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He left the next day after Zach’s welcome party on a business trip or something. If he was back, we would’ve heard about it.
Ryan chuckles. “I tend to forget that we have two Mr. Princes now. I’m talking about the other one. The new one. Zachariah. Zach. Whatever they’re calling him. He said he had a short-notice meeting.”
“Zach. They call him Zach,” I tell him mechanically, as the earlier warmth in my chest slowly goes away.
Ever since I had my chat with Tina and Zach cornered me in the hallway a few days ago, I’ve maintained my distance.
Every morning on my way to work I see him working out by the pool, shirtless. I feel his stare across the expanse of ground that separates us but I make it a point to never stare back. I make it a point to not see how his muscles ripple and how sun spotlights every drop of sweat that he sheds.
I also make it a point to never go into the kitchen in the morning because Zach’s always there, getting fussed over by Maggie.
A couple of times I saw him getting out of tower one, where Mr. and Mrs. Prince’s bedroom is located – junior members of the staff, such as me, aren’t allowed in their suite. He looked agitated, angry, but as soon as our eyes clashed, I looked away.
Most nights, I hear the roar of his bike as he leaves the estate to go wherever he goes. Again, I make it a point not to think about it. Along with other things like how he sent Ashley away and how he made himself sick with the custard. How he hasn’t smoked in a while.
Don’t be like me.
What does that mean? I make it a point not to wonder.
As the days passed, I thought that he meant what he said. If I left him alone, he’d leave me alone too. I’d go back to trying to save up for my house and he’d do whatever he came here to do. I thought that maybe now that we’ve grown up, things really changed.
“Didn’t you go to school with him?”
Ryan’s question brings me out of my head and I nod. “Yeah.”
People have been asking me that since the first night he came back.
Didn’t you go to school together?
How was he back in school?
Do you know why he left? Why he came back?
Has he always been this sexy, this good looking?
“Were you…” Ryan pauses. “Were you guys friends?”
“No. No, we weren’t friends,” I tell Ryan, waiting for the familiar anger against Zach to rise up in me.
Familiar heat and the sense of injustice and the urge to punch him for ruining this for me.
Nothing changed, right?
Zach did ruin my date. He said there were no secrets from him. So he probably figured out that tonight Ryan was taking me out.
This is exactly like prom.
But unlike prom, unlike all the years at St. Patrick’s, I don’t have the need to get even. All I feel is empty.
Exhausted, tired. Scared.
I feel scared. I feel like for years, I’ve hated Zach with such intensity that he’s consumed every thought in my head. He’s taken up all the spaces in my body that I have nothing left to give. Nothing left to feel.
Maybe I hate him so much that I’ll never be able to love anyone. I’ll never have what my parents had.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you,” Ryan says.
He asks me if he can drop me off anywhere, maybe at The Pleiades, but I decline. Finally, with a soft kiss on my cheek, he drives away.
And I start walking north. Toward the mansion where he lives.
