by Eden O'Neill
“Did you ask your dad about… well, you know?” I asked Birdie at the beginning of second period one day. We’d taken our seats in Mr. Pool’s class.
I knew her answer before she even said anything.
She played with her pen, leaning in. “I’m sorry. I asked about you staying over break, but Dad’s still being weird. Maybe it’s because we’ll have a lot of family coming through? Anyway, you can always stay the night, though. Anytime you want. You know that.”
I had a couple of times, and her dad was really cool, which was why I was surprised he kept saying no about an extended stay. I mean, it was his house and stuff, but he literally bent over backwards when any of the girls or I came over to Birdie’s house. He was the epitome of a single dad trying to take care of his baby girl, made us food and always asked us if we needed anything.
Figuring I couldn’t come for the reason she said, I decided to not take offense. I nodded, sliding back into my chair. Getting my books out, I attempted not to take notice when a certain cool scent flooded into the room like a fragrance commercial. Royal was followed by his bro family, Jax, LJ, and Knight, all four with the same English class as me.
The boys placed their bags down, bantering with each other, and they did that until the start of class. They didn’t acknowledge me too much anymore, any glances or other forms of acknowledgment fading quickly the day I’d seen them all in the hallway with Mira. I supposed it had started slow with them ghosting me, progressive, but eventually, we arrived to the place we were now. I was in the same universe as them, but outside of physically running into them, none of us even looked at each other. Let alone carried on conversation. As far as I was concerned, that was just grand. If Royal had so quickly moved on to Mira when things had been “too hot” with me, then whatever about it. He was obviously a jerk, and I picked up on that pretty early in our relationship, but had written it off. He fooled me, and he’d done it well.
Royal and crew in my periphery, I let that all go, and focused on more important things. I wasn’t about to be held back in school because of the likes of Royal Prinze and his following. I was going to graduate with the rest of our senior class, then move on to bigger and better things. Class started at the top of the hour, and Mr. Pool immediately went into talks about the neoclassical period. I actually knew this, so I stayed present during the hour, and as class started winding down, Mr. Pool paused us. He got a knock at the door, and when he called over, the door opened. A boy wearing a Windsor Preparatory uniform came in, a boy with messy brown curls and extremely extended height. He had to dip his head a little just to come inside.
No way…
“We have a new arrival today, class,” Mr. Pool said, his hands on the boy’s shoulders, his hands on Ramses’ shoulders. The boy grinned, facing the class like an audience, and I rose up in my chair, a huge “What the fuck?” on my lips. But that was Ramses clear as day, my Ramses. Well, not mine, but the boy I worked with in Arizona. Mr. Pool shook his shoulders. “Some of you may recognize Mr. Mallick from your freshman year. Well, he’s back. Recently transferred from…”
“Crestfire Hills Prep, Mr. Pool,” he stated, those same dark eyes that eyed me many times. They currently resided on Mr. Pool, the man introducing him.
“Crestfire Hills Prep,” Mr. Pool continued, seriously grinning his ass off. “He was one of my star pupils freshman year, and we’re happy to have him back. Ramses will be finishing his senior year with us, class, and I’m sure Crestfire Hills will be kicking themselves to have let you go. I’m sure you’ll be leading the class soon, just as you had four years ago.”
Ramses’ long fingers went to the back of his neck. Clearly, all of this a little too much for him, but he was here and with people bragging on him about his smarts as he did himself.
My back hit the chair, all of this wild. The odds we’d come from the same town freaked me the fuck out, and now, he was suddenly back at the end of the term. Ramses’ gaze soon flittered over the crowd, Mr. Pool advising him to take any seat he wanted. I believed his eye may stop on me, recognize me, but he never made it that far, his attention stopping toward the back of the class.
I turned and easily found out why. Royal, LJ, Knight, Jax, and the rest of their Court bros usually goofed off through most of class, but needless to stay, they weren’t now. They stared ahead, very much aware of this new arrival, and when I faced away, a tall boy with extended height passed me. Ramses flew right by me with his long strides, taking the vacant seat behind me and facing forward, and I wondered if he noticed me in his class. I mean, he hadn’t said anything, and I hadn’t seen if he saw me or not.
A tap touched my back, and I shifted only to have a note fall to my front.
I caught it, making sure Mr. Pool’s back was turned before I opened it.
What’s up, Arizona?
I nearly laughed at it. I guess he’d seen me. I started to turn, but Mr. Pool spoke, mentioning something about tonight’s homework assignment.
“Until tomorrow, friends,” Mr. Pool ended up concluding with. The bell ringing, he smiled. “We’ll get you geared up for those final exams yet.”
The groan through class radiated as students packed up. Ramses stood and passed me again before I could say anything. At the door, he pointed a finger outside it, grinning at me before going out, and I shook my head once more. I followed the flood out into the hallways, and the moment I spotted the tall-as-hell boy, I punched him in the uniform jacket.
“What the hell, Arizona?” I said, mocking him and what he said. That place was more his than mine. I shoved him a little. “What are you even doing here?”
“Trying to avoid assault. Jesus,” he stated, chuckling. He cradled his arm. “My first day, and I’m already getting my ass kicked.”
“Oh, whatever. That didn’t even hurt.”
“Totally did.”
I shoved him again, and he nearly ran into Birdie, the girl somehow dwarfed by this guy in size when she was already a head and a half taller than me. At the sight of Ramses, she lost her shit, though. He did too, and when the duo proceeded to do a fist bump handshake, I did a double take.
“Birdie Arnold,” he said, coming out of the shake with a snap. “Long time.”
“Really fucking long time.” She grinned, then nudged him herself. “What are you doing here, kid?”
“Just living life. Figured I’d transfer back since y’all clearly missed me. I mean, were you guys actually doing anything in class before I got here? Mr. Pool looked damn desperate in there.”
She got him in the arm again and he took her under his arm, the two coming up long enough to finally see me and my wide eyes. Ramses smiled. “December, Birdie and I used to hang in the same circles.”
“Wait. You guys know each other?” Birdie moved a finger between us.
I rolled my eyes. “Long story. Ramses got me a job when I was in AZ.”
“Sure did,” he stated, dropping an arm around Birdie’s shoulders. “And December promptly ran for the hills not long after. The referral sure did turn out well for me.”
“I’m sure to get away from your ass.” She mock-socked him in the stomach, making him laugh. She pushed him by the chest. “And way to downplay how we know each other.” She directed a finger right at him. “This kid was a legend when he went to school here. Seriously, an all-star.”
I twitched. “An all-star at what?”
Ramses lifted his head of dark curls. “I used to play basketball.”
“Used to play?” Birdie asked, hands on her hips. “What the hell happened? You burned up the court when you were here.”
My lips parted. Ramses a jock? I never would have thought that with the exception of our final hours together. His friends had looked like jocks, and he fit right in with them. Then there was his height and everything, so I guess that made sense.
Ramses shook his head. “Decided to focus on my brain. Dad’s cut me off, remember? Have to pay for college myself.”
“Ah, that’s r
ight.” Birdie frowned. “Resident bad boy got himself shipped off to desert country. How was that over there with the tumbleweeds BTW?”
“Way better than here.” Ramses frowned now, but didn’t let it linger. The warning bell for our next class started, and Birdie came out from under his arm.
She bumped his fist. “Talk to me about it all at lunch. And the other girls too. You always got a seat at our table.”
He tipped a chin at her, giving her one last bump before she started down the opposite end of the hallway. My class, on the other hand, went the other way, and after saying goodbye to Birdie too, I started to tell Ramses I needed some answers as well. Like why Birdie had called him a “bad boy” when he’d been king of the uber nerds when I knew him. Also him getting cut off? What the hell? And why was he here? The questions traveled my brain in influx, but all that ceased when the pair of us suddenly weren’t alone.
Royal and crew came outside Mr. Pool’s class. They’d stayed in there for some reason, way last to leave, and upon surfacing from the room, they found Ramses and me. Green eyes, Royal’s, connected with me for only moments before passing to Ramses.
“Prinze,” Ramses said to him, his hands sliding into his uniform pockets. Royal, on the other hand, didn’t acknowledge him at all. He merely looked at me, frowning before going the opposite way with the other boys. Jax, Knight, and LJ gave Ramses a little eyeing themselves, and I remembered what Ramses told me about what sent him running from this place. He said he had a run-in with a clique.
That apparent clique ventured down the hallway, bags on their arms and big backs, and shaking his head, Ramses looked at me.
“What are your plans next hour?” he asked me, cutting off my sight from Royal when he stood in front of me. “Feel like taking a walk?”
Twenty-Two
Royal - Age 17
A locker slammed in my face, and since I knew why, I looked the other way. I decided to lace up my lacrosse cleats instead, busying myself with the task.
That only pissed Paige off more.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she gritted, getting in my face when I was the last person she should have been mad at. She propped hands on her hips. “Royal?”
Some of our teammates bumped a fist on my shoulder, passing us both with grins on their face and lacrosse sticks in their hands. We had practice today, a practice to get ready for.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” I asked, noticing my teammate was still in her street clothes. She was allowed in the guys’ locker room, the only girl ever in recorded history. She’d broken a lot of barriers, my best friend, and I’d been there along the way to help her do it. I continued to do that, be there for her.
She shook her head. “You were so out of line.”
“Actually, I think I was completely in line,” I told her. My cleats laced, I grabbed my lacrosse stick off the bench. “I got a monster off the streets and off our field.”
Coach Marshall had been nothing but a sick bastard, the epitome of the scum of the earth, and she was in my face talking about him.
“What if people find out,” she started, but stopped when more guys came through. LJ and Jax stopped, Knight behind them.
“Everything okay?” LJ asked, ready for this confrontation with me. I recruited all the guys in the end to help, power in numbers. I needed the truth, needed facts to help support what I needed to do. LJ, Jax, and Knight helped me find those facts, and even though they hadn’t been affected, we had friends who were. We had Paige, the most important thing. Someone hurting her was a slam against all of us as far as the group and I were concerned. We were family, there for each other.
Paige’s eyes widened at the acknowledgment. I was sure she didn’t love more of her business being out there, but I personally didn’t care.
“Everything’s cool,” I told them, letting them go, and Paige covered her arms.
“What’s happened to you?” she asked. “Getting them in on this? Getting in my business—”
“He touched you,” I said, a finger in her face. I snorted. “He put hands on you, and I stopped that, stopped him from doing that to anyone else.” It took me a while, well over a year, but I figured out exactly who in our Court family had come after her as a kid…
And why hadn’t I seen it sooner? More than one guy on the team had reported looks, stares from our former head coach while they’d been in the shower or doing whatever. It only took a few guys, only a few coming forward when asked around, and I put together the pieces. The guy was a sick fuck, and I finally found him. He’d been one of our few alumni that showed up to everything, always talking to all the kids and even cornered me a time or two.
I’d been lucky when other guys hadn’t. I’d been lucky when she hadn’t. I swallowed. “That guy’s going to rot in a jail cell for what he did to you.”
“For what he did to me?” She had tears in her eyes, and I didn’t know what pissed me off more, the fact she was obsessed that I blew the whistle on a child predator or the fact she didn’t care enough about herself to do the same. Her jaw worked. “We don’t have a coach because of you, but everyone will think its because of me. Everyone will know about a stupid thing that happened so fucking long ago it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” I challenged. “It matters because of you. Paige… I was just fucking looking out for you.”
“Well, no one asked you to do that,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I swear to God, Royal Prinze. You and your toxic masculinity. You think you can do anything since you got that silver ring on your finger. Even mess around in my life.”
I gripped it. “Not true.”
“Oh, isn’t it? And what’s really fucked up is you don’t even care about all that. In fact, you hate it. You loathe it but deal with it because of your dad, a guy who’s beaten the shit out of you since we were kids, and for some reason you still feel the need to impress him?” She shook her head. “News flash, Royal. What happened to your mom and sister was an accident and had nothing to do with a six-year-old boy—”
“Watch it,” I gritted. “Stop right now.”
“Or what?” she challenged, getting in my face now. “Because you’ll hurt me? Raise your hand and throw down the gauntlet on me like you did Coach?”
I couldn’t hear, the ringing in my ears too loud. She’d never said such things to me… cut me in such a way and I couldn’t see straight. She’d never do that to me, not her.
I think she saw that, witnessed the complete shutdown currently raging a war inside me. She cried then, actual tears cutting down her cheeks, and when she walked away, I grabbed her.
“Paige…”
She collapsed, falling literally into my arms, and I gripped her, not letting her fall.
“Paige?” I asked, freaked the fuck out. She said things she’d never say, crying like this… I shook my head. “Paige, what’s going on?”
She gripped me back, quivering and wailing, and I knew something else was going on here, something deep that would make her act this way. This wasn’t just about what we were talking about, couldn’t be.
“She’s married,” whispered so softly in my ear I barely even heard it. She buried her face into my neck. “She’s married, Royal, and I’m… I’ve been so stupid.”
It took me a minute to register what she was saying, so many words said.
I closed my eyes. She had been seeing someone, acting so different from herself but in such a good way. I’d seen my friend… happy, legitimately happy, and possibly for the first time. She and I had a lot of pain from both our fathers, a lot a pain, but we always pulled through. We always rose above.
I dampened my lips. “Who?” I asked. “Tell me who, Paige.”
Her mouth closed, her headshake adamant against my neck, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me. At least not now.
“What do you need?” I said instead, all of this taking everything within me not to run out of here like an ape and fix whatever this was. To make someone hurt for
hurting my best friend. Maybe Paige was right. Maybe I had turned into something bad. Maybe there was more than one kind of monster.
“Just this, Royal,” she said, making me come down from it all. She squeezed me harder. “Just this.”
I gave her that, knowing exactly what I’d do if she changed her mind. I’d be ready. I’d fix this for her.
I’d do whatever she wanted me to do.
Twenty-Three
December - Present
The last thing I needed to be doing this close to finals was skipping class, but I had way too many questions at the moment to not delve into things deeper with Ramses. His quote, unquote “walk” ended up leading us out into the snow and to a part of campus I’d never been before. The greenhouse was heated, gorgeous with winter blooms, and I studied some of them, taking off my coat and sitting near the koi pond. The school had some of those, their wispy tails fluttering through the water.
“I see you still know your way around this place,” I said, putting my coat on a rock formation next to the pond. They had them everywhere.
Ramses opted out of a coat for our journey, his uniform jacket apparently enough. It seemed he was paying for that because he didn’t take his jacket off like I did upon entering the greenhouse. He warmed his long arms, and my mind was blown that he was even here and we were together right now.
“Not a lot of things change, I guess,” he started, smiling at the pond, then found me. “Well, I guess a lot of things. You’re here now.”
