American Royals

“Yes. Her condition hasn’t changed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Natasha replied, in the unconvincing way of someone claiming an emotion she didn’t feel. Her eyes drifted toward the camera in her backseat. “Want me to come with?”

The analytical part of Daphne knew that Natasha had a point. The future princess grieving at the bedside of her friend: it would make a great sidebar photo to complement all the coverage of her philanthropy.

But this grief was too real for Daphne to share with anyone.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll visit her alone.”

This time when Daphne walked into the hospital, she moved quickly, keeping her head down to deflect attention. She didn’t really want to advertise why she was here.

In the long-term care ward, Daphne headed down a series of hallways, then turned toward a familiar door. She reached her hand up to trace the nameplate—HIMARI MARIKO, it said, on a square of laminated paper. At the beginning, back when everyone kept expecting Himari to wake up at any minute, her name had been written in dry-erase marker on a square of whiteboard.

Daphne had known it was serious when they hung the laminated name card.

There was a chair pulled up next to the bed; Daphne sat in it and tucked her feet to one side, kicking off her ballet flats so that her toes in their black tights curled over the cushions.

Himari lay there before her, under a silver-and-blue quilt that her mom had brought from home. Tubes and wires connected her to various IVs and machines. Her face was hollow, deep purple shadows inscribed beneath her eyes. Her breathing was so slight that Daphne could hardly hear it.

“Hey. It’s me,” Daphne said quietly.

When Himari had first fallen into a coma, back when it seemed like a temporary condition, Daphne had filled her visits with chatter. She would tell Himari everything she was missing: the cute new spin instructor who was teaching at their favorite studio; the eighties-themed gala at the science museum; the fact that Olivia Langley was organizing a weekend at her family’s lake house and hadn’t included Daphne. But now it felt strange to pour all those meaningless words into the silence. It wasn’t as though Himari was listening anyway.

She reached out to take her friend’s hand, surprised as always at how limp it felt in her own. Himari’s nails had grown grotesquely long, and so uneven that they were starting to snag on the blanket. Of course the nurses had more important things to worry about than Himari’s cuticles, but still.

Biting back a sigh, Daphne reached into her purse for the nail file she kept with her at all times. She began to meticulously shape her friend’s nails, rounding them at the edges.

“Sorry I don’t have any polish with me. Though I wouldn’t have the right one for you anyway.” Daphne only ever wore pale, almost translucent pinks—she feared that shades of red might remind people of claws, or grasping talons. But Himari had no such hesitations. She’d always gravitated toward the loud, fiery colors, just like her mom did.

You can tell a true lady by her red nail polish and red lipstick, Himari’s mom used to tell them as she swished along to some event in a chic black dress and towering heels. Himari’s parents were the Earl and Countess of Hana, a title that had been in their family for almost a century, ever since Himari’s great-grandparents came from Kyoto as ambassadors from the Japanese Imperial Court.

Daphne used to love going to the Marikos’ house. They lived in a sprawling estate in the center of Herald Oaks, with manicured gardens and an enormous swimming pool. Himari had three brothers, and their home always felt rowdy and full of laughter, no matter the priceless watercolor screens and terra-cotta bowls that decorated each room.

“I don’t approve of your friendship with that Mariko girl. She’s too smart,” Daphne’s mom announced one day when Daphne came home from a sleepover at Himari’s. “You need to surround yourself with girls who make you shine, not girls who compete with you.”

“She’s my friend,” Daphne said hotly.

Rebecca looked into her daughter’s eyes with eerie prescience. “A pair of girls as beautiful and clever as the two of you, it can only end in disaster.”

Daphne wished her mother hadn’t been right.

Throughout high school, she and Himari had shared almost everything: their hopes, their successes, their position as the two most popular girls in the class. What an entrance they had made, walking into some court function together, both of them young and stunning and aristocratic. It had seemed like no one could resist them, like nothing at all could come between them.

Until Daphne started dating the prince.

As it turned out, Himari had wanted Jefferson too. Of course she did; half of America had daydreams about him. Yet somehow Daphne, who prided herself on knowing people’s intentions almost before they knew them themselves, hadn’t seen it coming.

“We were friends, weren’t we?” she said softly, knowing that Himari wouldn’t answer. “You weren’t just pretending the whole time?”

Those seven days, from Himari’s birthday through the twins’ graduation party, had caused Daphne to doubt and second-guess everything. She wanted to believe that Himari had cared about her, that once upon a time their friendship had been real.

Because, even after everything that had happened, Daphne missed her friend. Her haughty, snarky, insightful friend who always seemed to know too much for her own good.