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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROSE ATONEMENT
✧
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SLYTHERIN CHAMBERS SEEMED UNFORGIVING. Cold, uncharacterized with grand means of showing wealth and power, doors that cost more than life itself and marble bathrooms with golden showers, the most expensive couches and fine paintings with no blankets in sight to curl up in. There was a distance between the person and the room, the power and glory, the refinery and the damned.
Cold and calculating, it was practically waiting for a mistake to be made, and Morgan was one hell of a mistake. She wasn't sure what Adeline thought about it. She never seemed exactly uncomfortable with the chambers, but she never seemed as relaxed as she would be in the garden or the library, which Morgan took as a sign that there was at least some discomfort with the cold tone of the rooms.
No one else seemed bothered by it, least of all those who came from the most prominent families. Growing up with a crown on their heads and marble and gold mansions, this was commonplace, but this was unwelcoming. There was nothing familiar, nothing lovely or homey, there was just walls and furniture and cold but refined people.
Even full, it never felt like it. People would be in and out, strewn across couches or at tables studying, but some sort of loneliness was always felt. Nothing was ever connected, nothing was ever alive; always dead and cold and waiting to ridicule.
Greer never seemed to have a problem with the atmosphere, but Greer never seemed to have a problem with anything. She was a porcelain princess; untouchable by anything. She knew that some of it was just an act and some of it was just normal to here. This was normal, this nothing special or off-putting.
The Ainsley girl huffed, moving behind her and pushing her shoulders up. "Keep your head up high," she chastised Morgan, "And you should consider straightening your hair."
Morgan frowned, hand inching to her long hair. "I like it like this."
"But it's not refined," Greer rolled her eyes, as if it was obvious, "You need to be refined."
For a moment, she wanted to snap at the girl, yell at her that she was perfect just the way she was, and that refinement meant nothing to her. She didn't need to be perfect; she wasn't an Ainsley...but right now, she was, wasn't she? Right now, she had to be perfect and untouchable, a porcelain princess just like Greer.
And Greer was just trying to help. She held Morgan while she sobbed, picked her up, wiped away the tears and calmed her. Greer wasn't here to be rude, she was trying to help in the best way she could. Maybe it wasn't the comfort she wanted, but it was the acting she needed. Morgan couldn't be who she was before anymore; that silly little girl had to go.
