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Chills run down my spine when she calls me her friend—and it’s not the first time either. It’s just still amazing to me.
Bianca wanted to study fashion at NYC, but her uber-wealthy Upper East Side parents wanted her to go to an Ivy school. They compromised, and she came to Burlington. I suspect that she hates every second of it, but she loves studying art. I was (am) planning to study architecture. We bonded over feeling out of place and our misery. And fashion.
She is the first and only friend I have had outside the palace. She has put up with my bodyguards and their rules and rituals and so much more… I honestly don’t know why. Everyone here knows who I am, and they act pretty chill about it, but at the same time, no one wants to get really close to me. Except her. Well, she was forced to stay in the dorm with me, but she wasn’t forced to stay up until 3 am every night and talk boys and clothes and lipsticks with me.
“I expected nothing less from you,” I say and she laughs. “You are an amazing friend, B. How else would we be able to dissect everything right now?”
The guards have both our phones, and need a few hours to check them out. There’s nothing to do but talk.
“Ok,” she says. “Dissect away.”
“Do you think the Rotten Royals really are my half-siblings?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice from trembling. This. This is the real question. This is why I completely lost it and made an absolute moron of myself in the shower.
The thought paralyzes me.
Who are they?
Are they these vicious, cruel creatures they appear to be from their posts? Or are they decent human beings who have been suffering the injustice of the royal system for too many years and have finally snapped?
Who are they really? How many are they? Guys? Girls? Do they hate me? Do they want me dead? My head gets dizzy, and I lower it between my bent knees. Hector looks over, worried, but Bianca places a hand on my back, and motions to him to give me privacy.
Surprisingly, he listens to her.
Olivia is weak. Olivia is fragile. Olivia can’t deal.
I hate it. It’s true, but I hate it.
I will be strong this time, even if it kills me. But tears are already pooling in my eyes. Bianca leans in and hugs my shoulders, even though it’s awkward as we are sitting on the floor, plus I am still filthy with sweat.
“They say they are,” Bianca says and she sounds so sad. “Why would they lie?”
A flyer for the frat party that’s planned for tonight unsticks from the wall and drifts lazily to land on our feet. I had decided to not be a baby and go, for once. I was so looking forward to it: it would be my first normal party, one without any royals in sight. Even Hector had agreed to leave me alone and guard me from a distance for a few hours.
Now, of course, everything has changed.
“What an amazing moment for everything to fall apart,” I say from between my knees.
“Liv, sorry to interrupt, but His Majesty has been calling you for the past hour,” Hector says, holding out his phone. I turned off my own phone when dad called me for the first time last night, and besides, it’s still in the room with the guards.
“Oh,” I tell Hector, reaching to take the phone. “Sorry. Why didn’t you say? Give it to me.”
He hands me over his phone, my dad’s title plastered across the screen, as the phone keeps ringing and ringing.
I swipe down, rejecting the call.
Hector goes white.
“His Majesty…” he says.
“That’s the whole problem,” I tell him, “isn’t it? His Majesty.”
I turn my face to the wall, so that he will get the message that I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
/we the rotten royals/
King Mihail of Asteria has a few dirty secrets, and it is time for them to come out in the open: it’s us. We are the secrets.
We, the rotten royals.
