“When was this?” I ask.
She shakes her head, lowering her face so I can’t see her crying. She gets splotchy, and if there’s one thing Lo can’t tolerate, it’s being ugly.
“When?” I grind out.
“I don’t know,” she says. “A while before you broke up.”
“So she knew,” I say, something inside me settling, heavy and cold in the pit of my stomach. “When we were together, she knew.”
“She promised she wouldn’t tell,” Gloria insists. “And she didn’t break up with you for it.”
“But as soon as I broke up with her, that’s the first thing she did,” I say. “She must have been sitting on it, just waiting to destroy me after she’d gotten everything she could from me.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Gloria says.
“Bullshit,” I say. “It was exactly like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know what?” I say. “Fuck you, Lo. You deserve each other.”
“What?”
“I know why you told her,” I say. “You wouldn’t risk losing the advantage I gave you for nothing. Which means you told her so she wouldn’t expose you as a fraud. I guess it worked out real fucking well for both of you. You got to keep your crown, even pretending to be my girlfriend after spring break so you could win prom. And Harper got the big secret she needed to bring down our family. You both fucking win.”
“No,” Gloria says, sniffling and wiping her face. “We both lost when we lost you, Royal. Don’t you see, that’s more important than anything we could have gotten.”
“No,” I say quietly. “I’m the only loser in the little game you played.”
“That’s not true,” she wails. “I didn’t know she’d do that, and look, even though she did, you’re fine. Nothing ever happened because of it. No one exposed your family. It didn’t break you and Harper up—you’d already dumped her when she told.”
I almost laugh. Nothing happened because of it? She should go back in there and talk to Harper a little more if she thinks that’s true, because she’s missing a big piece of this puzzle.
“Stop making excuses,” I say flatly. “You can’t pretend it’s okay just because you don’t see the consequences.”
“I’m sorry,” Gloria says, clutching my arm. “I’m sorry I told her. I honestly was trying to help. Would you rather she’d thought you were cheating on her?”
“Yes,” I say, pulling my arm away.
“I couldn’t let her break up with you over that,” she says, dropping her head again. “It would have killed you.”
“You were only trying to help yourself.”
She nods and takes a deep breath. “You’re right. I was selfish, and I was protecting myself and my family, the same as you protect yours. I’d never have told her if I thought she’d tell anyone else.”
“You know what’s even more fucked up, Lo? You kept it from me. You could have fucking told me that she knew.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, swiping angrily at her tears.
“No,” I say quietly. “You’re just like her. You’re only sorry I found out.”
“That’s not true,” she insists. “I wish more than anything that I’d never told her.”
“If you were really sorry, you would have told me right away. You would have let me make my own decisions about whether I wanted to keep either of you close.”
“You’re right,” she says. “But I wasn’t just using you, and neither was she. We both care about you. You know that, Royal.”
“Do I?”