American Royals

A small, shrill voice in Daphne’s head reminded her that she had woken up this morning with Ethan. She had gone straight from Jefferson to his best friend, again; and the fact that she’d slept with Ethan sent her mind tumbling down a dark tunnel of memories, of all the terrible things that had happened after the first time she hooked up with him.

She didn’t like thinking about it. Daphne had a readily adaptable moral code, but even she couldn’t come to terms with what she’d done. Her best option was to compartmentalize it: tuck it into a dark box and leave it alone. Most of the time that worked.

But after what Ethan had said—after waiting here all morning for good news that never came, just as she’d waited the day Himari fell—the box was open, and now all the memories came rushing back.

Daphne felt an overwhelming need to talk to someone, to unburden herself. Even to someone who couldn’t hear.

“Do you mind if I step out for a second?” she asked, giving Jefferson’s hand a squeeze.

“Of course not,” he assured her.

Daphne stood with a nod, smoothing her hair carefully over her shoulders. When she reached the elevators, instead of heading down, she went up, toward the long-term care ward. She’d walked these steps to Himari’s room so many times, she could have navigated them blindfolded.

“Hey. It’s me,” she said, just like always, as she took the chair by Himari’s bed. Her gaze traveled instinctively to the medical monitors, where Himari’s life was reduced to a series of numbers and squiggly green lines.

“I was thinking about the time we met. Do you remember when we were partners for that ninth-grade project?” They’d been assigned to research an era of history. Himari had immediately insisted that they focus on the Roaring Twenties. We can wear boas for our presentation, she’d pointed out, in a duh sort of tone, as if the very mention of boas negated any other argument.

Daphne had laughed. You had me at boas.

That afternoon, Daphne went over to Himari’s house to try on the costumes in her family’s attic. As they stood there facing the mirror—both of them giggling and preening, their eyes sparkling above the mound of feathers—their friendship had been sealed.

Daphne slumped her elbows onto her knees in a distinctly unladylike position, and sighed. “I wish you could answer. Every time I come, I wonder what you would say to me if you could reply. I wonder if you even like my coming.”

Daphne wasn’t sure why she visited Himari so often. Keep your enemies close, as the saying went—except that Daphne still had trouble thinking of Himari as an enemy. Even after everything.

“Maybe you hate me,” she went on. “You have every right to.”

She didn’t usually talk this much on her visits, not anymore. These days she mostly sat in silence, brushing her friend’s hair, watching the beat of her pulse on those glowing monitors. But today Daphne felt a strange impulse to voice her secrets. Today she could practically see them—they were here in the room with her, lurking in the corners, flapping about on great leathery wings.

“You probably don’t care, but I’m about to get Jefferson back. He was seeing this new girl, Nina, but she ended it. Well, I made her end it.” Daphne reached to take her friend’s hand, closing her other palm over Himari’s fingers. “Also, not that you would approve, but I slept with Ethan again.”

Daphne hadn’t dared acknowledge what had happened between her and Ethan at Himari’s birthday party.

She’d woken in the middle of the night and slipped away before anyone could see her, while Ethan was still snoring in that fold-out bed. If she never spoke it aloud, she told herself, it would be as if the whole thing had never happened.

Until the following week at Himari’s house, when Himari confronted her about it.

“So,” Himari said, turning to Daphne in cool disapproval. “When are you going to tell the prince about you and Ethan?”

“Excuse me?” Daphne spluttered.

They were in Himari’s bedroom, trying on their dresses for the next day’s graduation party. A party at the palace, which they had planned to attend together, as best friends.

Himari rolled her eyes at the denial. “Don’t play dumb, Daphne. I saw you and Ethan at my birthday party, in my pool house. How long has that been going on?”

She’d seen them, but said nothing about it until now? Daphne’s eyes flicked guiltily to Himari’s window, to look out at the scene of the crime. The floodlights made the pool house look brighter than ever, as if Himari had highlighted it for just this purpose.

“I kept thinking you would tell Jefferson yourself.” Himari stared levelly at her friend. “Though I guess I wouldn’t say anything either, if I was dating the prince—and supposedly waiting till marriage—and I’d been sleeping with his best friend. Classy move, Daphne.”

“I haven’t been sleeping with Ethan! It was just that one time, and it was a mistake! I want to erase the whole thing and pretend it never happened.”

“You can’t erase something like that.” Himari’s face was spiteful, her dark eyes glittering with condemnation.

“My relationship with Jefferson isn’t any of your business, okay?”

“It’s my business because I saw it! You might be okay with lying, but I’m not.”