Privileged

by Carrie Aarons

  My heart dips and flops over, defeated from his charm and mouth.

  After our sandwiches are finished, we hit a couple more stores, looking at vintage T-shirts with old band logos on them, and others with things like artisanal soaps and wines from all over Europe. Hand in hand, we walk the entire market, not bustling about or in a hurry to get anywhere. It’s one of the best days I’ve had since we moved to London, and it’s spent doing virtually nothing but eating and chatting with Asher.

  By the end of the afternoon, and a cranberry pudding later, I’m leaning my head against Asher’s shoulder in a taxi back to the palace. Neither of us talks, because the silence is companionable and there are no words necessary in this moment. I’m more comfortable here, with his arm around my shoulder, protecting me as the car weaves through end of day London traffic, than I have been almost anywhere in my life.

  I’ve said it before, but I never knew much about what I wanted. Sure, I’ve always been smart, but I’ve never had a clear path of where I’ve wanted that to take me. I’ve never had a close group of friends, more have I really sought one out. There’s never been a real need for me to be a fighter or a peacemaker, or make much of a decision about anything.

  But being with Asher, it’s the first thing that I’ve actively wanted. The thing I’ve felt a need for, yearned for, craved. And while it scared me immensely, it also emboldened me. Lit a fire in my belly and made me want to try my hardest at this … harder than I’d ever tried at anything before.

  There was also a calming sense that came over my body, in times of peace like right now. Everything at this moment was right in the universe, and I wasn’t going to fight it one bit.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Asher

  The holiday season in London has always been a time for great jubilee. Parties and seasonal cheer and everyone singing carols.

  Bloody shit, I hated it. In our house, it was always a gloomy couple of months, overshadowed by my mother’s death and my father hitting the liquor cabinet extra hard.

  But this year, I had to pretend. Put on my knit green and red sweater and fake my love for Christmas movies and hot cocoa with marshmallows. All because Nora and I were together, really together, and I was homing in on my final step.

  “You know I’ve never attended this stupid thing, and I’m only doing it for you.” I pull on the bowtie at my neck, annoyed that I have to yet again squeeze into a tuxedo.

  It was true, I’d never gone to the Winter Ball at Winston, but I was going this year simply because Nora had never been asked to a dance.

  “Thank you for asking me. And for putting up with festivities, I know how much of a Grinch you are.”

  “I’ll be even grinchier if you make me watch that incessant Jim Carrey in a fat green suit one more time.”

  “I used to wish I could live in Whoville when I was younger.” She fastens an earring in and spritzes some bottle from her dresser on her neck.

  I’m now a regular visitor at Kensington Palace, after our successful trip to Switzerland over a month ago. That night in my bedroom not only secured her and put her faith in me back on solid ground, but it had also been one of the hottest nights of my life. There was something sexier than shagging a woman when it came to Nora. Her innocence, her tentativeness when I undressed her, the way she’d unraveled as she orgasmed into my hands. God, I was hard as a fully-cocked shotgun each time I thought about it.

  And the first time she’d gone down on me, just a week ago, keeping her eyes locked on mine for directions … well I about lost it a second into her wrapping her lips around my shaft.

  “Does this look all right?”

  Nora shifts her feet in front of me, looking to see if I deem her worthy of going to the dance with me. Even though she had more brains than our entire school put together, and could be the sassiest mouth I’d ever engaged with … there was still this schoolgirl insecurity that made her so appealing.

  She shimmered like a real live snowflake, the long silvery column dress hugging her slim figure. Her red hair curled up on top of her head, looking like ringlets of fire falling down onto her cheeks.

  “You look … edible.” I rise from her desk chair and walk across her room, bending down to bite the tip of her nose.

  “Sweet.” She rolls her eyes, and I wish we could stay here and I could show her just how edible she really is.

  We walk down the stairs of the palace apartment together, my arm a balance for her in her high heels. My head is on a swivel, as it always is when I’m here, tracking Bennett. Tonight though, he and Rachel are in Canada on official business, something Nora told me when she was upset that her mom couldn’t be there to see her off for her first school dance.

  I’ve only seen Bennett once in my visits to hang out with Nora, and that time, just like at the regatta, he didn’t recognize who I was. He still didn’t realize that the son of his mistress was the one with his hands and lips all over his stepdaughter. And each time I entered the space he called home, I burned with the fury of knowing that he lived the life of a prince while my mother was cold in her grave.

  Nora’s chauffeur took us over to Winston, which was decorated with its traditional Christmas trimmings. The school spared no expense in its decor or Winter Ball budget, and when we walked into the auditorium, it looked like one of the grandest halls in London itself. White and silver fake snow, green and red curtains hung like a canopy from the ceiling, chiavari chairs and a full on buffet with food choices from all over Europe.

  “I spiked the punch.” Drake walked up to us, his eyes already drowsy with drink.

  Nora hit his shoulder. “Why did you have to do that? You’re incorrigible.”

  She and Drake had a banter between them that I didn’t understand, but they had a riot keeping it up.

  I squeeze Nora’s hand where it’s threaded in mine, and Speri walks up and glances at the gesture between us. My group of friends has been weirdly supportive of our relationship, not that we talk about it all that much. They know we are together, and they give us our space. I thought they would have been teasing or suspicious, but that’s just my paranoia. No one, not even Ed, knows the real reason that I’m with her.

  But I guess they’ll find out soon enough.

  “Could this band be any more boring?” Speri huffs, and we all look at the twelve-piece band playing some classical song.

  “Ed, go flirt with the violinist and ask her to play some Rihanna, or at least Katy Perry,” Katherine jokes.

  The place is packed with Winston students of all ages, and I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different if I’d grown up with two happy parents like most of my classmates. Would I have come to this formal every year? Would I have had a steady, healthy relationship? Would I be blissfully ignorant like all of these bloody people?

  “Ouch.” Nora lets go of my hand, I realize I was squeezing the circulation out of her fingers.

  “Sorry, love. Want to get something to drink?” I want to get her away from my group of friends.

  As what I knew would be the end of our relationship loomed nearer, I wanted to cut off her contact from the group as much as possible. I wanted her left with no lifelines, no one to turn to. By hurting her as much as humanly possible, I would hurt him. The acid in my stomach churned ever more rapidly.

  “So, what is the most favorite Christmas present you ever received?” Nora put her hands on my hips as I sipped the water bottle I’d picked up out of the bucket.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug and look around the dance floor, avoiding her question.

  “Oh, come on … you have to have a favorite. An electronic dog? No, you grew up rich. What, the Maserati you got when you were twelve?” She chuckles.

  Nora is completely comfortable with me now, caught exactly where I want her in my crosshairs. Which makes it ever more difficult for more. On one hand, I’ve accomplished what I wanted to. But on the other, it came with something I wasn’t expecting at all. I actually have real feeli
ngs for this girl. I thought I would be able to deflect them, to guard myself from the emotions that would come along with spending so much time with someone. But I’m not immune … and now I care about her. I find myself trying to make her laugh, or craving her touch when we’re in a room full of people.

  I think hard, tapping my finger to my chin. “Fine … when I was eight I got a guitar. A Martin Vintage, made in nineteen twenty-six. It was beautiful, all polished wood and perfectly tuned acoustic strings. I spent hours trying to play that thing, perfecting songs on it.”

  “I didn’t know you played an instrument.” Her smile is smitten with my revelation.

  “Yeah, my mum tried to teach me, she was the one with the musical gene.” My hands froze where they’d been rubbing her back.

  “Does she still play?” Nora’s voice is small, and she knows that I haven’t mentioned my mother before.

  Someone laughs in the background as the band switches songs. The different noises of the ball filter in and out of my ears, and rage simmers in my veins thinking about the role her new family played in my mother’s death.

  “No, she doesn’t.” I don’t elaborate.

  We’re interrupted by someone coming over the loud speaker. “And now, it’s time to crown the annual King and Queen of the Winter Ball! You voted all week for your favorite classmates, and now it’s time to see who you all think is the most beloved couple here at Winston!”

  Everyone in the room turns toward the stage, and I can’t help but grumble my annoyance. While I may be one of the “popular” kids here, I could not be more removed from the politics and gossip of the school. I’m so aloof that for some wonky reason, it makes people want to know more about me than if I were involved.

  “And your King and Queen of this year’s Winter Ball are … Asher Frederick and Nora Randolph!”

  The room erupts into applause, and my stomach turns to bile. I hadn’t even realized that so many people in this spoiled playground knew we were together, but apparently I didn’t fly as under the radar as I had hoped.

  “What?!” Nora’s face was pure glee, while inside I was panicking.

  She grabbed my hand and started walking to the stage, and I followed with numb limbs. I walked up the stairs, waited while they put the crown on her head and then put one on mine.

  Looking at her, standing next to me in her queen’s fashion, I could just imagine the gaudy thing cracking and falling to the ground. Just like I was hoping her life would do when I finally exposed the McAlister name and all of the atrocities he’d committed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nora

  The definition of genius is one who has exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability. And where do they collect geniuses?

  Mensa.

  I tested into the high IQ society when I was only eight, scoring in the whopping hundredth percentile on a standard IQ test. I was written about in textbooks, secured a corner of the local paper, and was called upon by university heads and scholars to visit their facilities. Once there, I was given math problems, science theories, legal hypotheticals and other categories in which they quizzed my knowledge. My brain was studied through MRI machines and CAT scans; medical professionals wanted to try to pinpoint the source of my intelligence. Said they’d never seen anything like me.

  For all of the travel and voluntary testing I went through, we were compensated. Very well, actually. One university had given me a grant that would fully fund my college studies when it came time. Another paid my mother a lump sum just to have me sit in on lectures for a week and give my theories, of which fascinated the professors who attended.

  It wasn’t until about puberty that the headaches and anxiety came on. Doctors could never find the answer, or the cure, to why my brain seemed to overload itself. One second I would be fine, doing my homework at the kitchen table, and another I’d be doubled over in pain. Cluster migraines, they’d diagnosed, that seized my cranium, temporarily took my vision, and left me down and out for a week.

  They always came on around times of testing, and I started to notice a pattern.

  So today, as I’m studying for midterms at Asher’s house, and my hand begins to shake, I can’t help it that I drop the water glass I’d been about to drink from.

  The glass shatters on the hardwood of his living room floor, and he jumps. “Are you okay?!”

  He looks surprised, worry creasing his handsome face, but I can’t move. My heart rate shoots up like a nonstop elevator to the top floor. I can feel the familiar pressure crawl up and over my chest like a lion ready to pounce, and the breath wheezing in and out of my lungs. My hands shake, the back of my neck becoming cold and clammy. The only word that I repeat over and over in my head is no.

  “No, what? Nora?” Asher practically leaps off of the couch where he was lying down reading, and crouches next to me on the floor.

  I must be saying it out loud, but I can’t stop. I rock, willing the beast of anxiety to get off of my chest, to let me go.

  “Love, what’s wrong? Do you need … should I call your mom? An ambulance?”

  His hands come up to frame my face, and his warm touch helps to ease a bit of the pressure from my lungs.

  “Anxiety … attack. I … I get them.” I concentrate on breathing through the words, still rocking as he positions his body protectively around mine.

  “What can I do? How do I—”

  Asher sounds helpless, and his fear only makes the attack ripping through me get worse. My vision starts to spark and dim at the corners, so I grab his arms, throwing myself against his body. I’ve never tried the weight technique, would never let Mom spend the ridiculous amount of money it costs to buy one of those special blankets.

  But I don’t have my mom here, or my normal medicines. And if I get up and walk out on unsteady legs, he’ll only follow me.

  So I do the one thing I have at my disposal. I use him. “Hold … me.”

  As if he’s a surgeon jumping to work, Asher’s arms lock around me. His legs lock around mine, putting us in a pretzel twist as I sit shaking in his lap. Squeezing as hard as he can, his lips comes to my ear.

  “I’ve got you. I’m right here, Nora.”

  He’s anchoring me to the ground, keeping me from trying to rip out of my own skin as the anxiety ripples from my brain to my toes. The weight of his body around me as my nervous system goes haywire actually feels … calming.

  Slowly, I can feel the air begin to fully fill my lungs, the feeling in my fingers where they clutch Asher’s shoulders tingles back to life. I exhale, laying my head in the crook of his neck, my brain settling down and all of the thoughts that left me stranded in the dark go back into their black box of doom.

  He loosens his grip, gently rubbing circles onto my back as I wipe away the tears I didn’t realize were falling.

  “If you wanted to get in my lap, you didn’t have to fake an anxiety attack to do it.” His voice is a whispered smile as he continues to hold me.

  I can’t do much but smile back into his shoulder. That was possibly the most embarrassing thing that has happened between us thus far, and he’s joking about it while comforting me. Rather than running in the opposite direction as I melted down before his eyes, Asher stayed.

  “Do you need anything? Need me to call anyone?” He had yet to move from the position we were in.

  I cleared my throat, finally feeling confident enough to speak. “Some water, maybe. But … just another minute.”

  I didn’t want him to let go.

  “What … how do they happen? If you want to tell me.” His lips pressed to my forehead.

  I kept my head in his neck, smelling his unique, sophisticated scent. “My brain … well, I think you know that it’s … different. The only explanation that doctors could ever come up with is that because I can digest so much information, my system, it kind of overloads. All of the information, all of the knowledge, just kind of gets me so worked up that I can’t control it and the anx
iety hits me like a full on tidal wave.”

  Asher holds my neck but slowly eases me out of his chest so that those jewel-like green eyes are staring straight into mine. “Well, I’ll keep you anchored. I’m good with boats, if you didn’t know.”

  Internally, my nerves are shot. I can’t believe that actually just happened in front of him. It begins to sink in just how bad that attack could have gotten, and all of my past insecurities come to the forefront.

  “You’re not … freaked out?” My voice is small and embarrassed.

  This is really the reason I never let anyone get too close. It was bad enough that the kids back home, from the time I was accepted into Mensa until I left for London, thought I was a freak. I hadn’t been good at masking my intelligence at first, and through elementary and middle school was a bit of a know it all. It wasn’t until high school that I realized I was utterly alone because my peers were suspicious and paranoid of me. I was too this or too that for my own good, and they wanted nothing to do with me.

  If they had known about the breakdowns too? I would have been a bigger pariah than the mayor who had been caught embezzling from the food bank.

  Someone finding out about my attacks and migraines was my biggest fear. They left me so exposed and raw, I never thought that anyone besides my mom would accept me after watching the way my body broke down.

  Yet here was Asher, being the exact opposite of the person I assumed him to be. He’d slashed all of my opinions about the kind of man he was. My heart spun with the realization, and for the first time in a long time, I felt the hard concrete around my heart fall away.

  “Why should I be? It’s not like it’s something you can help, love.” He pushes a lock of hair away from my face, and kisses my damp brow.

  He was right of course, but my condition had always made me feel defective in a way. “Thank you for just … helping me through it.”