“You really don’t care that Gloria and Royal hooked up at the party?” Dixie asks.
I shrug. “Why would I care? I’m not with Royal.”
That’s not entirely true. I do care. I’m jealous as fuck.
But I can’t be mad at either of them. I genuinely like Lo. Yeah, she’s Royal’s comfort fuck, but that’s all it is. They’re friends, and when I told him to hook up with someone else if he wanted my forgiveness, he did it. Not for her, but to prove to me he would do anything for me. Of course he’d go to Lo, the only girl he trusts, when he was hurting. He couldn’t exactly come to me after I said that. And she’d just been dumped, not to mention her brother died, so she was hurting, too. That’s what fuck buddies are there for. If Royal stuck his dick in her, that’s on me, not either of them.
When we pass the mess of flowers and cards still in front of Dawson’s old locker, I look away. I shiver when I think of the emotionless way Royal talked about killing his own brother this morning. I’m not sure if he could really do that, but when I remember Preston’s words on the bridge, I can’t help but wonder. Is Royal capable of murder?
After he told me I could have my revenge, did he decide it wasn’t enough, and take it for me? Or was Dawson wracked with guilt for what he’d done to me, and seeing me at the Slaughterpen that night pushed him over the edge?
Either way, I’m part of the reason he’s dead.
I don’t want to think about that, though. I didn’t kill him. I’d barely spoken to him before that night in the swamp. And I didn’t do anything but hit him and step on his balls afterwards. He deserved worse. Maybe he was just going along with the twins, but that was his choice. He chose to rape me.
If he felt too guilty about it to continue living, that proves he has a conscience and knew better.
I will not feel guilty for his guilt.
I can’t stop thinking about it all morning, though. It’s one thing to know someone who’s taken their life and another to be one of the causes for it. I fucking hate that I can’t just despise him the way I could if he were alive. I hate that I find myself wondering how he really died, if anyone could have stopped it, what he thought in his last moments. Did my words, my actions at the Slaughterpen, push him over the edge? Or did they push Royal over the edge?
By lunch time, I want to escape to the bleachers and smoke with Colt, but I know that’s a luxury I can no longer afford. Claiming the crown means showing up, just like I did at the football game and the party last week. It means coming back to school right after your brother died so no one else can swoop in when you’re vulnerable. One moment of weakness, and it could all be gone.
So I march into the café and take a seat at the protest table, where we sat last week. My stomach is tight and shaking as I sit there alone, waiting to see who will show up for me today. Gideon is the key, the one holding this all up from collapsing into a house of cards, and I turned him down at his party on Friday.
But it’s not Gideon who has my stomach dropping out when I see him, so I have to grab the edge of the table to keep from crumpling to the floor in a heap. It’s not Gideon who makes my head swim and my mind go completely blank when our eyes meet.
It’s Baron.
He strolls toward my table, a sucker tucked into his cheek, his little serving girl rushing behind him with his plate. And for one terrifying second, I forget what it’s all for. I forget everything except that he’s Mr. D.
I wasn’t prepared for how it would hit me when I see him. It’s worse than when I saw them at the Slaughterpen, when Royal prepared them for me.
Now, the shame of what I did slams into me with a force that takes my breath and leaves me gasping for air like a fish that flopped out of the tank and is drowning from the inside out. I told him everything. Not just Royal’s secrets, but mine.
I told him my dreams, how I wanted to get out of this town, how I wanted to matter. I told him my childish fantasy of taking down his family. I imagine how funny he thought that was, how he must have laughed at my ridiculous bravado, how much he must have enjoyed toying with me, letting me think he was a Darling. I told him more than that, though. I told him intimate details of my sex life, about how good Royal fucked me, how I screamed and came for him.
I want to spontaneously combust and disappear in a blaze of fire when I think about all I’ve said to him, the details I’ve revealed. I remember him saying he had to live vicariously through my sex stories. I thought he was in prison or something, not that he was just picturing that it was him fucking me instead of Royal. And when he got tired of waiting, he made sure Royal dumped me so he could have his turn, so he could fuck me himself instead of imagining it.
He smirks at me as he walks by, but he doesn’t speak to me. He sits at his new table, the new king with another table pushed up next to his, where the Dolce girls sit. I try to control my heart rate. I remind myself that a wrecking ball is not the only way to destroy a house. Royal didn’t confront him. He’s waiting. I can wait, too.
I take comfort in the knowledge that Baron doesn’t know we found out his secret. He’s still Mr. D, still has all the information I gave him. But he doesn’t know that I’m aware of that, or that Royal is. He’s just going to sit on the information I gave him last year and do nothing with it, because he doesn’t want to take down anyone but me, and he already did that. It’s over for him. He’ll just gloat and enjoy the fact that he knows me better than probably anyone in the world except Royal.
But if it’s over, what was he going to ask me when he contacted me the other day?
Before I can spiral too far, Dixie and Colt arrive with Josie. The café starts to buzz when they sit down with me. A minute later, Magnolia skips over in a frilly pink skirt, Doc Martens with pink hearts on them, and a tiny tee.
“Good thing I’ve practiced intermittent fasting,” she says, edging into her chair.
I tense when I see Rylan and Amber heading our direction from the food line. She’s staring at her plate, her face half hidden by her hair, but she doesn’t look too happy about joining us. Rylan stops at our table and just stands there glaring daggers at the popular table. I turn to see Gloria, who’s still sitting with the Dolce boys, studiously ignoring him and talking to Duke.
Rylan yanks out a chair at our table, banging the legs against the other chairs, and slams his plate down. I’ve never talked to the guy, but from what Gloria’s told me, I’m not missing out on much. She said he’d be pissed if he found out she had a milkshake with Colt or if she joined the Swans. But hell, I’d be a hypocrite if I held that against him. Royal just about killed Colt for hanging out with me.
Plus, there’s power in numbers. I was ready to let Cotton ‘the Predator’ Montgomery sit with us last week. Just because Rylan’s a jealous bitch doesn’t mean he can’t advance for our cause.
“Welcome to the protest,” Magnolia says, standing to grab two more chairs to round out the table at eight. Amber takes one and slips into it with the air of someone who wants to disappear. Clearly her brother convinced her to join when she’s got zero interest in it.
“This is where people who hate Gloria sit, right?” Rylan asks.