Illusions That May (Court High 2)

He nodded. “I’m sure you’ll manage, and happy to see you hanging out with the right people to help you do so.”

Birdie and the others smiled at him saying that, but I didn’t. Before everything with Paige, the principal had given me a warning about who I hung out with. He hadn’t liked seeing me with Royal and Knight for whatever reason.

My smile tight that time, I let that go, and he advised me to see the guidance counselor sometime this week. He said, “It might help,” but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be happening, me being helped that was. All this was still too raw, too soon.

It was all too what I was seeing when I turned around.

They came down the hallway in a pack, the Court, but at the center was the main attraction. LJ, Jax, and Knight all had girls under their arms…

But it was Royal’s who wore a necklace.

The necklace beamed beneath bright red locks—Mira—when she flicked her hair over her shoulder. It was Royal who had his arm around her, hugging her close, and at seeing me, the whole party stopped. He stopped for a moment.

But then, he looked away.

He rushed the group on, clearly not expecting me to be here today. LJ, Jax, and Knight headed away with him, but I noticed Jax did look apologetic. In fact, all the guys passed a glance my way. Even Knight, his frown hard before his gaze averted too. One person who stared me right in the face was Mira, her fingers twirling her necklace before pressing herself closer under Royal’s arm. I couldn’t see it close, but the necklace looked just like the others the girls with Court boys had, the ones in serious relationships with Court boys.

“Oh, yeah, that’s new too,” Birdie said, frowning. She frowned at me. She and the entire school knew Royal and I hooked up thanks to Mira. I never let on about it being more, but she had to know something was up since I’d told her he made the call to bring me to Windsor House. She touched my arm. “Yeah, that.”

That, the couple walking down the hall and to what was probably their first classes. Royal and Mira together.

Mira was Court-kept.

Twenty

December

The what-the-fuckery only continued into the rest of the week. I was so far behind in school it was embarrassing, and even before I left, I hadn’t been great at everything. I was sent home daily with a stack of books, and even though my friends attempted to help me, things felt beyond help. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be in this school and with constant reminders of what happened with my sister. Royal bopping around with Mira only drove the dagger deeper. The two were inseparable, quite literally hanging all over each other, and I just about reached my breaking point not even a full week back.

Christ.

The Bentley was parked outside of Rosanna’s duplex, Hubert stopping right next to it. I honestly wondered how I managed to not see my dad sooner. He obviously knew I was home, sent Hubert for me for school and everything. Maybe he was just letting me get comfortable.

I almost told Hubert to take a drive around the block a few hundred times, but something told me he was in on this too. He answered to my dad after all. Braving up, I grabbed my bag and took the iced steps up to Rosanna’s door. She gave me a key, and I opened it, expecting to see a man in a full suit from his day at work…

Not a damn intervention.

My dad was there. This was true, but there was also someone else, and that someone shot to her feet the moment she saw me.

My aunt Celeste, Aunt C. was here and all the way from California. She threw her arms around me, holding me close. “Oh, December, I could strangle you.”

I held her back, my heart severing in two. I missed her. I did, but…

I opened my eyes, peering over her shoulder to my dad. He sat on Rosanna’s couch, Hershey on the sofa next to him. She had her little head on his lap, sleeping.

I guess dogs on the couch were okay when it wasn’t his own.

He stared at me, a hand on Hershey’s head. The two had gotten a little closer before I left, but I figured he’d just been putting up with her. He stood, my puppy waking up but only to go to the kitchen. Rosanna handed him tea, tea she’d been making. She was a servant in her own house to her employer.

I closed my eyes, holding my aunt again. Why they were both even here besides being out of obligation for their daughter and niece was beyond me. And maybe that was all this was, obligation.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said to my aunt, meaning that. She’d taken care of me most of my life.

She pulled back, my heart aching how much the middle-aged woman looked like my mother. She always did, the soft features and everything. She touched my face. “You didn’t scare me. You broke my heart. We already lost your sister, and you pull this? Running away?”

I called her on that about Paige. She’d dismissed my sister just as much as Dad had, telling me not to get my hopes up about the lost cause who constantly ran away.

I let go of her, easing back, and the two watched me like I’d run again. I idly wondered if this was some kind of intervention, a damn bust and officers would come pouring into the room to take me away and force me to do what they said. They couldn’t do that to me. Not legally, and that was the only thing keeping me in this room and not running for the hills.