by Eden O'Neill
I merely flushed the toilet before I ralphed again, vomit mixed with tears. Birdie and Kiki had sat me between them while Shakira drove as quickly as she could. They hadn’t even waited for the other girls on the team, texting them and telling them they’d come back for the group after they took care of me. They had wanted me to go to the hospital, and I hadn’t even started vomiting yet. I’d obviously refused, mumbling out I’d take care of myself after I assured them I was fine and made them leave.
Bullshit.
I hurled again, shaking as I fell from the porcelain. On the cold tiles, I rested for a little while until I had both the confidence and stamina enough that I could hold my own weight. I couldn’t, dragging myself into the tub. There, I peeled off my clothes and I couldn’t even stand in the shower, merely turning on the nozzle and letting the jets hit me hard from above.
I lifted my face into them, attempting to sober myself without the proper resources. I’d gotten shit-faced before, but it’d been a while, not since I stopped feeling sorry for myself for mistakes in my past and started taking care of me for once. I dropped a bunch of weight before sophomore year, stopped the hard partying shortly after, and now, found myself a reformed drunk at eighteen, her sloppy glory days long gone, and my body felt it.
I cradled my legs, dropping my face between my knees. A blanket of fear weighed me down more than the physical discomfort from drinking. What had happened to Mira? Had the ambulance come for her in time?
Had Royal taken care of her?
I rubbed my arms, crying for the second time in a goddamn weak. I wasn’t this person. I didn’t do these things anymore, so why had I done them? I guess I wanted to prove something to Mira, myself, and everyone else tonight, but all I ended up doing was feeling like the very trash she’d emphasized tonight.
The bitch.
I wanted her alive, but she was still a damn bitch. Sniffling, I shut off the warm current and took the time to get on my feet. Shaking, I stepped out and grabbed my towel, wrapping it around my body. With some extremely attentive maneuvers, I managed to get myself dry and my hair partially so. It hung in a drippy mess on my body, curling in waves it only tended to do right out of the shower. I didn’t bother with it, immediately going for clothes in my walk-in closet.
Puppy dog eyes popped out of a box instantly. Hershey had somehow gotten both herself and her dog bed out of the guesthouse, into the main house, and in my closet.
What the hell?
Bounding, she tipped the box over to get to me, wagging her little tail and drooling profusely with her happy dog grin. How in the entire fuck she managed to get herself up here when I’d left her out in the guesthouse I didn’t know, but happy to see her, I grabbed her tight in my arms.
“What are you doing in here, little lady?”
She licked my face in response, and I did a juggling act of holding her, then getting clothes on. I settled on just an oversize shirt that hit me at the hips, the only thing I could manage to get on being basically piss-ass drunk with a dog in my arms.
“You must be Houdini or something, huh?” I crooned, rubbing my nose against Hershey’s. I headed out of the closet, and the moment I sat on the bed, I got the answers I looked for.
I brought Hershey upstairs and put her in your closet. She’d only stop whining once she was in there. Your dad got called out of town for a last-minute business conference, but I didn’t want her to bother the neighbors. Don’t forget to feed and water her in the morning. I hope you had a good time at the party.
A note from my ally nearly brought tears to my eyes, Rosanna’s folded note right on my pillow. She had no idea how much I needed this damn dog right now.
“I didn’t have a good time at the party,” I murmured, letting Hershey lick my face. “I did something really stupid at a party and might have accidentally killed someone.”
She didn’t understand, of course, bounding from my arms and onto my bed. Wanting to play, she hunkered down in the sheets, but growled, then hid at a sudden tap to the window. The noise scaring the shit out of me too, I grabbed my chest, gazing over to find a prowler outside my second-story window.
What the fuck?
I stood, heading over, but even with it being dark outside, I easily made out a large body and chiseled cheekbones that could cut glass. Royal Prinze was outside my bedroom window, making a turn motion with his hand for me to unlock it. He frowned. “Gonna let me in, princess?”
Naked from the thighs down, I wrestled with my clothing. “What the hell are you doing here? How are you up here?” Like stated, I was on the second story. This wasn’t possible, and after a roll of his eyes and no action from me, Royal took things into his own hands when he pulled a pocket knife out of his jeans. He used it to jiggle space under the sill, the lock obviously faulty. Soon, he was working the window right open, and after putting the knife away, he started to maneuver that big body of his through the small space.
I grabbed a pillow, covering my chest. I wasn’t wearing a bra on top of not wearing panties. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” I growled. My desk in the way, he gripped both it and the window to push himself through and get on his feet. Once actually in my room, he towered in the small space, and after a quick analysis of my body, my pillow in particular, he smirked.
“You don’t have anything I haven’t seen or touched, princess,” he said to me, completely cocky about it when he flicked blond eyebrows. “As far as how I got up here, obviously the window.”
A smart-ass, I threw the pillow at him. He caught it easily, tossing it to the foot of the bed, and I folded my arms.
“You know what I mean,” I said and he nodded, easing himself back against the desk.
He pushed a thumb behind. “The tree, the roof, then the window,” he ticked off with long fingers. “In that order. It’s how your sister snuck in and out.”
“My sister?”
His head of perfectly tousled hair bobbed twice in acknowledgment. He’d obviously tossed fingers through it. He smiled. “I helped her. It’s the only way she could get in and out of this place without your dad noticing. Her room was right across from his. She had to get through the guest room, this room.”
His story, the intricate details as well as information about my sister, sobered me more than anything I’d done tonight. He really did know my sister, know this house and my dad.
He watched that move over my face, his brow flicking up when he panned past me. He pointed. “Your, um… bed’s moving.”
Hershey.
She wiggled her little nose out of the sheets, exposing herself to definitely someone she should not be exposing herself to. Especially if he did know my dad in some type of capacity. He could tell him.
Royal stood upon seeing my little dog, that cocky smile of his broadening on his face.
“A puppy,” he quipped, his eyebrow arching. “Your dad let you get one of those?”
He really did know my dad. I wrestled with my hands. “No, yes. I mean, he will. I just haven’t had a chance to tell him yet.”
He smirked again. “He’s going to love that,” he said, attempting to look around me. “What’s her name?”
“Hershey, but she bites, so stay away.”
Hershey definitely didn’t bite, but she had whimpered in all of the two times she’d been in the same vicinity with him. Something about him she clearly found threatening.
That made two of us.
I was sure it was in different ways, but Royal Prinze was definitely threatening to me, my world, and everything I’d come to know about me and my history with my sister. He may have known her and been friends with her, but I didn’t know that life. I didn’t know him, and yes, I found that threatening.
Ignoring me, Royal angled a hand. “She doesn’t look like she bites.”
“She does. Stop. She doesn’t like you.”
After only a quick touch of the nose, Hershey pressed her head under Royal’s large palm and completely invalided my previous claims. She not
only nudged him, but licked him, seeking his attention and love, and he was quick to reciprocate, genuinely smiling at her when he scratched behind her ear.
“Yeah, she’s really vicious, hates me,” he said, obviously being sarcastic. Playing with her, he pushed her the way I did to get her to fall on her back. Of course, she did, getting a belly rub from a boy who most definitely shouldn’t be in my room. He sat on my bed with her, the two of them having a hell of a good time, but I was filled with nothing but questions.
“Why are you in here? Shouldn’t you be with Mira? Is she…” Failing to get the words out, I watched him play with my puppy, eventually sitting on the bed beside him. Royal played with Hershey in silence next to me, getting her to turn and nip at his lengthy fingers.
“She’s alive if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said, Hershey nibbling on his fingers now like a chew toy. This obviously didn’t bother him as he continued to tease and play with her. “She’s at the hospital. I rode over in the ambulance with her.”
Jesus.
“Is she okay, is she…” Feeling sick again, the queasiness consumed me. I thought I was going to vomit again and rummaged for a trash can.
“Hey, hey, hey. Wait a sec. Wait a sec. I got you.”
Royal did have me covered, on his knees and forcing the can by the side of my bed in front of my face in quick time. Once there, I let loose in it, choking, and Royal stayed on his knees by me, holding the can while I pressed my face into it. I gripped the bed in an attempt not to fall into it and him by association. Hershey whined beside me, crying during every grunt and moan I made, but I was in no position to soothe her.
I couldn’t even soothe myself.
“It’s okay,” came from Royal, surprisingly doing the soothing in this situation. He even did one better, his hand a fiery heat on my back when he nudged me toward the can. He held me there, keeping me steady. “Let it out. It’ll only feel better.”
It sucked right now, all of it did. The only thing that didn’t was his hand on my back, a hand that wouldn’t leave, a hand that kept me grounded and safe as I upchucked a lung in front of a pretty boy. He quite literally kept me from falling off the bed, pulling me back by the T-shirt when I finally stopped throwing up. He waited for a second, analyzing both me and the situation, and when it seemed like I wasn’t going to hurl up any more stomach bile, he returned the can to the floor. The next thing I knew, he was picking up my whimpering dog from my bed.
“What are you doing with her?” I mumbled out, too disoriented to stop him. He could take my dog right from under me, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
He returned with her in a box, her box from the closet. I had no idea how he knew about it. Maybe he just wandered until he found something, but quickly, my doggy was on the floor, watching from her vantage point while Royal picked up the can filled with my puke and left the room again. He returned not only with a clean can, but a wet rag.
“Get in bed, princess,” he urged, nodding toward the sheets, and in no position to argue, I did, pulling my legs in and curling up on my pillow. There, Royal handed me the rag, then pulled those same sheets over my body, now raging with shivers. I couldn’t keep warm, and suddenly, another blanket was on top of me too.
“Mira’s fine,” he said, getting it situated. It’d come from my closet, the pattern I recognized. “She’s going to feel like shit for a while, but she’s fine. They gave her fluids and she’s already turning around.”
Any relief from that fell away by my own current state, the epitome of the same shit he talked about. I was going to feel like shit too, and I had school in the morning.
I groaned, bracing the blankets he gave.
“You both were really fucking stupid,” he said, and though I couldn’t see him because he was behind getting these blankets on me, I heard the frustration in his deep voice. “What were you thinking, December?”
I wasn’t thinking. I was being stupid. She’d trigged some old shit about me, and I wanted to make her pay. That’s all there really was to it, nothing logical.
I blinked cloudy eyes, freezing when Royal was suddenly behind me. His fingers brushed my hair, and I turned, staring up into green eyes. “What are you doing?”
“You’re no doubt going to puke at least three more times tonight,” he said, the frown hard on his face. “I was just going to get it out of your way.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but when he eyed my damp locks on my shoulder, I found myself angling my head in his direction. I couldn’t watch him, of course, unable to stare directly at him, but when he gathered my hair up in his mighty hands, a soft moan touched my lips for other reasons. Each pull and tug he made were like electrodes that shot straight into my brain, and when I opened my eyes, I saw him braiding my hair, actually braiding with precise fingers.
My lips parted. “How do you know how to do that?” I asked, his fingers quick as he looped and tugged. Done, he placed the thick braid over my shoulder.
“One of my best friends is a girl,” he said, his grin slight on his full lips. He shook his head. “A girl who likes to drink like a dude. Let’s just say I’ve done this more than a couple of times.”
Paige definitely could drink. I remembered that, though my sister and I didn’t often drink together since we lived separately.
I turned, Royal’s gaze following up from my braid to my eyes. “How did that happen? I mean”—I paused, shaking my head—“she never mentioned you, not once.”
His eyes escaped, nostrils flaring as he dampened his lips. “We grew up together, went to the same schools.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. How did you make your friends?”
The same way, but my old friends weren’t like him. They weren’t him, a god at my current school and in society. I supposed he might have not always been that way, but somewhere along the way that’s what he’d become.
I braced sheets to my chest. “I came to live with my dad because I hoped she’d come home. I’ve been emailing her, sent texts and phone calls…” The latter had stopped altogether when she basically told me to stop at the beginning of the summer. She didn’t want to talk to me, anyone. Had she talked to him? Her apparent best friend? I bit my lip. “If you know where she is, please tell me. Has she called you? Are you helping her? If you’ve had contact with her, I need to know.”
I hit him with questions he didn’t have to answer, and if he had been helping her keep a low profile, he probably wouldn’t tell me anyway.
Royal’s lips pressed tight, and when he went for my hair, it wasn’t to braid it this time. He touched it, looping the end around his long finger.
“Believe me, if I could contact her, I would,” he said, a pain in his voice I didn’t understand. Maybe she hadn’t just left me and this town. Maybe she left him too, her best friend. His swallow was hard. “I’d give anything.”
I followed my hair up to his eyes. “Do you know what happened? Why she left? Was it Dad again? Were they fighting?” It always was in the past, every time she left. He was so hard on her, hard like he was on me but she was under his eye every moment of the day. Maybe he’d broken her in the end.
My hair fell from Royal’s fingers when he pulled back, and I felt every inch of the space he placed between us. Gripping the bed, he shifted a little. “I just came to make sure you were okay,” he said. “And if you’ve come for your sister, you should probably go home. She’s not coming back. I know her, and… She’s just not, not this time.”
“Did something happen?”
“Something’s always happening with her,” he said, his tone stiff. “And she wouldn’t want you here for it.”
“Well, I’m not leaving,” I said, watching him get up. “I’m not, and you tell her that.” I meant my reasons behind coming here. I wouldn’t go until she came back. She’d been there for me, time and time again. She brought me back when I was lost. She stayed and I would too.
Royal’s jaw pierced his skin, his gaze panning to Hershey, who was
up on her hind legs. She wagged her little tail, doing her dog smile at him, and he went over to her. He picked her up, cradling her close with only one hand and she looked so small near him.
He handed her to me. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said, so many people saying that to me, and I was sick of it. Why shouldn’t I get my hopes up?
Why did nobody else care?
This guy obviously wasn’t her friend. He should care, care like me. He placed a hand to Hershey’s head, then headed back to my window.
“I need you to keep Hershey a secret,” I said to his back, making him stop. “I mean it. My dad doesn’t know about her yet, and you obviously know how he is.”
Dad would get rid of her. He would without preparation first or a valid argument. Neither of which I’d gotten a chance to come up with yet and wouldn’t if Royal didn’t keep his mouth shut.
He barely glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll keep your secret, princess. But this one… this one will cost you.”
Opening the window, he angled himself out, leaving me, and I shrank into the bed. I let Hershey guide me to sleep with her warmth that night, trying to forget about the other kind that had touched my back and braided my hair.
Eleven
I faked sick dozens if not dozens upon dozens of times in my academic career, but the following day at school, there was no faking. I was damn sick and had Rosanna call in for me. Dad was still away on his business trip, and she was signed up on my account as his parental backup. I stayed home that day both sleeping, recuperating, and playing with Hershey. The following, I had work, and not wanting to explain that absence, I went to school.
That didn’t mean I had to like it.