“What if you didn’t have to live here?”
“You want to get our own place with my brothers?” he asks, frowning at me.
“No,” I say slowly. “I want to know if your life would be worse in any way if your dad was… Out of the picture, like my mom.”
Royal shakes his head and rolls onto his back. “Dad’s not an addict, and even if he was, he’d never agree to go. They only take voluntary commitments.”
“My mom went.”
“Because she was afraid of losing you,” he says. “She had nothing else going for her, and her dealers are after her. Dad has a company to run and status in this town. It could ruin his reputation.”
“He also has you,” I say. “Isn’t he afraid of losing you?”
Royal scoffs. “He’d give us up without even blinking rather than go the swankiest rehab center. It’s always about the bottom line for him. The board of directors would see a stint in rehab and question his authority.”
“Then maybe rehab’s not the right place,” I say.
Royal doesn’t answer, and I wonder if I’m going too far. But he must know things that could send his father to jail. He’s the one who could take down the Dolces, not Preston. The answer has been right here all along.
But would he want to?
“I never really understood why you needed that scholarship so bad until tonight,” he says at last. “I knew you wanted to leave Faulkner, but I thought it was just because it’s a shitty town and you wanted to go to college and travel. I think I get it now. Why you were blowing that teacher, and talking to Mr. D, and everything you did.”
Now it’s my turn to be silent. I’ve told him about my mom, but it’s not like seeing her tweaked out. It’s easy to let him believe that we’re the same. His mom is the Upper East Side kind of addict who drowns her troubles in martinis and prescription pills instead of crystal meth and street drugs, after all. It’s easy to say it’s the same demon that possesses them both. It’s harder to admit the full truth of it, to admit something that shameful—that your mother would rather trade her daughter to her dealer than cut him off.
“Let’s shower off before we go to sleep,” Royal says after a bit. “Hold still. You’re bleeding again.”
He sits up and peels off his T-shirt, pressing it to my hip. I gape at him, at the familiar face staring back at me from one of his massive pecs.
“Royal…” I whisper, reaching out and skimming my fingertips over the new tattoo. On one side, where it’s always been, is his sister’s face. On the other, is…me.
I try to remember the last time I saw him without a shirt. I thought it was a little weird that he didn’t want to shower together in New York, and that he always wore clothes to bed. I didn’t push it, though, because I thought maybe the shower thing had to do with him being held captive in that dirt room, and that the clothes might be some kind of control thing from that same trauma.
“When did you do this?” I ask, swallowing hard and raising my gaze to his.
“When it was all I had of you,” he says quietly. He covers my hand with his, pressing it to the solid wall of muscle of his chest.
After a minute, he picks me up and carries me into the bathroom, and we take our first shower together, washing off all the sex and blood. He covers the cuts with a bandage, and we fall into bed together, with nothing between us this time. I snuggle into his bare chest, and he wraps his arms around me.
“Royal,” I say, sliding my arm under his hugely muscled one. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. But you know I can’t repay you. My mom took my money.”
“For the last fucking time, you don’t have to repay me,” he says. “That’s what you do for someone you… Own.”
“Okay,” I say, my heart feeling all swollen and feverish with love for him. He’s given me exactly what I needed so many times—the car, college, and now going beyond that to help my mother and give me a safe place to stay. He’s shown me that he knows me, knows my hopes and dreams and the deepest desires of my heart. He’s made them all come true to show me how much he loves me, how much he wants my forgiveness, and to make up for what he’s done.
I haven’t given him anything but an explanation.
And though I’m glad he finally understands why I betrayed him, that maybe now he can truly forgive me, I haven’t done the same for him. I haven’t made up for my betrayal. I can’t repay him with money, but he doesn’t need that.
I know him as well as he knows me, though. I know exactly what he needs, too.
And I’m going to give it to him.
If he truly understands my need to escape this town, well, I’ve understood him for a lot longer. I know he thinks no one can love him for who he is, as he is. That if anyone truly knows him and sees him, the monster and the boy, they’ll leave. That’s why he didn’t care that he hadn’t forgiven me. He didn’t care if I was just here for the money, for what he can buy me. He still wanted me, even if I didn’t prove I loved him. He doesn’t think I do, that I can. That’s why he has to own me—because he doesn’t believe I’ll choose to stay otherwise.
But I do love him, even after all he’s done. I never really stopped. I couldn’t.
I lift my head to say something, to tell him, but his breathing is deep, and his face completely relaxed in sleep. I watch him a moment before dropping my head and squeezing his body to mine.