His Princess (A Royal Romance)(105)

Before I can answer, she throws the back door open, rushes inside, and slams it behind her.

I start down the porch, only for a quietly weeping Karen to emerge from the back door and grab my collar.

“Don’t go,” she pleads. “She likes you. She likes you.”

“I have to,” I say, gingerly peeling her small hand off my shirt. “It’s the right thing to do, Karen. I’m not going to bring good things into your life. I’m not a good man.”

“Why are you saying that? You did all those things for Mom and you made us dinner…”

“That doesn’t make up for what I’ve done. I never should have come here. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

I shake loose and jog down the steps, around the side of the house, and throw myself into the car. I park the f*cking thing in my driveway. It’s my goddamn driveway and I’ll park my goddamn car anywhere I goddamn want.

I stumble into the house and crawl down the neck of a bottle of brown liquor and let darkness take me.

I’ll make the calls tomorrow. I’m leaving.





10





Rose





I walk up the stairs in a daze. My hand shakes on the banister, all the color drained from my fingers. Stopping to look through the open door into the girls’ bathroom, I see a ghost in the mirror, a pallid apparition with ice-pale skin and red eyes. Lurching into the bedroom, I flop onto the bed and curl up into a ball.

God, I’m so stupid.

I thought he liked me.

You sound like a love-struck teenager, Rose. Grow up.

I hear sobbing. Is that me?

“Mom?”

Oh God, not this. Why didn’t I close the door?

It’s Karen.

“Where’s Kelly?”

Karen shuffles on her feet. “I put her in bed. I didn’t think…” She closes the door and sits down on the bed next to me.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I’m not okay.”

Clutching a pillow, I pull it to my chest and bury my face in it. I’m pulling a real winning streak, here. First Russel and now this bastard. I let myself get too involved too fast. I got my hopes up.

“Is Quentin mad at us?”

“No,” I say sharply. “You didn’t do anything wrong, honey. It just wasn’t going to work out.”

“Why is he leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

Karen sits on the foot of the bed, swinging her feet above the floor. She’s not very tall. She spends so much time taking care of her sister that I sometimes forget that fourteen isn’t much older than thirteen. She looks much younger now, more like the happy little kid she used to be before her parents ripped her life apart.

I hug the pillow harder and tremble, trying to hold back tears and failing. I shouldn’t let her see me like this. She doesn’t need my problems. She doesn’t need that dead weight on her shoulders.

Gingerly Karen rests her hand on my shoulder. I flinch, and she starts to pull back, but hops along the bed and lies down next to me instead.

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry you don’t have a better life. I’m sorry you don’t have a father.”

“Boys are crazy.”

My head pops up from the bed. “What do you know about boys?”

“Um,” she says, flinching. “Just, uh, what I’m told.”

I can’t muster the energy to laugh, so a smile will have to do. I flop down on the bed.

“Didn’t you say you don’t have to go to work tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Karen reaches over, grabs my alarm clock, and turns it off.

“I still have to get up—”

“No, you don’t. I can take care of Kelly. We’ll have Pop-Tarts. We can make it one day without you making us breakfast. There’s like twenty other kids that go to the bus stop and all their moms will be there. We’ll be fine. Sleep.”

I nod, and sigh.

“You want me to bring you something?”

“Like what?”

“There’s a cake.”

“Cake?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring me cake.”

Karen slips out of the room. I manage to sit up while she’s gone. She comes back with two overly generous slices of cake and two tall glasses of milk on a tray. She climbs up on the bed next to me and for a while the only sound is the clinking of forks on plates, and slurping.

“Stop slurping.”

Karen narrows her eyes at me and takes a long slurping drink of milk to wash down the last of her cake. It was store bought but it was good anyway. It feels heavy in my stomach, along with all that pasta. I could sleep for a million years.

Karen takes the dishes with her when she leaves, giving me a longing look until I nod that I’m okay and switch off the light. I don’t feel like reading or watching television tonight. When she closes the door the room goes pitch black and I sink down into the bed, tugging the quilts and comforters up to my neck.

Goddamn you for buying a king-sized bed, Russel. It feels so empty. Lying on one side, I stretch my arms and legs across and they’re not even close to the far edge. I’m so goddamn lonely, it hurts.