Maybe he had no choice.
Things were starting to click, but what wasn’t were Royal’s secrets and the dangers I may or may not be in knowing information about what happened that night with my sister. Whatever was going on, more questions were warranted, though, and previous plans seemed to be in the wrong direction. I needed to reanalyze how I was handling certain things, so the note from Ramses in English 8 couldn’t have come at a better time. He’d tossed it right down my front, and I opened it.
Ramses: I hear Prinze is back. We probably should talk about some stuff.
I turned, his nod small. I watched him scribble down something again, and when I turned back, that note came down my front too.
Ramses: I also really do feel like you’ve been ghosting me. No jokes this time. We need to talk, ’Zona. What’s going on?
What was going on was I was fucking confused, confused about how we started this semester and where we were going now. I was confused about Royal and both his feelings and mine. A lot was going on.
I scribbled down words.
Me: Let’s talk at lunch. At the greenhouse.
Ramses and I had only gone out there that one time, the first time when he’d arrived at our school, and he’d been so candid with me. He told me who he was and why he was there, always honest from the beginning. He may have not gone into too many details surrounding that honesty, but he’d always told me the truth. I owed him that right.
We got out there in our coats and fully equipped with our lunches, Ramses opened the door for me. The heat from the greenhouse was heaven, and I had to say, it’d be nice to have an open conversation for once. I had been avoiding him, doing my own stuff behind the scenes like trying to find out more about my sister’s ex-girlfriend. I still hadn’t really found anything out about that, but I was hoping that wouldn’t be forever. It’d also be nice to have lunch for once where half a dozen people I didn’t know or cared about weren’t sitting with me. Ramses was kind of popular before the whole Court thing, but now, with that king ring on his finger, he’d turned into god status. Everyone wanted a piece of him, to be around him just because he was in Court now. It was crazy, but that amount of power had been what we wanted. It’d help us open some doors, doors I’d pretty much been avoiding until this very moment.
“So what’s going on?” he asked, passing me a pita chip. I noticed he started getting them through the lunch line especially for me. He always made sure to have some when we sat next to each other, no doubt just keeping up with the ruse. He was so much better at all this girlfriend/boyfriend stuff than me, a natural for him almost.
I took the chip. “I think we need to reconsider how we’ve been handling things.”
“Okay.” Taking the bag back, he ate a chip himself. “How so?”
I felt so guilty I hadn’t told him any of the stuff about Royal, our conversation right after Royal had been suspended or what happened when I went to his house. Ramses had been more than honest and upfront with me than I’d ever been with him, and I pretty much felt like a shit friend because of that. He’d been doing so much for me, putting up with this lie for me basically. I sat near the koi pond. “I talked to Royal.”
This had his dark eyebrows rising, and scarfing another chip, he took the all of two steps it took him to cross the greenhouse over to me with his long legs. He sat down with the bag. “You did?”
“Yeah, a few times actually. The latest was earlier today.”
He ate in silence, and I couldn’t get a read on him. He swallowed. “All right. So what does that mean? What did you guys talk about?”
Where did I start? I folded my arms. “Well, the first time was after the fight. Like right after. I cornered him, yelling at him about it. A lot of stuff was said, but it was short, so I decided to go talk to him. I went to his house not long after that.”
“Wait. What?” He sat back. “’Zona, have you lost your mind? He could be a serial killer. I mean, he basically is with the Route 80 thing.”
“But that’s the thing—I don’t know if it’s as simple as that. He pretty much told me the haze was my sister’s idea. More to everything that night than we believed. It’s basically what you said. We didn’t have the whole story, so didn’t know what to conclude.”
“He told you the haze was your sister’s idea?” he asked propping his elbows on his knees. “Like actually told you that and admitted it to you?”
“In so many words.”
His eyes lifted toward the heavens. “’Zona…”
“Seriously, Ramses, I don’t think what happened was necessarily his fault or the other guys’. He said he begged Paige not to.”
“Why had he let her? No offense, December, but I don’t remember your sister being a huge girl. He physically could
have kept her from doing something.”
“But could he have? Really? No offense, Ramses, but you don’t know my sister. If she wanted to do something, she was going to do it. To hell with Royal or not.”
“But why would she?” He dropped arms between his legs. “What would compel her to do something that crazy? A haze like that someone would want to make a statement, gain some clout against the brothers.”
“Maybe that’s why that one was so important. She was a girl, a girl who’s trying to be Court and not kept, and from what I understand, she did have a reason.”
“Which is?”