Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(19)

He’s either got a bad memory or is bad at math. Maybe both.

“Did we have sex?” The idea makes me sick to my stomach, but I have to know.

“Yeah.” He smirks. “That’s the only reason I agreed to go out with you. You were begging me, you know. Following me around in the halls, sitting by me at lunch. You left your panties in my locker.” He’s animated for the first time. “So I let you slob on my knob.”

“Wonderful,” I say faintly. Could I be more disgusting? Could he? I guess we were a perfect match.

“Any more questions? Do you want to know when and where we got down?”

“No thanks.” The Diet Coke I drank after dinner starts churning in my stomach. Sometimes amnesia can be a good thing, I decide. Too bad these are the memories I’m regaining. I crack the window open and raise my nose up to the breeze.

“You gonna be sick?” Kyle asks in a panicked voice.

“I hope not,” I say noncommittally.

His response is to press the gas to the floor. Honey, I want to get away from your company as fast as you want to get away from mine.





Chapter 9





Easton





The lock on Hartley’s apartment door is so flimsy, I don’t even need to pull out the key that I just obtained from the landlord downstairs. A few jerks of my wrist and the wooden slab swings open.

It’s empty, as he said it would be, but I’m still surprised and more than a little devastated. I wanted it to be full of Hartley—her things, her scent, her. Instead it’s an empty shell. There’s no ten-year-old sofa with tears in the arms. The cupboard doors hang open, revealing their empty shelves. Even the crappy table that I was always afraid was going to collapse when Hartley put so much as a paper plate on it is gone. She’s gone. Or at least that’s how it’s felt for nearly a week now. Her parents whisked her out of the hospital, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.

It’s been torture. I’ve texted her. I’ve tried calling. I even drove past her house like a stalker hoping to catch a glimpse of her through one of the windows. But no such luck. Hartley’s folks are keeping her out of sight, I guess.

I just hope she’s all right. One of her nurses admitted—after a bit of coaxing—that they might’ve discharged her too early, and worry has been gnawing at my gut ever since hearing that.

Why won’t she call me back, dammit?

The need to feel close to her, at least in some way, is what brought me to her old apartment tonight.

I toss my backpack onto the kitchen counter and take a peek inside the refrigerator, where I find three cans of Diet Coke. I pop one open and bleakly survey the small space. I’d hoped if I brought her here, it’d jog her memories, but her parents have wiped the space clean.

It doesn’t look like anyone lived here. Even the dingy carpet is gone, replaced with cheap terracotta-colored linoleum. Helplessness fills my throat, choking off the airways. The room spins and the bottle in my backpack calls to me.

I clench and unclench my jaw. My heart pounds. My mouth is as dry as a desert. A siren song fills my ears. Drinking and pills have always been my go-to problem solver. Mom offs herself, pop a pill. Fight with the fam, swallow a bottle of Jack. Disagreement with the girl, do both and forget everything until morning.

The metal can in my hand crunches as the sides cave in.

All you do is break things.

With deliberation, I set the crushed can in the sink and pull out my phone, flicking to the notes app where I wrote a list of the places we went:

Beach

Pier

Apartment

School

Practice room

My house (media room)



Ironically, for a guy whose primary purpose in life was to bed every available girl up and down the coast, I never once took Hartley to my bedroom. I don’t know if I should give myself a gold star for being patient or kick myself for not inviting her deeper into my life. I wish she’d imprinted all over it so that everywhere we went, she’d see how the two of us fit together.

All you do is break things.

I can’t have that memory be the one she recalls. I need to make her see what we had before Felicity stuck her hands into the mess, before her father’s threats scared her, before my drunk ass screwed things up.

We were friends. Hell, she was the first female friend I ever had other than Ella. We enjoyed each other’s company. I made her laugh. She made me…well, she made me want to be a better person.

I can’t lose her. I won’t.

Hartley’s living at home again. Dealing with her sisters, her mom. Her father, that son of a bitch who… Worry jolts through me. I sit up and send another text.

I’m here for you. No matter what.

I stare at the phone, willing her to text me back. She doesn’t, of course. I remind myself she’s sick and probably heavily medicated. That’s why she’s not responding. Fuck. I hate this. If I dwell on it, it’s only going to make me crazier. Before she was sent to boarding school, her dad had broken her wrist after she found out he was taking bribes for his job. She told me that her wrist was broken as an accident and I have to believe that. Besides, only a sicko would beat his already injured daughter.

I open another app and start making a list of everything I’m going to need. First off, another dark blue sofa. I add two folding chairs and a small wooden table. The chairs were plastic and the table was…light. Some kind of light-colored wood. Maybe pine?