“So, I became good at the things that a Remington was meant to, because I needed to teach him to be good at them,” Graham says fiercely. “I taught him to be better so that my father would never regret giving him that name. And he hasn’t. Pierce needed to have an eye for business, so I pretended I didn’t. Pierce needed to charm at parties, so I would be disinterested. He had to seem sophisticated, so I was unrefined. For Pierce to seem simply confident, I had to be arrogant.”
And with each word, his voice shakes more and more and he is shaking apart, and it is terrifying to watch.
“I didn’t go to Harvard because he has to go to Harvard,” Graham says, and he grabs my gunpowdered hands, trying to make me understand. “For my father and now for Pierce, tradition is everything. It’s what makes someone special. And Pierce is the special one.”
“Tradition” is such a heavy word.
“Traditions… like the Finish?” I ask.
Graham’s gaze hardens. “That was the one tradition I tried to get him to break from, to follow in my footsteps. I draw the line at… at the Finish.”
“You didn’t have one? A Finish like this one?” I press.
“Yeah, I locked myself away in London and went on a bender and refused to come home. Refusing to do it kinda solidified me being… you know. The un-favorite.”
“Did Pierce know why you didn’t?” I ask. “Did he know what—”
“He knew what it was supposed to be,” Graham admits. “But he wanted to make it different. I didn’t think it was possible, but he wants to create new traditions from the old. That whole thing about evening the playing field. He really believes it. He wants to do good. That’s why he invited girls from outside our circle. Girls like… you.”
There are no girls like me. There is only me.
Pierce might’ve wanted to change things, but how hard did he try? I remember his glossing over my objections, the ways in which he thinks he has tried to help me, in his not-helpful way. He knew all along how this could go; he weighed out the gains and losses accordingly, and let tradition win.
Graham is still insisting that he can imagine what I’m thinking. “I know how it sounds, but my mom went through this type of Finish too, and it seems like it… kinda broke something in her. She got better after Pierce was born, but she was lost in her own head sometimes, especially when the Finish was held. The old Finish… there was no preparation. No rest. It was just one week of the most vicious things you could imagine. I think Pierce wanted to make something new especially for her.”
I hesitate again. “Your… mom? Is she…？” I trail off.
Graham stares at me with narrowed eyes, confusion tightening the line of his mouth. And then: “Oh, no, she’s not dead. She’s at a health spa in Aspen.”
“Oh, I… does she do that often?” I ask.
“Yeah, I mean, when she’s stressed. The Finish stresses her out,” Graham explains.
“It stresses me out,” I press, and all those warm feelings from before are starting to dissipate. My hand clenches tighter around the gun. “This is not ‘something new’ because we’re training and getting a few days’ rest. This is still barbaric. I’m learning how to shoot people?”
Graham groans, stepping away. “Adina, please—”
“？‘Tradition.’ You all love to throw that word around, but it’s not my tradition. I didn’t ask to have any part of it,” I insist, closing in on him, dragging my fingers over his skin, over the soft fabric of his T-shirt that probably cost three hundred dollars, to remind myself that he’s real, that all of this is real when it should be just a nightmare.
“Didn’t you?” Graham says, tone nasty. “You didn’t mind the invitation, I remember.”
I let him go like I’ve been burned. Wounded.
“Don’t even try to throw this back in my face,” I hiss.
Graham shakes his head. “I warned you. I told you that you didn’t have what it takes.”
“You didn’t tell me what that meant! What I had to do. What I’m expected to do.” My voice cracks and I don’t want to cry. I can’t cry now. “You didn’t tell me your brother would give me a gun or that your aunt would expect me to kill someone to win. Do you understand that?”
“I do,” Graham says. “But you’re here now. I don’t want you to kill anyone, but I want you to live. I want you to win.”
“Why? I understand you gave everything to Pierce to make sure that he never felt expendable like you did, but I’m not something to give, Graham.”
And there it is—the truth of what winning means. I’m as unready to confront it as Graham is, our mutual bewilderment digging deep to compete with mutual anguish. The idea of marrying into this family makes cold sweat bead high on my forehead, frizzing my hairline. And Graham looks revolted by the very idea, his fingers flexing like he needs to grab something. We both look to the house, as if expecting to see Pierce in the window, his presence felt so heavily that it’s almost like he’s sitting on my chest, and all the air whistles out of me, wasted.
“Adina, I can’t,” he says. “I can’t… I don’t know what to do.”
He sounds so sincere.
And it doesn’t mean a fucking thing.
Two Remington boys, both proclaiming how much they want to help but, in the end, never doing anything at all.
“You’re a coward.” I’m not sure who I mean—Pierce or Graham.
Graham doesn’t flinch at my accusation. He smiles instead. “I know. But I’m a coward who is at least going to make sure you can shoot.”
“I hate you,” I whisper.
I don’t believe it. Neither does he.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I’d rather you hate me than you be dead. Now… pick up your gun, point it at the target, and pull the trigger. Because I’m not letting you die, Adina Walker.”
CHAPTER 22
I SPEND THE ENTIRE MORNING putting bullets into paper targets, long after Graham leaves, still tender from our confrontation. I can sense the way the other girls feel, seeing me there early, training, and the way they react to Leighton smiling and remarking on my initiative and dedication to bettering myself. Still, I sponge her praise, parched for some acknowledgment or reminder that she sees herself in me, when I see it less and less when I look in the mirror. She is a reminder that I can do this. That I have to do this.
All throughout morning practice, Jacqueline stares at me and the gun now in my hands. I feel a thrill at her attention. She’s angry and afraid, and it’ll make her sloppy, exactly like I need her to be. I cut a look to her again and again, almost mocking, and it’s enough that Jacqueline begs to speak with Leighton over our lunch break, crumpling into petulant fury.
I expect her to return still fuming, reminded of how disappointing she is by Leighton, but when Jacqueline walks into the parlor after, she is all smiles, a certain level of calmness that has been missing the past few days returning. She immediately joins her clique of girls, joking softly, and for a moment I can see the ghost of who she might actually be, not the exaggerated fun-house aggression that she’s adopted here.