Page 6 of Her Royal Highness
But all Jude says isI’m sorry.
I don’t bother replying, making my way back to Aunt Vi’s as quickly as my legs will carry me.
Unlocking her door, I toss the bag down by the not- Himalayan-salt bowl and go into the living room, flopping myself back into the uncomfortable chair, my face still flaming, my eyes burning.
On-screen, Callum and Helena are, for once, not doing it or being threatened by evil Brits. Instead, they’re on horses, galloping over rocky terrain, craggy hills rising around them and disappearing into the mist.
Something lurches in my chest looking at them, and I think of the letter in my purse again. The school that I’d been turning down for Jude.
The phone in my pocket buzzes again.
I ignore it.
“I’d give up flushing toilets forthat,” I say to Aunt Vi, pointing at the screen. “You can keep the hot dude.”
Aunt Vi looks over and blinks like she’s just realized I’ve come back, then she laughs a little, shaking her head.
“Oh, right, you and the Scotland thing. Didn’t you apply to a school there?”
I nod. We’re in full montage mode now, Callum and Helena passing through valley and vale, and there are more of those green, stony hills, more shifting sunlight behind clouds, more glimmers of a gray ocean in the background. If I were there, wandering the Highlands in 1780-whatever, I definitely wouldn’t bump into Jude and Mason. I wouldn’t accidentally throw tampons at anyone. I’d be... a whole new Millie, probably.
“Well, there you go,” Aunt Vi says, getting up and heading for the cookies. “You don’t have to time-travel to get to Scotland.”
She gets the box and comes back into the living room, frowning slightly as she sees I bought Actual Cookies, not those fat-free ones she usually buys. But then she shrugs and tears into the box anyway. “Literally just a plane ride away,” she says through a mouthful of cinnamon bears. “You could be there tomorrow if you had a passport and enough money.”
I stare at her for a second, then look back at the screen. She’s right. Scotland is a real place. A place that’s relatively easy to get to. A place with a school that already let me in.
“Yeah,” I say to Aunt Vi, but I’m still looking at the screen, my heart thumping hard in my chest.
Getting away from here. Not having to deal with seeing Mason and Jude kiss against lockers. Not hearing Darcy’s I Told You So, or seeing Lee’s sympathetic looks.
I could just go somewhere else.
Start over.
Me.
Scotland.
CHAPTER4
“We’re back on Scotland?”
My dad stands by the stove, a frown creasing his brow, spatula in one hand—yay, Pancake Wednesday—and I wave a handful of papers at him.
“Not just Scotland, but Scotlandschool,” I say. “You’re a teacher, Dad. Anna’s a guidance counselor. We live and breathe school.”
Before he can respond to that, I sift through the printouts. In the past few days since the Jude Incident and my epiphany at Aunt Vi’s, I’ve been a one-woman Financial Aid Research Machine.
Finding the paper I want, I pull it from the stack, brandishing it. “Gregorstoun offers all kinds of scholarships. And it’s one of the best schools in the world, Dad. Gregorstoun ‘has educated kings and princes and prime ministers,’ and this is the first year they’re admitting women. I’d be part of the first female class ever allowed, which meanstechnicallyI’d be part of history. My picture would probably be in history books.”
“Scottish history books,” Dad counters, and I nod.
“Even better. Have you ever read up on Scottish history? It’s wild. Gonna be me and Braveheart, side by side.”
That makes Dad smile, as I’d suspected it would, but when he turns back to the stove, he’s shaking his head. “I guess I just thought this was off the table, kid. You seemed so set onnotgoing just a couple of weeks ago.”
Dad only busts out the “kid” thing when he’s feeling out of his parenting depth. Which isn’t very often. Although sometimes I wonder what kind of dad he would’ve been if Mom were still around. But that feels unfair to him or disloyal or something. Like I don’t think he’s enough.
