awful and hugged her in all the wrong places and made her self-
con­scious of her new curves, and then she adjust­ed it and pulled it
down and cinched and strapped and smoothed. It clung to her like a
black cat’s skin. She felt more naked with it on than off.
The phone rang. She answered it.
“Final­ly,” he said.
“I want to see you,” she said. “I made my deci­sion.”
There was a long pause.
“And,” he prompt­ed.
“I decid­ed that I want some­one who val­ues me,” she said. “I’ll be at
your place by 6:30.”
Eye­lin­er, a bit of eye­brow pen­cil, mas­cara, some blush. She blot­ted
her lip­stick with Kleenex and dropped red balls of tis­sue into the
trash. She brushed her hair, curled it just a touch to give it body, then
sprayed it with Miss Brecks. She opened her eyes and they stung
from the falling mist of hair­spray droplets. She looked at her­self in
the mir­ror and saw a woman she didn’t know. She didn’t wear
ear­rings or jew­el­ry. She took off her wed­ding ring. She fed Rag­tag,
left a note for Carter say­ing she’d had to run down­town to see Slick
in the hos­pi­tal and she might spend the night, and left home.
Out­side, a cold wind thrashed the trees. Cars lined the block, all of
them there to watch the Clem­son-Car­oli­na game at Grace’s. Ben­nett
was a hard­core Clem­son alum, and he host­ed the big get-togeth­er for
the game every year. Patri­cia won­dered how he would deal with
every­one drink­ing. She won­dered if he’d start again.
The wind came black and bleak off the har­bor, toss­ing the waves
into white­caps. She passed Alham­bra Hall and looked at the far end
of the park­ing lot, close to the water, and saw the mini­van parked
there. She could just see a few hud­dled shapes inside. They looked
pathet­i­cal­ly small.
Friends, Patri­cia thought. Be with me now.
James Harris’s house was dark. His porch lights were off and only
a sin­gle lamp shone from his liv­ing room win­dow. She real­ized he’d
done it so no one would see her come to his front door. Cars filled
every sin­gle dri­ve­way, and as she walked, a swelling of cheers
erupt­ed from all the hous­es. Kick­off. The game had begun.
She knocked on the front door, and James Har­ris opened it, lit
from behind by the dim glow of the liv­ing room lamp, the only light
in the house. The radio purred clas­si­cal music, a piano rid­ing gen­tle
orches­tral surges. Her heart danced inside her rib cage as he locked
the door behind her.
Nei­ther moved, they just stood in the hall, fac­ing each oth­er in the
soft spill of light from the liv­ing room.
“You’ve hurt me,” she said. “You’ve scared me. You’ve hurt my
daugh­ter. You’ve made my son a liar. You’ve hurt the peo­ple I know.
But the three years you’ve been here feel more real than the entire
twen­ty-five years of my mar­riage.”
He raised his hand and traced the side of her jaw with his fin­gers.
She didn’t flinch. She tried not to remem­ber him scream­ing in her
face, spat­ter­ing it with her daughter’s blood, her daugh­ter who would
hurt for­ev­er because of his hunger.
“You said you made up your mind,” he said. “So. What do you
want, Patri­cia?”
She walked past him into the liv­ing room. She left a trace of
per­fume in the air. It was a bot­tle of Opi­um she’d found while
clean­ing Korey’s room. She almost nev­er wore per­fume. She stopped
in front of the man­tel and turned to face him.
“I’m tired of my world being so small,” she said. “Laun­dry,
cook­ing, clean­ing, sil­ly women talk­ing about trashy books. It’s not
enough for me any­more.”
He sat in the arm­chair across from her, legs spread, hands on its
arms, watch­ing her.
“I want you to make me the way you are,” she said. Then she
low­ered her voice to a whis­per. “I want you to do to me what you did
to my daugh­ter.”
He looked at her, his eyes crawl­ing across her body, see­ing all of
her, and she felt exposed, and fright­ened, and just a lit­tle bit aroused.
And then James Har­ris stood up and walked over to her and laughed
in her face.
The force of his laugh­ter slapped her, and sent her stum­bling a half
step back. The room echoed with his laugh­ter, and it bounced crazi­ly
off the walls, trapped, dou­bling and redou­bling, bat­ter­ing at her ears.
He laughed so hard he flopped back down in his chair, looked at her
with a crazy grin on his face, and burst out laugh­ing, again.
She didn’t know what to do. She felt small and humil­i­at­ed. Final­ly,
his laugh­ter rolled to a stop, leav­ing him short of breath.
“You must think,” he said, gasp­ing for air, “that I’m the stu­pid­est
per­son you’ve ever met. You come here, all dolled up like a hook­er,
and give me this breath­less sto­ry about how you want me to make
you one of the bad peo­ple? How did you get to be so arro­gant?
Patri­cia the genius, and the rest of us are just a bunch of fools?”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I want to be here. I want to be with
you.”
This brought anoth­er wave of ugly laugh­ter.
“You’re embar­rass­ing your­self and you’re insult­ing me,” James
Har­ris said. “Did you think I’d believe any of this?”
“It’s not an act!” she shout­ed.
He grinned.
“I won­dered when you’d get to right­eous indig­na­tion.” He smiled.
“Look at you: Patri­cia Camp­bell, wife of Dr. Carter Camp­bell, moth­er
of Korey and Blue, debas­ing her­self because she thinks she’s smarter
than some­one who’s lived four times as long as her. See, Patri­cia, I
nev­er under­es­ti­mat­ed you. If you told Slick you planned to come into
my house, I knew you came into my house. And if you got into my
house, I knew you’d got­ten into my attic and found every­thing there
was to find. Was her license sup­posed to be bait? Leave it in my car
and go to the police and tell them you found it and they’d pull me
over and find it and get a search war­rant? In what sad housewife’s
dream does some­thing like that work? Those books you girls read
have real­ly rot­ted your brains.”
She couldn’t make her legs stop shak­ing. She sat down on the
raised brick hearth. The vel­vet dress rode up and bunched around
her stom­ach and hips. She felt ridicu­lous.
“Then again, I moved here because you peo­ple are all so stu­pid,”
he said. “You’ll take any­one at face val­ue as long as he’s white and
has mon­ey. With com­put­ers com­ing and all these new IDs I need­ed
to put down roots and you made it so easy. All I had to do was make
you think I need­ed help and here comes that famous South­ern
hos­pi­tal­i­ty. Y’all don’t like talk­ing about mon­ey, do you? That’s low
class. But I waved some around and you all were so eager to grab it
you nev­er asked where it came from. Now your chil­dren like me
more than they like you. Your hus­band is a weak­ling and a fool. And
here you are, dressed up like a clown, with no cards left to play. I’ve
been doing this for so long I’m always pre­pared for the moment
when some­one tries to run me out of town, but you’ve tru­ly sur­prised
me. I didn’t expect the attempt to be so sad.”
A rhyth­mic, wet huff­ing sound filled the room as Patri­cia bent
dou­ble and tried to breathe. She attempt­ed to start a sen­tence a few
times, but kept run­ning out of breath. Final­ly she said, “Make it
stop.”
From far away, she heard a cho­rus of faint voic­es shout­ing with
dis­ap­point­ment.
“I tried once,” he said. “But an artist is only as good as his
mate­ri­als. I thought for sure the humil­i­a­tion I inflict­ed on you three
years ago would make you kill your­self, but you couldn’t even do that
right.”
“Make it stop,” Patri­cia said. “Just make it all stop. I can’t do this
any­more. My son hates me. For the rest of his life I’ll be the crazy
woman who tried to kill her­self, the one he found con­vuls­ing on the
kitchen floor. I put my daugh­ter in a men­tal hos­pi­tal. I have ruined
my fam­i­ly. I couldn’t pro­tect them from you.”
She sat, hunched over, spit­ting her words at the floor, her hands
were claws dig­ging into her knees, her voice scour­ing her ears like
acid.
“I thought you were filth. I thought you were an ani­mal,” she said.
“But I’m worse. I’m noth­ing. I was a good nurse, I real­ly was, and I
walked away from the one thing I loved because I want­ed to be a
bride. I want­ed to get mar­ried because I was ter­ri­fied of being alone.
I want­ed to be a good wife and a good moth­er, and I gave every­thing
I had, and it wasn’t enough. I’m not enough!”
She shout­ed the last words, then looked up at James Har­ris, her
face a grotesque mask of streaked make­up.
“My hus­band has no more con­sid­er­a­tion for me than a dog,” she
said. “He goes off and screws lit­tle girls with the oth­er men and we
sit home like good lit­tle women and wash their shirts and pack their
bags for their sex trips. We keep their hous­es warm and clean for
when they’re ready to come home and show­er off some oth­er
woman’s per­fume before tuck­ing their chil­dren into bed. For years
I’ve pre­tend­ed I don’t know where he goes, or who those girls are on
the phone, but every time he comes home, I lie there in bed beside
my hus­band, who doesn’t touch me, who doesn’t talk to me, who
doesn’t love me, and I pre­tend I can’t smell some twenty-year-old’s
body on him. Our chil­dren hate us. Look at mine. It would have been
bet­ter if a dog raised them.”
She hooked her fin­gers into claws and pulled them through her
hair, har­row­ing it into a crazed haystack, jut­ting out in every
direc­tion.
“So here I am,” she said. “Giv­ing you the last thing I have of val­ue
and beg­ging you to spare my daugh­ter. Take me. Take my body. Use
me until you throw me away, but leave Korey alone. Please. Please.”
“You think you can bar­gain with me?” he asked. “This is some kind
of sad seduc­tion, trad­ing your body for your daughter’s?”
She nod­ded, meek and small.
“Yes.”
She sat, a long run­nel of snot dan­gling from her nose, drip­ping
onto her dress. And final­ly, James Har­ris said:
“Come.”
She pushed her­self up, and walked to him on shaky legs.
“Kneel,” he said, point­ing to the floor.
Patri­cia low­ered her­self onto the floor at his feet. He leaned
for­ward and took her jaw in one big hand.
“Three years ago you tried to make a fool of me,” he said. “You
don’t get any more dig­ni­ty. We’re going to final­ly be hon­est with each
oth­er. First, I’m going to replace Carter in your life. Is that what you
want?”
She nod­ded, then real­ized he need­ed more. “Yes,” she whis­pered.
“Your son loves me already,” he said. “And your daugh­ter belongs
to me. I’ll take you now, but she’s next. Will you do that? Will you
give me your body to buy her anoth­er year?”
“Yes,” Patri­cia said.
“One day it will be Blue’s turn,” he said. “But for now, I’m the
fam­i­ly friend who helps put your life back togeth­er after your
hus­band dies. Every­one will think that we just nat­u­ral­ly felt a
pow­er­ful attrac­tion, but you’ll know the truth: you gave up your
pathet­ic, mis­er­able, bro­ken fail­ure of a life to accept your place at my
feet. I’m not some doc­tor, or lawyer, or rich mommy’s boy try­ing to
impress you. I am sin­gu­lar in this world. I am what you peo­ple make
leg­ends from. And now I’ve turned my atten­tion on you. When I’m
done, I’ll adopt your chil­dren and make them mine. But you’ve
bought them one more year of free­dom. Do you under­stand?”
“Yes,” she said.
James Har­ris stood and walked up the stairs with­out look­ing back.
“Come,” he said over his shoul­der.
After a moment, Patri­cia fol­lowed, only paus­ing on the way to
unlock the dead­bolt on his front door.
In the dark­ness of the upstairs hall, she saw white sol­id walls all
around her, each one a closed door, and then she saw a black hole
like the entrance to a tomb. She walked into the mas­ter bed­room.
James Har­ris stood in the moon­light. He had tak­en off his shirt.
“Strip,” he said.
Patri­cia stepped out of her shoes and inhaled sharply. Stand­ing
bare­foot on the cool wood­en floor made her feel naked. She couldn’t
do this, but before she could stop her­self her hands were already
mov­ing to her back.
She unzipped the dress and let it fall to the floor and stepped out of
it. Blood rushed and flowed to parts of her body that were dry,
leav­ing her light-head­ed. Her head spun and she won­dered if she
would faint. The dark­ness seemed very close around her and the
walls seemed very far away. A fever seized her as she unsnapped her

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.

37
I haven’t been in a hos­pi­tal since I was fif­teen, when I broke my elbow try­ing to impress a guy on a
skate­board. I’d hat­ed the expe­ri­ence then and it’s not my favorite now.
I’m sup­posed to go home tomor­row, but where home is, I have no idea. The house in Thorn­field
Estates is gone, burned to the ground, and the new life I had tried to build is gone with it.
It prob­a­bly says some­thing about me that this is the part I’m fix­at­ed on, not the part where the man
I was engaged to had locked his wife in a pan­ic room for months. Weird­ly, in a way, that part of the
sto­ry was almost a relief. Every­thing that hadn’t quite added up, every­thing that had trig­gered my
fight-or-flight instincts made sense now. Every­thing was clear.
And I know that for the rest of my life, I’ll see the look on Bea’s face as she charged up the stairs
to save Eddie. No mat­ter what I felt for him, it was nev­er that. It nev­er could’ve been that.
Just like Eddie nev­er could have loved me like he clear­ly loved Bea.
When Bea had opened the pan­ic room door, there’d been a whoosh­ing sound, crack­ling, a blaze of
heat that had sent me stum­bling back, and instinct kicked in.
I ran.
Down the stairs, out the door, onto the lawn, falling into the grass, chok­ing and gasp­ing.
In the end, I’d done the thing I’d been doing all my life—I saved myself.
Which meant I’d left Bea and Eddie to die.
Sigh­ing, I unwrap the Pop­si­cle my nurse had sneaked me. Banana.
I’m lucky. Every­one says so. No burns, just smoke inhala­tion, which makes my throat and chest
still ache, but giv­en that the house is lit­er­al­ly ash­es, I got out pret­ty light­ly, all things con­sid­ered.
Except for the part where I’m home­less and adrift now.
I’m about to set­tle even deep­er into self-pity when there’s a soft rap­ping at my door, and I turn to
see Detec­tive Lau­rent there.
“Knock-knock,” she says, and my heart leaps up into my throat, mak­ing me bite down on the
Pop­si­cle, the cold burn­ing my teeth.
“Hi,” I say, awk­ward, and she ges­tures toward the plas­tic chair near my bed.
“Can we have a quick chat?”
It’s not like I can tell her no, and I’m guess­ing she knows that since she doesn’t wait for me to
answer before she sits down.
Cross­ing her legs, she smiles at me, like we’re friends and this is just a fun bed­side vis­it, and I try
to make myself smile back until I remem­ber that I’m sup­posed to be trau­ma­tized and upset.
The last few days have com­plete­ly thrown me off my game.
I look down, fid­dle with the wrap­per of the Pop­si­cle, and wait for her to say some­thing.
“How are you feel­ing?” she asks, and I shrug, tuck­ing my hair behind my ears.
“Bet­ter. Still raspy,” I say, ges­tur­ing to my throat. “It all still seems so unre­al, I guess.”
Detec­tive Lau­rent nods, the cor­ners of her eyes crin­kling as she gives me a sym­pa­thet­ic look, but
there’s some­thing about the way she’s watch­ing me that I don’t like. Some­thing that makes me feel
naked and exposed.
“I sup­pose you know by now that your fiancé didn’t make it out of the fire.”
I press my lips togeth­er, clos­ing my eyes briefly, but inside, my wind is whirring. Is this where
she tells me they found two bod­ies in the ash­es? What do I say? Do I tell her the truth about Bea and
Eddie, about all of it?
“I do,” I man­age to croak out, fear sound­ing like sad­ness, which is good.
“And I imag­ine you also know that our work­ing the­o­ry is that he burned the house down on
pur­pose. That he want­ed to kill him­self and you as well.”
No.
No, I did not know that, and my shock and con­fu­sion as I look at the detec­tive isn’t feigned. “On
pur­pose?” I say, and she nods, sigh­ing as she leans back in her chair.
“Jane, there is a very good chance Edward Rochester was involved in the mur­der of Blanche
Ingra­ham and the dis­ap­pear­ance of his wife.”
“Oh my god,” I say soft­ly, press­ing a hand to my mouth.
Detec­tive Lau­rent shifts in her chair as out­side, I hear the squeak of a wheel­chair, the beep of
var­i­ous machines. “In look­ing into Tripp Ingraham’s involve­ment, we found signs that Eddie had also
been there that night. His car on the secu­ri­ty cam­era at the Thorn­field Estates entrance, one of your
neigh­bors remem­ber­ing that he also left home late the night his wife and Blanche had gone to the lake.
Noth­ing con­crete, and we were still in the process of gath­er­ing evi­dence, but now…”
She trails off, and I see her hand go to the badge at her waist for a sec­ond.
“What about Tripp?” I ask. “What hap­pens now?”
It’s weird and more than a lit­tle off-putting to feel any sym­pa­thy for Tripp Ingra­ham, and I’ll
even­tu­al­ly get over it, but now that I know the whole sto­ry, it’s hard not to see him as a vic­tim, too.
Anoth­er per­son caught up in the shit­storm that was Eddie and Bea.
“He’s been cleared of any sus­pi­cion,” Detec­tive Lau­rent says. “Truth­ful­ly, we nev­er had as much
on him as we let him think. We were hop­ing he’d crack, or bring down Eddie in the process.”
Then she sighs. “Any­way, the fire was clear­ly set on pur­pose, which makes us think Eddie knew
we were get­ting close.”
Lean­ing over, she takes my hand. “I’m so sor­ry. I know this all must be a shock.”
It is, but not in the way she thinks. They think Eddie killed him­self because he killed Blanche and
Bea. Which means they didn’t find Bea’s body in the fire.
Which means she’s still out there.
“We may have some more ques­tions lat­er on,” the detec­tive says, pat­ting my hand and stand­ing up,
“but I just want­ed to let you know where things stood right now.”
“Thank you,” I say, and she smiles again.
“Take care of your­self, Jane.”
As she heads for the door, I can’t help but ask one more ques­tion.
“Did you … is Eddie’s body…”

Chap­ter 37 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të reflects the pro­tag­o­nist’s con­tin­ued strug­gle with per­son­al bound­aries and unwant­ed affec­tion, as well as her deter­mi­na­tion to pre­serve her val­ues in the face of per­sis­tent temp­ta­tion.

On Decem­ber 20th, 1825, the pro­tag­o­nist finds her­self reflect­ing on her life’s hard­ships, espe­cial­ly con­cern­ing her role as a guide and pro­tec­tor for her son in a world she per­ceives as dark and wicked. Despite her chal­lenges and lone­li­ness, she remains com­mit­ted to her duties and prin­ci­ples, pri­mar­i­ly because of her son and the absence of any­one else to ful­fill her role.

The chap­ter then tran­si­tions to the pro­tag­o­nist’s ongo­ing inter­ac­tions with Mr. Har­grave, who has shown a respect­ful demeanor for sev­er­al months, caus­ing her to low­er her guard and start to see him as a friend. How­ev­er, Har­grave over­steps bound­aries, declar­ing his love in a man­ner that demands a defin­i­tive rejec­tion from the pro­tag­o­nist. This inci­dent and his lat­er attempts to woo her under­line her strug­gles with male atten­tion and her firm stance against com­pro­mis­ing her integri­ty. The pro­tag­o­nist rebuffs Hargrave’s advances, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of her morals and respon­si­bil­i­ties over fleet­ing hap­pi­ness.

Har­grave’s inabil­i­ty to respect the pro­tag­o­nist’s wish­es leads to a deci­sive con­fronta­tion where she demands he cease his advances or leave. She holds stead­fast to her belief in a high­er moral duty and the impor­tance of a clear con­science over suc­cumb­ing to desires that would bring shame and dis­hon­or. Har­grave’s reaction—first one of shock and then resignation—highlights the pro­found emo­tion­al tur­moil and con­flict but ulti­mate­ly leads to his deci­sion to leave for Paris, pro­vid­ing tem­po­rary relief to the pro­tag­o­nist.

The chap­ter clos­es with the pro­tag­o­nist feel­ing a sense of deliv­er­ance, rein­forc­ing themes of resilience, the quest for per­son­al auton­o­my, and the com­plex­i­ty of nav­i­gat­ing rela­tion­ships with­in soci­etal con­fines. Her reflec­tions and deci­sive actions reveal her inner strength and com­mit­ment to liv­ing by her prin­ci­ples, even when faced with dif­fi­cult choic­es and the prospect of con­tin­ued lone­li­ness.