Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy 1)

Not all of us were.

Some of us were such fuckups that we deserved whatever shit we got handed. I’d had a goddamn easy life, and I’d taken that shit for granted. I didn’t count my good fortune and walked all over it. I’d become weak to it and completely ungrateful.

Charlie wouldn’t have been that way. He’d loved his life.

Loved…

Looking outside, I couldn’t breathe, staring instead into the darkness.

“It wasn’t without struggle, Dorian,” my dad said, his reflection through the window. We’d been driving for a while, almost home. My dad was looking at me, and I saw his eyes through the window.

Why can’t I fucking breathe?

I grabbed the seat, the leather tight under my hands.

Breathe. Fucking breathe goddammit.

It was like my dreams at night, the ones where I couldn’t wake up. The ones where I was drowning, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get out of the nightmare. I just kept seeing Charlie’s face, and the fear he must have had the last day I’d seen him. He had to have had fear.

How could he not?

I undid my tie in the car. My father sighed beside me. I wasn’t brave enough to look at him. He psychoanalyzed worse than Wolf.

“I know you’re not sleeping, son,” he said to me. “I know you’re working out at night and jogging in the evenings. Your mom does too.”

I figured. I wasn’t quiet about it.

Not that I could be with Chestnut, our chocolate Labrador, around. She took a second to get quiet whenever I came in and out of the house, not like her mom before that. She was the only one we’d kept from Hershey’s litter, a dog my parents had had before I was even born.

I’d cried like a little bitch when she’d passed, but having Chestnut made it easier.

“No one expects you to be okay, you know,” Dad said, his attempt at a talk. He didn’t do them a lot. He knew they didn’t work with me and I didn’t like them. He sighed again. “Not after all this just happened. It’s a lot. A lot for all of us.”

I swallowed, gripping the seat again. Why couldn’t I just fucking breathe? Charlie wouldn’t have been this way. He would have been strong.

Why couldn’t it have just been me?

I didn’t want to die. I cared about my life, but Charlie shouldn’t have died. It was before his time.

It was too fucking soon.

“I’m fine,” I managed to struggle out despite the lack of breath. I wet my lips, staring outside. “I’m okay.”

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

If I said it in my mind enough times, I’d convince myself, my parents. If I said it enough, it’d become true.

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

There was silence in my dad’s car, silence all the way through our neighborhood, then into our driveway. He said nothing once inside the garage, turning off the car.

He squeezed my shoulder.