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I’m not a virgin anymore.
I gave my virginity to one of the Princes.
Maybe that thought should’ve disgusted me, but it was hard to muster up a bad memory of the sex I’d had with Elijah.
It’d been perfect.
Everything else surrounding that moment might be monumentally fucked up, but that event, the feeling of being skin to skin with him? It’d been better than I had ever imagined losing my virginity would feel.
Then I thought of afterward, of what he’d told me—the words written in my little notebook, the pictures on my phone—and the water pouring down over me seemed to chill.
After wrapping a towel around myself, I used my computer to transfer the pictures to the little flash drive I kept in my notebook and then deleted the images from my phone. For a second, I considered deleting them from the flash drive too, but… I couldn’t.
An eye for an eye.
The Princes had taken pictures of me when I’d passed out at a party, and although I hadn’t been naked and they hadn’t let any of the guys in the photos actually touch me, they’d let them stand close to me, posing in obscene positions. My pictures of Elijah were worse than that in some ways, but at least he was alone in them.
When I tugged the flash drive free of the USB port, I stuck it back in the notebook and shoved the small journal back in the side pocket of my backpack, pulling out my History textbook instead.
I needed to study. And I needed a break from my thoughts.
For the rest of the afternoon, I switched between subjects, studying one until my brain got fried and then switching to another. At around four, Philip texted me. He’d started sending text messages every once in a while, and they were always perfectly punctuated and read like handwritten letters. They made me giggle. I was trying to help him up his technology game, but he was still a long way away from using emojis or Snapchat.
PHILIP: Talia,
Would you like to have coffee again next week? Or we could do lunch. A colleague told me about a place that apparently has very good (bad?) hamburgers. I’d love to take you there.
Best,
Philip
ME: Yumm burgers! If bad means greasy count me in. I dunno if I can do next week tho. Got tests in American Lit and Spanish I need to study for. Maybe Saturday?
PHILIP: Saturday would work fine for me. Jacqueline has a tennis game at 11:00, so what do you say to an early lunch?
I say you could stop lying to your wife.
Huffing a breath, I flopped over on the couch, resting my feet up on the back. It irritated me a little that Philip was still sneaking around to see me—like I was some kind of dirty fucking secret. But at the same time, I had no doubt that if he told Jacqueline he’d been in contact with me, it wouldn’t end well for either of us. And that was a headache I’d just as soon avoid. I was glad to have one member of my family back in my life in some capacity, but I’d pretty much made my peace with never speaking to my grandmother again.
ME: Early is good. there’s never a bad time for burgers.
PHILIP: Wonderful. I’ll plan on that. Oh, and good luck with your exams. I hope you do well.
A strange little swell of happiness rose in my chest at the words on the screen. I didn’t get the sense that Philip was wishing me well because the Hildebrand legacy needed a straight A student, or not-so-subtly pushing me to study harder. It just felt like he was wishing me well, and the idea was so foreign and nice that I didn’t quite know what to do with it.
Philip had been serious, I was certain of that by now. It was too late for him to save his daughter, to bring her back from the dead and back to Roseland. It was too late to undo my banishment back to Sand Valley and foster care. But it wasn’t too late to do better, and I appreciated that he was trying.
ME: Thx. I’ll be okay I think.
I tossed my phone on the couch cushion beside me and dived back into the books. I really did want to do well. Not for Jacqueline, and not even for Philip—but for me. I’d risked a lot to come back here, and I was determined to make it worthwhile.
I felt a little nervous as I walked toward Craydon Hall on Monday morning, and despite my efforts not to feel anything, my heart slammed harder in my chest when I walked through the front door and saw the Princes standing several yards down the hallway.
Elijah’s gaze landed on mine, and every inch of my skin warmed. Maybe his did too, because I swore I saw a blush tint his cheeks. His face was still banged up, although the swelling near his eye had gone down.
And surprisingly, Mason looked about the same. I hadn’t thought the fight was even between them, but for the minute that Elijah had held the upper hand, he’d gotten some serious punches in. The tall, green-eyed boy had a healing cut near the corner of his mouth, a black eye just like Elijah, and a purpling bruise on his jaw.
His sharp gaze tracked between me and Elijah, and I had to force my expression to stay neutral. Did he know?
