and unknown allies and enemies lurked at the edges of my world… If I ignored all of that, I could’ve just been a regular girl driving back to school with her boyfriend after dinner with her family.
I wasn’t. My life had never been that simple.
But I liked the sound of it.
So for the rest of the ride back, I let myself pretend it could be true.
The twenty-four hour security detail from the Princes continued, and whether it was because of that or because Preston had been bluffing about what he and Adena had planned, no new threats came my way.
I was growing more accustomed than I should probably have let myself be to the four boys’ constant presence in my life. Little things of theirs were scattered around my apartment, making the small dorm feel more lived in than it ever had when it was just me.
The strangest part was that my friends seemed to be getting used to it as well. Dan, who’d never been particularly interested in the social hierarchy of the school, was the first to break down the barriers, talking sports with Finn at lunch or getting into passionate debates about music with Elijah. Maggie and Leah took a little longer to warm up, but over the next couple weeks, I noticed both of them joking around with the Princes—boys they’d once held in both awe and disgust.
It made me glad to see the two sides of my life coming together, although it occurred to me that maybe part of why my three friends were so relaxed around the Princes was because the four boys were no longer treated like royalty by most of the Oak Park students.
That was why I was a little surprised when Finn told me the four of them would be hosting a party at Clarendon Hall on Thursday—their first one all semester.
Back when they’d been the unequivocal rulers of campus, they’d thrown monthly parties in their dorm building, with most students cramming into the main common room while a few hung out in the VIP section in the back study rooms. That was where the Princes always ended up, and where they’d brought me when I’d gone in the past—away from the press of bodies into a private room.
It’d been at one of those parties that they’d let me drink too much and had taken pictures of me while I was passed out, and I could see the concern in Finn’s expression as he told me they’d be hosting another one. I knew they hated to give me reminders of what they’d done to me, of how deep and insidious their betrayal had been.
Not like I could ever really forget.
A few days before the party, flyers and banners started going up around school announcing senior prom. I vaguely remembered seeing them the previous year too, but I’d been too distracted by everything else going on in my life at the time to notice.
College acceptance letters had started coming in too, and it wasn’t all that uncommon to see kids either bragging or crying in the halls as they found out their fates.
I had applied to a few schools the previous semester, but I’d been seriously considering taking a few years off to dance—if I’d been able to accept the offer from Pacific Contemporary Ballet, that was exactly what I would’ve done.
Now? I wasn’t so sure what my plan was.
Shoving down the disheartening thoughts of what could’ve been, I finished up the last of my at-home physical therapy exercises on Thursday before stepping into the shower. Then I changed into a pair of dark skinny jeans and a white, flowy top. It was getting warm enough for sandals, but they hurt my leg and didn’t offer enough support, so I changed into a pair of boring but comfortable shoes.
When I stepped out of the bedroom, Cole, who was on Talia babysitting duty, glanced up from the couch. His gaze swept over me appreciatively, and his expression didn’t even change when his focus reached my clunky shoes.
“Ready?” he asked, glancing up at my face again.
“Yeah. You?”
He nodded, then rose from the couch and headed for the door, holding it open for me.
I was still slow on stairs, but he walked patiently beside me, letting me use his arm for a bit of support as I challenged my ankle to bend like it should. The breaks in my knees had been all soft tissue—healing from compound bone fractures in addition to soft tissue injuries