ROYAL

by Renshaw, Winter

  She’s a liar.

  She’s a dirty, fucking, filthy, drug-addicted liar.

  And she deserves to rot for what she did.

  Chapter Twenty

  Demi

  “The first twenty-four hours will be the most critical.” Brooks’s doctor stands at the foot of his bed, along with an anesthesiologist. Brenda’s on Brooks’s right, and I take his left.

  Mom is in the corner, and Dad, Derek, Delilah, and Haven are in the waiting room. They’re planning to rotate in and out since there can only be three of us in here at a time. They all want to be here, waiting for the moment he finally opens his eyes.

  Brenda threads her hand through her son’s as a nurse tends to his IV drip.

  “We’ll begin by reducing his sedation, little by little,” the doctor explains. “Our tests have indicated that his swelling is subsiding, and the EEGs have all shown promise.”

  I watch his nurse move quickly, switching bags and injecting something into a port with a syringe. She doesn’t flinch, like this is second nature to bring people back to life like this. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have someone’s life in my hands like this.

  “It’s not uncommon,” the anesthesiologist says, “for this to take several attempts. Don’t be alarmed if he doesn’t wake up our first try. We always hope they wake up the first time, but sometimes they don’t. We take that as a sign that the brain’s not ready, and in that case, we would put him back under using the same barbiturate cocktail.”

  “So what are you doing now? How does this work?” Brenda squeezes Brooks’s hand.

  “We’re reducing his sedation, little by little,” his doctor says. “We want to avoid a quick withdrawal. So for now, we reduce and we observe. We’ll be looking for signs, and he’ll be monitored around the clock.”

  “Do we know how much brain damage we’re looking at?” Brenda asks her question like she’s asking about the weather. Her ability to keep it all together and stay so calm never ceases to amaze me.

  “We won’t know until he wakes up.” Brooks’s doctor sticks a pen in his front breast pocket before folding his hands across his hips. “Once he wakes, we’ll run a few simple tests and ask a few questions. If he’s aware of his surroundings, that’s a good sign. If he’s able to say hello, recognize faces, and remember names, that’s even better. We just won’t know until the time comes. Given the extent of the trauma, we’re expecting to see some lasting effects of his brain injury. We just don’t have a way to predict that at this time.”

  Brenda clenches her heart. “Thank you, doctors.”

  The white coats leave and the nurse stays, recording his vitals and silently monitoring the process.

  I adjust my coat over the back of my chair and bunch it up to provide a makeshift pillow. I need to get comfortable, because this is going to be a long night.

  Brenda hasn’t said more than a few words to me since I got here. From across Brooks’s bed, I feel her staring, but I don’t engage.

  “How’re you doing over there, Mom?” I ask.

  My mom smiles and checks her watch. “I’m about to head out and let Derek come in. He’s going to stay for a while, and then he needs to get Haven home to bed.”

  I turn back toward Brooks. He’s less swollen than he was earlier today. Every hour that passes makes him look more like his old self.

  The credit card statements are still scattered on our kitchen floor. I should’ve looked at them to see all the things he was buying, but at the time, I was too busy adding up all the five-figure balances to care.

  His gifts to me were usually modest. Thoughtful little trinkets, nothing major. Definitely not six figures’ worth. I bet he was charging things for his mistress. Expensive lingerie. Jewelry. Cliché little things to make her feel like she’s the special one.

  I don’t know what twenty-eight-year-old man needs a mistress anyway. It’s not like I was forcing him to marry me. Maybe it wasn’t so much about her as it was about the rush he got from his dirty little secret.

  Men and their fucking secrets.

  Brenda stares at my hands, and I suddenly realize I’m ripping a piece of Kleenex to shreds.

  “Nervous, sweetheart?” she asks. Her endearment calms me and gives me hope that maybe she isn’t on to me. Maybe she’s not well on her way to hating me—yet. “He’s going to be fine. He’s going to wake up. I just know it. I ran into Sister Sapphire outside Greenberg’s Deli yesterday, and she told me she had a vision about Brooks, and he’s going to be just fine.”

  Sister Sapphire. The town psychic.

  I never understood why no one ever questioned her high rates, low accuracy, and the fact that she lived in a McMansion down the road from me and drove a hundred-thousand-dollar Aston Martin.

  I guess when you make a living telling people what they want to hear and people are willing to pay up, you can charge whatever you want.

  Brooks managed her assets at his firm, and he suggested on several occasions that I should give up teaching kindergarteners in lieu of learning the art of cold reading.

  “That’s good to hear,” I say. I slip my hand into Brooks’s. She smiles. I inwardly cringe.

  “Excuse me.” Mom rises and moves toward the door. “I’m going to get Derek. I know he wanted to leave here by eleven.”

  “Sure, Mom,” I say.

  “I was going to tell you, sweetheart,” Brenda says once Mom leaves. “My sister’s Go Fund Me efforts have raised nearly fifty thousand dollars in the past week. Isn’t that incredible? This community is so generous. So many people are concerned about Brooks. They love my son so much, don’t they?”

  “Wow. That’s quite impressive.”

  “Now, our insurance will cover Brooks’s rehabilitation expenses, but I was thinking that perhaps you could quit your job at the elementary school and commit to taking care of Brooks full time?”

  My jaw hangs on its hinges.

  Any teacher knows you don’t walk away from a job you love at a school you love with a principal you love. That kind of trifecta in this industry is rare.

  “I, uh . . . I don’t know what to say.” I’m burning. My throat constricts. I need a drink of water and fresh air, or I’m going to lose it.

  “Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing to say. I’ve already cleared everything with Principal McLean. You know she and I go way back. She’s a very good friend of mine. She said she has a substitute filling in for you through the end of the year, but she’ll go ahead and terminate your contract. You won’t have to worry about going back after Christmas or next year. You can focus solely on Brooks.” Brenda smiles, patting his hand. “He’s going to need you, Demi—your undivided attention.”

  Wonderful.

  Just wonderful.

  “I really love my job, Brenda,” I say. “You didn’t have to do that. I wanted to go back. And we don’t know how long his recovery will take. Don’t you think that was a little premature?”

  “Nonsense.” She swats her hand. “You would’ve quit your job anyway after the wedding. Brooks needs a woman of the house, and you’re worth more than that paltry salary anyway. Your place is in the home. Abbott women run households, and the only snotty noses we wipe are those of the children we bear ourselves.”

  Brenda’s lips pull into a warm smile to soften her crass words. I can’t help but wonder if she knows exactly what she’s doing—if the sweet space cadet thing is just an act. Maybe she’s one of those people with a personality disorder who manipulate everyone around them without anyone ever noticing.

  All her quirks, all her idiosyncrasies . . . I’d always written them off, laughed and joked about them.

  But this is where I draw the line.

  “Brenda, I really wish you wouldn’t have done that.” My eyes burn. I feel the tears building behind them.

  “Sweetheart, why are you so upset? I thought I was doing you a favor. Teachers could lose their licenses for abandoning contracts. This way you won’t have to deal with any negative fallout from
not returning to your job,” she says. “I was only trying to help.”

  I’m two seconds from telling her about the credit cards he charged up in my name when Derek waltzes in.

  “I won’t stay long,” he says. “Just wanted to show my support and check on our guy.”

  Brenda rises, arms wide open, and embraces my brother. “I appreciate your coming by, Derek. I’ll be sure to let Brooks know you were here.”

  She speaks as if he’s going to wake up any minute and life will return to business as usual.

  I hope to God he does wake up any minute.

  And I hope he’s coherent, because as soon as he’s able, he’s got a lot of explaining to do.

  Plus, I want my job back before it’s too late. I need my job back.

  When Derek leaves, Brenda points toward a chair that pulls out into a bed. “Why don’t you get some rest, sweetheart? I’ll wake you if there’s any activity. I know you won’t want to miss anything, and the Rixton Falls Herald will be here in the morning to interview us.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know anything about an interview. What if he’s not awake by then?”

  “It’s just an update,” she says. “That Afton has taken a very keen interest in Brooks’s story.”

  I find that impossible to believe. The girl’s questions were trite and unoriginal, and she looked like she was two seconds from dying of boredom when I saw her.

  “Oh, okay.” I unfold the chair and make myself a little bed. Not sure how much sleeping I’ll be doing tonight, but I’m going to try.

  Something tells me tomorrow’s going to be a long day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Royal

  “Mona, open up.” I pound on the front porch door of my biological mother’s saggy-roofed house. For as long as I can remember, she’s lived in this hellhole, rotting floors and all.

  We were extracted from her care when I was in first grade. Misty was still in diapers. And ironically enough, when shit went down seven years ago, Mona was the only one there for me. She came to my trial and visited me in prison.

  It’s the only reason I’m standing here, pounding on her door, or giving her the time of day.

  “Royal? That you?” The creak of her front door is followed by the stench of cat piss and dirty litter boxes. “Hey, baby, come on in.”

  I show myself in. Mona’s in a yellow mu mu with Hawaiian flowers. She waddles to the living room and plops down, all five hundred pounds of her, and lifts her remote to pause her show.

  “Ain’t seen you in a good while, Son,” she says. Mona grins with a mouthful of pearly whites. Those are new. Must’ve finally gotten those dentures.

  I hate when she calls me Son. Like we’re family. I mean, we are, by blood, but where was she all those years I was shipped around from foster family to foster family? I’m convinced the only reason she reappeared in my life at nineteen was because she’d finally gotten cleaned up and realized she had no one left.

  She had no choice but to try to make amends.

  Out of everyone, she believed me when I told her I was innocent. Or at least, she said she did.

  “Did you tell Misty where I live?” I stand in the middle of her living room. Every time I sit for too long, I leave here smelling like death and can’t get the smell out of my nose for days.

  Mona’s moon-shaped face scrunches, and when she shakes her head, her chins flop.

  “No, baby,” she says. “Misty knows better than to ask me that.”

  “She showed up at my place,” I say. “Wanted me to take her in off the streets.”

  Mona rolls her eyes. “What’s she doing on the streets? Rick kick her out?”

  “She said Rick died.”

  Mona’s small mouth hangs, and she lifts a pudgy couple of fingers to her lips like I’ve just delivered tragic news.

  “Your sister is troubled.” Mona states what we both know to be the indisputable truth. She hasn’t had much to do with Misty since everything went down seven years ago, but I think she wishes she could bring us all together again. One little, happy family.

  Never going to happen.

  “Where’d she go?” Mona asks.

  I shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  She clucks her tongue, tilting her head and exhaling. She’s so loud when she breathes. The doctors want her on oxygen, but she’s refusing until it’s absolutely necessary.

  “Might be time to start forgiving and forgetting, Royal,” she wheezes. “How long you going to hold onto that night?”

  I stare into her beady eyes, my shoulders heaving with each drag of a breath. The fact that she has the audacity to suggest such a thing is infuriating.

  “That night,” I say, “cost me everything. I’ll never forget.”

  I’m not sticking around.

  I move to the door, turn back, and look at Mona one more time.

  “I wish I could,” I say.

  “Baby, people change all the time. You two are both young. I’m not going to be around forever, and someday when I’m gone, all you’ll have is each other,” she says. “I’m just saying, don’t write your sister off forever because of one little mistake she made at fifteen.”

  “Little?” I spit the word at her. “Little?”

  “You know what I mean, Royal.”

  With that, I’m gone. I don’t trust myself to not say horrible things, hurtful things I can never take back. How fucking dare Mona lecture me on family? Of all people. The woman who left her kids to feast on canned cat food after a four-day casino binge. The woman who let CPS remove her children and didn’t once try and stop them.

  She’s lucky I’ve forgiven her.

  But I’ll never forgive Misty.

  Never.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Demi

  I wake to the sound of Brooks’s machines still breathing his every breath. Brenda’s passed out in a chair at his side. My hand flies to a shooting pain zinging up my neck.

  Brooks’s eyes are shut. He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t awoken.

  His nurse steps lightly across the room when she sees I’m up.

  “No change,” she whispers.

  I nod and gather my things. I’m going to step out and update my family, and they don’t allow phones in here. Plus, I don’t want to wake Brenda.

  I leave his room and find a quiet corner in the waiting area, firing off group texts and posting an update on the Facebook page someone created. There are twenty thousand followers on that damn page. That’s double the population of Rixton Falls. It’s insane how quickly word spreads.

  As soon as I publish my post, the little red notification pops up. Two people liked it within seconds. Then six. Then fourteen. Five comments. Then eight. Then eleven. Thirty-six likes. Fifty-four. Twenty comments.

  It doesn’t stop.

  I close out of the app and slide my phone in my pocket. I can’t possibly respond to all of them.

  “Demi?”

  I glance across the room to see Afton, the reporter from The Herald, approaching me. She’s dressed down today. Skinny jeans and a white blouse. Her beige coat is unbuttoned, and her blonde hair is pulled into a low bun. Gold and amethyst earrings dangle from her ears.

  Afton looking so put-together makes me hyper-aware of the fact that I look like I very much just rolled out of bed.

  “Hi, Afton.” I try not to hide my disappointment in her timing. My hair’s a mess and my breath tastes funky, and I’m not exactly in the mood to answer her lame questions.

  “Did Brenda tell you I was coming this morning?”

  “Yeah. She didn’t say what time.”

  Afton toys with the press pass hanging from a black lanyard around her neck. “I was in the area a little earlier than usual today.”

  “Not from Rixton Falls?”

  “Nope,” she says. “Brooks . . . he didn’t wake up, did he?”

  Her eyes soften, and I spot hope in her stare. She doesn’t conduct herself like a respectable journalist. She speaks to me
like we’re on the same level, a couple of old friends.

  “Where are you from, Afton?” I ask.

  “Pardon?”

  “You said you’re not from Rixton Falls.” I massage the back of my neck where it hurts. “Where are you from?”

  Her pale cheeks turn a pretty shade of rose, and it’s not from her blush.

  “A little town north of here,” she says. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Glidden,” she says. Her gaze falls to my ring. “Ever heard of it?”

  I feel color draining from my face as I stare into her eyes.

  It could all be a coincidence.

  A very big, huge, weird coincidence.

  “I have. Why don’t I see if Brenda’s up?” I point toward the corridor. No part of me wants to stand around and imagine pretty Afton all over my ex-fiancé, because that’s exactly what I’ll do—whether or not she is the mystery woman. “I’m sure she’d love to give you some quotes for your article.”

  Before she has a chance to protest, I turn on my heel and trek back to Brooks’s room.

  Only I’m not prepared to walk in and see him sitting up.

  Eyes open.

  Awake.

  Air is siphoned from my lungs, and my hands clutch at my neck.

  “B-Brooks,” I say.

  Brenda turns to face me, tears in her eyes. Her smile fades for a moment. She’s disappointed in me for missing the moment he opened his eyes for the first time in a week.

  “I—I went out there to make some phone calls,” I say, taking a seat at his side like the dutiful fiancé Brenda believes me to be.

  Brooks’s nurse scurries around the room in an excited frenzy. A page for his doctors blasts through the hospital intercom system. Outside the room, more nurses walk past, popping their heads in and smiling.

  The whole floor is celebrating.

  Brenda takes his hands, bringing them to her lips.

  Brooks’s eyes shift to mine.

  And I wonder if he remembers.