Holding Onto Stars | Lady Lesso

Ten

The night was drawing to a close and my feet were starting to hurt in these heels. Over half of the students had gone to bed, I was beginning to feel kinda tired myself, but I had a feeling that was from standing around all evening, making sure students weren't breaking rules. 

I walked over to Helena, Emma, Clarissa and Leonora. 'Would you do me the honour of having this dance, darling?' I held my hand out to Leonora. 

'You've had too much to drink.' She laughed. 

'Well, of course. C'mon, for old time's sake!' I smiled. 

'Okay then.' She took my hand, leading us to the dancefloor, where she put her arms around my waist, I put my hands on her shoulders, and we slowly revolved on the spot. I breathed in her scent of cinnamon, and for the first time in months, my heart felt at peace. 

'What's brought this on?' She asked. 'Other than the fact that you've had one too many glasses of wine.' 

I grinned. 'Can't we still have fun?' 

'Yeah, I guess so.' She laughed. 'I'm glad you're finally getting back to yourself.' 

'Me too.' I nodded. 

'Lesso, I'm sorry to cut in, but we've got a situation.' Emma tapped us on the shoulder. 

I stepped back. 'What's going on?' 

'There's a couple of student's fighting down the corridor. An Ever girl and a Never girl.' 

'Right, I'll go handle this.' Lesso nodded, before turning to me. 'I'm sorry, I've got to go.' 

'It's fine, go.' I smiled slightly. She left with Emma, and went to sit down. Clarissa was vibrantly dancing with Yuba and I couldn't see Helena anywhere. I took my heels off, and picked my glass up, sipping some wine, even though I knew I should probably stop for the night, but the alcohol was giving me confidence. 

I placed my glass back down and a small folded up piece of pastel pink paper caught my eye. It was right next to my glass. I picked it up and unfolded it out of curiosity. 

Unfortunately, I quickly realised I should have left it alone because my blood ran cold at the words on the paper: 

You should have been killed instead of Sage. 

Sleep with one eye open, bitch x

My hands started shaking as I folded the note back up. What kind of a sick fuck had written that? This was cold, even for my standards. 

I looked up, scanning the room. Had someone put the note there, whilst I'd been dancing? I didn't spot anything out of the ordinary, which was somehow even more terrifying. 

 I saw Clarissa walking over, so I quickly burned the note with my finger-glow and tried to look as unbothered as possible. 

'That's most of the students gone to bed, so you can go back up to the other school whenever you like, Katherine.' She informed me. 

'Thanks.' I nodded. 'I am pretty tired, so I think I'll head to bed now.' 

'Alright. And you can tell me in the morning, everything that happened today with Lesso.' She grinned. 

I laughed. 'I can't wait. Goodnight, Clarissa.' 

She said goodnight, and I headed back up to the Evil school. 

It was pretty quiet as I entered the dark castle, my path only lit by flaming torches. My mind was still racing over that note. Did someone really want to hurt me? Nobody here knew Sage that well like I did though, so they weren't particularly close to her. I dismissed it as someone playing a cruel joke to scare me. 

I turned a corner and headed down a corridor and instantly saw Leonora stood down the corridor. I was about to head over to talk to her, when suddenly, Helena appeared the other end of the corridor. 'Hey, Lesso!' 

I drew back into a shadowy doorway so I remained unseen. I didn't know why I felt the need to not give my presence away, but I decided to wait until Helena was gone, before I spoke to Leonora. 

I couldn't hear much of what they were saying as they were quite far down the corridor, but Helena was saying something and smiling. Leonora was listening to her, and occasionally said something. I couldn't make out their words, unfortunately, I wished I knew what they were saying. Leonora laughed at something, and Helena laughed too. 

I lost my patience, and decided I'd go over, hopefully Helena would leave then. 

Before I even took a step, Helena suddenly leaned in and kissed Leonora. 

Everything in me just froze. My mouth dropped open but no sound came out. I felt like my blood was turning to ice, and my stomach turned. I put my hand to my mouth, but couldn't stop a quiet sob from escaping. I couldn't tear my eyes away, as I felt my heart crack. Leonora was kissing her back, and put her arms around Helena's waist. 

I slowly slid down the wall, as my breathing became ragged, and I tried to keep quiet even tears had started escaping. 

Eventually they stopped and Helena took her hand, leading her back my way. I drew further into the shadow to avoid being seen, and luckily they both walked straight past me. 

When I was sure they were gone, I got up and ran down the corridor, all the way up to my room. I slammed the door shut behind me, and threw my heels down. I was breathing hard, and I looked down at the glint of silver that caught my eye. I ripped the ring off my finger, throwing it as hard as I could at the opposite wall. Unfortunately it hit my mirror, and I heard a crack. 

'Shit.' I muttered, walking over the inspect the damage. There was a small crack in the top corner of my mirror. I caught my reflection in the mirror. My eyeliner had run down my face, mixing with my tears and I just looked destroyed. 

I sat down on the floor, in complete silence, as I felt my heart breaking. Had I misread the signals? Had I let myself hope too much that there was a chance to fix our marriage? And Helena, fury rose up in me at the thought of her. Maybe I hadn't been paranoid about her after all. She knew me and Leonora had only been separated 5 minutes, and were still married, and she still thought she'd move in on my wife before I had a chance to fix things. 

Mostly, I hated myself for letting my guard down so quickly. How could I have been so stupid to believe Leonora would ever want me back?