Brightly Burning Bridges: A Bully Romance (Kings of Capital)

by Ivy Wild

  Garrett grunted his response, confirming my suspicions that he was balls deep in the girl and I blew past them and back inside the manor. I almost ran through the corridor to get to the library. The door was ajar, confirming what I’d seen earlier. Someone definitely had broken my one fucking rule and they were gonna pay.

  I pushed the door open slowly, fully expecting to see a pair of horny teenagers defacing my mother’s library. Except, that’s not what I saw at all. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing actually.

  It was a girl, yes. But for a moment, my mind couldn’t tell if I was seeing a ghost or an angel. Her hair was as white as the overdone crown molding above her and her pale skin almost glowed against the backdrop of the setting sun. She had one of my mother’s books in her delicate hands and she was smiling slightly as she turned a page carefully.

  She must have finally realized she wasn’t alone because she looked up and the smile on her pale pink lips faded into a look of panic.

  “Who are you?” I asked. I wasn’t angry anymore. More curious now. Which was odd. This girl had broken into my house, into my mother’s fucking library and was touching her things and yet, for some reason, I didn’t mind. I just wanted to know more about her.

  “I, uh.” Her soft voice stumbled over her words as she gently closed the book and hugged it to her form. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

  I smirked, my interest in this girl growing by the minute. “What’s your name?” I asked, taking a step closer to her. She looked to be my age, maybe only slightly younger. She backed up by one step to keep the same amount of distance between us.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in that timid voice of hers again.

  “Your name is ‘I’m sorry?’” I asked, teasing her because she was making it just too damn easy.

  She shook her head and clutched the book tighter, backing up another step to match my advances.

  I took another step towards her. “What are you doing in my mother’s library?”

  She tried to avoid my eyes, but she couldn’t. The moment we locked gazes I almost dropped the act, but I was too practiced by now. Her eyes were a stunning pale lavender. I’d never seen eyes like hers before.

  “I, uh,” she hesitated, looking down at the floor. “I just wanted to escape the noise.”

  I stopped, suddenly unsure about whether I wanted to continue to mess with this girl. Pointing out the imaginary demons of others helped keep my own real ones quiet. But, this girl seemed like hers were real too. She seemed like me.

  The silence stretched between us and suddenly she was moving forward. She tried to slide past me but I wasn’t letting her go that easily. The subtle scent of vanilla and lilac surrounded me and I tried to convince myself I wanted her to stay because she was still holding onto one of my mother’s books, but I didn’t know if that was true.

  “Wait,” I said, reaching out for her arm. She jerked away from me quite suddenly, trying to avoid my touch and lost her balance. I watched as she went tumbling into a side table, knocking down a vase of dying carnations in the process. The vase shattered against the porcelain floor, glass shards flying everywhere.

  I watched her lavender eyes look around her in horror, still hugging the book tightly to her chest. I ran my hands through my blond locks in frustration. My eyes met hers and I could see the panic written clear on her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. Of the things in the room that my mother actually cared about, I knew she would have preferred the book to be protected over the vase. Even still . . . A smile crept across my lips, but I pushed it back down.

  “Do you know how much that vase cost?” I asked her, my tone demanding.

  She shook her head as she started to stand, her eyes fixated on the door and her escape.

  “Don’t even think about leaving,” I drawled. “This is going to have to be made right.”

  She shook her head, still clutching the damn book. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any way to pay for it.”

  “Likely story,” I scoffed. If she was at this party, that meant she went to King’s Academy. Which meant she came from money.

  She shook her head fervently. “My mother and I just moved into the neighborhood. She’s a live-in caretaker.”

  The words fell out of her mouth in a rushed sentence. It was the most I’d heard her talk all night.

  “Well, then you’ll have to figure out a different way to pay me back.”

  Her features turned sour and she leered at me. “You’re a pig.” Her words were soft but full of venom.

  I threw up my hands and chuckled. “Not like that, sweetheart.” I had to give it to this girl, though. Any other girl at our school probably would have jumped at the opportunity, dignity be damned. “You seem like a good student.” I raised my eyebrow at her and she nodded shyly. “Good. Because I think I’d rather spend my time enjoying my senior year than doing homework. I’ll count every homework assignment as $100 towards your debt.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “And how much is this vase supposedly worth?” Her attitude was starting to shift and I could see a bit of fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Little did she know, I loved a challenge.

  I pretended to consider the broken pieces of glass on the floor. “A genuine Baccarat crystal vase?” I tapped a finger to my lips and looked between her and the broken vase. “Fifty thousand dollars,” I finally said.

  She pursed her lips. “Fucking rich people,” I heard her mutter and my eyes widened in genuine shock.

  “What was that?”

  Her demeanor shifted and she shook her head, returning to her former, timid self. “Nothing. Fine, but papers are worth a grand.”

  I smiled. “Five hundred.”

  She shook her head, her pure white hair moving back and forth. “No way. I’m the real deal.”

  I smirked as I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I bet you are, sweetheart. Fine, a cool grand for papers. And until it’s paid off, you’re all mine.”

  “And my name’s not ‘sweetheart.’ It’s Skyler.”

  But before I could respond, a hushed voice calling her name echoed from the hallway. Skyler’s eyes widened, indicating she recognized it. She blew past me, the glass of the vase crunching against her sneakers.

  “Oh my gosh, Skyler, where have you been? If Silas catches us up here, he’s going to—” The words died on Elyse’s lips as I leaned against the doorframe of the library.

  “Silas is going to do what?” I smirked, crossing my arms.

  “Fuck,” Elyse cursed with a roll of her eyes. “Look, Silas, my parents forced me to bring her with me when I told them I was going out.” Elyse lived a few houses down the street from me and was as awful as they came. And this was coming from me and it wasn’t just because we’d hooked up a few times before I got bored of her. If a rumor started up in the school, you could guarantee it originated with Elyse. She was untouchable in so many ways, but so was I. We had a mutual respect for one another as a result and mostly stayed out of each other’s way.

  “It’s fine,” I said, waving her off. “We were just talking.”

  Elyse narrowed her eyes at me and I scowled at her. “Whatever,” she said with a huff. “Come on Skyler, let’s go.”

  I held my hand out and Skyler looked at it before fixing her lavender eyes on me for the last time that evening. She pushed the book she’d been holding the entire evening forward and into my hands before turning on her heel and bounding away, her silvery hair catching the last rays of sun through the hallway windows.

  I ignored the look of disdain that Elyse shot me before she followed Skyler down the hallway. I was too interested in the book I was holding to be bothered with her nonsense.

  The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.

  My favorite book. And it was almost as interesting as a girl named Skyler.

  * * *

  “Just what the hell did you think you were doing, Skyler?” Elyse said as we made our w
ay back to her house. Well, I guess technically it was our house now, but it didn’t feel like that. My mother was an assisted living caretaker and my entire life we’d moved from house to house wherever she was able to find work.

  Elyse’s grandfather had fallen ill last month and her family had hired my mother to help with his care. He needed round-the-clock care, so we’d moved into the small poolhouse apartment on their property.

  After a single week in this neighborhood, I knew I was going to hate living here. My mother and I had a weird existence measured by an odd variable. The longer someone stayed alive, the longer we got to stay put. And the reverse was also true.

  Sometimes it had me wishing that people would pass on quicker, which I knew was a terrible thing to wish. I didn’t know Elyse’s grandfather. I never usually knew any of the people my mother was tasked with caring for. Usually, by the time my mother was called, they didn’t have a long time left in this world. But even still, I felt bad hoping that Mr. Touper, Sr. would pass on quicker just so I didn’t have to be around his granddaughter any longer.

  “No one is allowed upstairs,” Elyse continued to lecture. “And I can’t believe you tried to steal something.”

  I thought maybe she would realize how insensitive her words sounded and that she would stop and apologize, but she didn’t. She just continued to vent her unwarranted frustration, all while making it seem like I was some sort of criminal because me and my mother weren’t in the same tax bracket as her family.

  “You’re lucky,” she added. “He probably just took pity on you.”

  “Prolly,” I managed to reply back. I knew I needed to keep my mouth shut. Even though I knew I was going to hate going to King’s Academy and living in this ridiculous neighborhood, I wouldn’t jeopardize this job for my mother. And for some reason, I had a feeling that if Elyse stomped her foot enough, she might just get her way.

  So I pushed down the anger I felt at her words and kept quiet the entire drive home. Despite what Elyse said, I think the most ridiculous thing was that she insisted driving her Jaguar F-type to the party when Silas’ house was literally a quarter mile from hers.

  She pushed the button for the garage door and looked at me expectantly. Another thing to add to my growing list of “hate” as far as Elyse was concerned. She didn’t want me in her house—not even the garage.

  “Thanks,” I said quietly, trying to hide the rage in my voice. I closed the door before she had a chance to respond and made my way to the backyard. My mother was sitting on the couch, still in her scrubs, flipping through a few channels when I walked inside. She looked so very different than I did, and it wasn’t because I looked like my father, wherever the hell he was.

  She perked up as I walked in and shut off the television. “How was the party?” she asked, a bit of hope in her eyes. I didn’t want to be the one to kill it, so I lied.

  “Fun.”

  A smile lit up her tired features and even as exhausted as she looked, I still didn’t understand why my father would leave a woman as beautiful as her. Maria Jackson had tanned skin, long brown hair, dark eyes and full red lips. Her figure was a little fuller these days, but even still, I was so envious of her.

  I did not inherit my mother’s tanned skin, red lips or dark eyes. Instead, I’d been born with albinism, which left me lacking, among other things, pigment in my hair and skin. I was the ironic black sheep of the family.

  My mother had been born in Honduras but my grandparents had won a visa lottery when she was just a baby and they’d been allowed to immigrate to the States. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity at a better life for their family. My grandparents both worked at a fabrications factory until they passed away a few years ago.

  I was apparently a surprise for my mother and my father agreed to marry her upon hearing the news. She was only eighteen at the time, but she claimed they were in love. It was obvious he didn’t love me, though, since he ran out on her once I was born.

  “Did you make any friends?” mom asked.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the only thing I’d managed to do was break a vase allegedly worth $50,000 and get myself signed up for a year’s worth of indentured servitude. I also didn’t know how to even voice what I was feeling about my would-be overseer. So, I said, “yeah,” instead.

  I still didn’t know how I was going to handle the Silas-situation. But, I didn’t want to think about that right now. Right now, I wanted to microwave something to eat and watch television with my mom.

  I opened the freezer and debated which one of my mom’s Weight Watchers frozen dinners I wanted. I pulled out the macaroni and cheese and ripped it from the box, tossing it in the microwave on high.

  My mom turned the television back on and I stood in front of the device, watching it spin the little plastic tray around and around. I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to my own life. Only problem was that I was pretty sure I was the plastic dish. Or worse, I was the macaroni.

  The timer beeped and I fished it out with a fork, pushing it onto a plate before trying to stir the few bites of dinner together to heat up the center. The centers of these dishes always stayed ice cold when I made them while the edges were burning hot.

  “You should throw it back in for another thirty seconds,” my mom said from her spot on the couch as I made my way over. “The middle’s gonna be cold otherwise.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I was used to the cold center by now. In some ways, it made the edges feel warmer. “It’s fine,” I replied.

  “Suit yourself,” my mom said, lowering the volume to the television. I knew that meant she wanted to tell me something. On cue, she turned to me and sighed. “Look, Sky honey. I know this move was unexpected and this neighborhood is going to take a little getting used to for us.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that. I was happy in our last home. The family wasn’t wealthy like the Toupers, but they paid my mom enough so that we were comfortable by our standards. And they didn’t treat us like we were the “help.” There were a number of times we had dinner together and when Mrs. Simons passed, I was genuinely sad. Not because we had to move, but because Mrs. Simons had been one of those rare and beautiful human beings that was incapable of judging others because she had been judged herself. She had lost her eyesight as a young girl, so she never knew what I looked like. Which meant her opinion of me and the way she treated me had never changed. She’d kept her wits till her very last breath and I missed her even now.

  But that’s what happened when you worked in this industry. The Grim Reaper came with our eviction notice. The Simons lived in a normal neighborhood and I’d gotten the chance to go to a normal high school. I liked it there and had a few friends. The school district told my mother that I could stay and finish out my senior year if I wanted to, but we both knew that wasn’t possible. There was no way my mother could afford to pay room and board for me, even if I had a place to stay. And besides, I wasn’t going to let my mother move to a new city alone.

  “It’s fine, mom,” I said, taking a bite of my dinner. “I’ll get used to it. I always do.”

  My mom smiled, a tinge of sadness in her eyes before she blew me a kiss. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, my angel.”

  I smiled and took another bite of my dinner, the noodles still slightly frozen.

  I clutched the piece of paper to my hand as I walked through the maze of corridors. My shoulders ached from carrying a full load of books the entire day and the bell dismissing classes had rung over thirty minutes ago, but I was still stuck wandering the halls. I grimaced as I realized that I had definitely missed the buses and there was no way that Elyse would have waited for me, even if she’d been agreeable to being seen with me at school.

  The realization that I’d be walking the three miles back to the poolhouse made it only that much more important that I find my locker. I tried to make sense of the numbers on the metal cabinets as I walked and finally recognized a pattern. I made my way down the entire co
rridor, my shoulders screaming with each step, before finally locating the last locker at the end of the row that matched the slip of paper.

  If I were anyone else, I’d be upset about getting the locker the furtherest from the classrooms. But as I dropped my bag to the polished porcelain floor, I realized I didn’t mind it. My locker may have been the last, but it was located adjacent to a wall of windows overlooking a fountain and was right next to a seldom-used stairwell. Besides, I rather liked the idea of having an excuse to get away from everyone.

  I held up the slip of paper and moved the glossy dial left and right before pulling up on the chrome latch. The cabinet opened and a piece of paper fluttered down in front of me. I furrowed my brow as I leaned to pick it up.

  “Assignment 1: Meet me at the fountain after school.”

  My lips twisted as I looked at the font scribbled on the page. I didn’t need the author to sign his name. I already knew which one of the supposed “Kings” of King’s Academy this was from. I looked through the window at the fountain below my locker and sure enough, Silas was there. His bright blond hair caught the sun as he skipped rocks against the surface of the fountain. If he wasn’t such an asshole, it would have been a rather moving moment.

  He looked up, catching my gaze briefly before that resident smirk lifted his lips. He gestured for me to come down with one finger and I rolled my eyes before leaning down and depositing my books into my locker. I hoped I was far enough away from the window to hide the middle finger I flipped him in return, but his obvious chuckle told me I wasn’t so lucky.

  I pressed open the door to the stairwell and made my way downstairs. My sneakers squeaked against the metal as the bang of my footsteps echoed throughout the column. In some ways, it made me feel bigger than I really was and I liked it. Most of the time I was trying to blend in, which was a laughable goal as far as I was concerned, but still I tried. It was nice to just embrace being loud and obvious sometimes. I crashed through the door that led to the outdoor fountain area where Silas was waiting.