Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Sixteen

 

She knew Carina’s type: the country club mothers for whom a child was just another merit badge on the Girl Scout vest of life, who turned to the bottle the moment their “precious darlings” needed anything more than a patented proud smile. Carina wasn’t worried about Mason, Maggie knew – after all, the doctors had said he was out of the woods as far as the whole dying thing went – but was worried about her social standing now that her son had almost killed himself with a party drug. 

The use of the phrase "another merit badge on the Girl Scout vest of life" here is a case of me folding a little bit of my real self into the fiction. I've always applied it to the equestrian world: those riders who were in it for the prestige of blue ribbons, who treated their horses as disposable vehicles. But it certainly applies here with regard to Carina Stephens and her son. 

Maggie is a uniquely Southern heroine because even though she can be a hardass, lethal when necessary, she wields soft power like a pro. Some of that's down to her formal cotillion training growing up, but most of it's simply a cultural staple. She can play nice when she needs to, all fake saccharine sweetness and "bless your heart." We see her skills at play here in this scene, and will see them more in later chapters. 

Ava, meanwhile, is still having A Time (in a bad way) with Mercy. 

Caught up in the moment, he didn't realize how badly she was hurting until afterward, and then he panics a little bit - for more than one reason. He hates that he caused her pain, and if you're thinking "why didn't he know to be more careful?" consider that, up to this point, he's only ever hooked up with club groupies: casual, unemotional sex with experienced women. Mentally and emotionally, he's still in a very immature place. He's finally slept with someone he actually loves, and he hurt her, and he feels fumbly, and stupid, and like an ass. Then layer in the panic that he's finally crossed the line with her, and OMG, how are Ghost and Maggie going to react when/if they find out? His first instinct is to get rid of all the physical evidence of what happened and put some distance between them in case her parents get home earlier than expected. 

He's freaking out. 

Ava, of course, reads this as a rejection, as him not caring, and that's the tragedy of it all.