Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(17)

For bottoms, I have three pairs of jeans, two pairs of yoga pants, and two ugly green-and-navy tartan pleated skirts. The latter must be part of my school uniform. Mom informed me that I attend Astor Park Prep, the most exclusive—and expensive—prep school in the state. That solved the mystery of how I know Felicity and Easton and, I guess, Kyle, although nothing makes complete sense to me.

Mom provided no explanation for why I attend Astor Park or why I was at a boarding school in upstate New York for three years. She didn’t warn me that my bedroom had been turned into a storage room while I was gone and that all of my personal belongings had been given away to Goodwill. When I asked where my purse and phone were, she told me that both had been destroyed in the accident. That bit of news was such a punch in the gut that I stopped asking questions. I’d hoped that I could piece together parts of my life from my phone—my photo roll, my messages, my social media accounts—but that opportunity had been ground up in the accident.

The rest of the closet is empty. In the small dresser across from my bed, I find underwear, plain bras, and a couple of cute hoodies. My current style is spare, I guess. I have a hard time believing that these are all the clothes I own. I vaguely remember this closet bursting with shit I picked up at Forever 21 and Charlotte Russe. It was cheap, but fun and colorful.

I guess when I was in boarding school, my tastes evolved into something as bland as white toast. Is this progress? I can’t tell. I rifle through my desk, searching for clues to my past, but there’s nothing there. There aren’t any old cards or pictures or even used pencils. Everything in the drawers is new. Even the notebooks are pristine, as if tomorrow is my first day of school instead of the third month of the semester.

A list of my classes and a small map of the campus is tucked inside the first notebook. I pull it out. Calculus, Feminist Thought, Music. I glance around the room but don’t see my violin. Is it at school?

I trot over to the door and call for Mom.

“What is it?” she asks, appearing at the bottom of the stairs with a dishrag in her hands.

“Where’s my violin?”

“Your what?”

“My violin. I still play that, right? I’m taking music.” I hold up my class schedule.

“Oh, that.” She gives a sniff of disdain. “You barely play it anymore, but you’re required to take an elective and so we signed you up for music. You play a school one.”

She walks off. I have an answer, but it doesn’t feel complete to me. I rub my wrist again. As I return to the bedroom, the pictures on the hallway walls catch my eye. There’s something off about them. I walk over slowly, inspecting each one. There are pictures of Parker, my oldest sister, from birth to her wedding. The photos of Dylan, my younger sister, stop after the ninth one, which means she’s currently in eighth grade.

At the end is a picture of the family. It must be a recent one because I’m not there. They’re at dinner in a hotel or something. There are tall ceilings and large paintings with gold gilt. The chairs are upholstered in what looks like velvet. All of them are dressed up—Dad in a black suit, Mom in a red dress with sparkles, Parker wearing a simple black dress with pearls around her neck, and Dylan in a sweater and purple skirt. Everyone is smiling—even Dylan, who sneered a whole, “It’s you” when I arrived home and then disappeared into her room and has avoided me ever since.

It’s the family picture that reveals the answer to the riddle of what is wrong with the hallway setup. I’m not in any of them.

My family literally erased me from my home.

What exactly did I do three years ago? Did I set the house on fire? Did I kill the family pet? I search my memory but come up blank. I don’t even recall being sent away. The clearest recollection I have is of my sister Parker’s wedding. That happened four years ago. I remember being vaguely annoyed I didn’t get to have champagne during the wedding toast, and sneaking some anyway with a tiny brown-haired girl who my memory says is my cousin Jeanette. We both got sick off one glass each. I should call her. Maybe she can fill in the blanks because no one in this house will.

I heave myself down the stairs to find Mom. She’s washing dishes, a denim-colored apron tied around her waist and a faint frown stretched across her mouth.

“What is it?” she asks, irritation in her voice.

“Can I use your phone?”

“For what?” Irritation morphs into suspicion.

I clasp my hands behind my back and try not to look guilty, because what’s wrong with wanting to talk to my cousin? “I was thinking of calling Jeanette.”

“No, she’s busy,” Mom replies flatly.

“It’s nine at night,” I protest.

“It’s too late to be on the phone.”

“Mom—”

The doorbell rings before I can mount an argument. Mom mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “Thank goodness” before she sets the pot she’d been scrubbing onto the drainer and hurries to the front door.

I eye her purse. Her phone is sticking out the top of it, taunting me. If I borrowed her phone for, say, ten minutes, would she figure it out? I inch along the counter. If she catches me, what’s the worst thing that happens? She can’t take my phone away, I think, feeling a mild hysteria creeping over me.

“Your boyfriend is here to see you,” Mom announces. “He’s an Astor boy,” she whispers as she grabs my arm.