Page 78 of Her Royal Highness
“I know what you were doing,” I reply, and then, as awful as this whole day has been, I clap my hand over my mouth, giggles erupting out of me.
And then they both start laughing, too, their clothes rumpled, their hair a mess.
“Are you shocked?” Sakshi asks, threading her arm through Perry’s. They should look so mismatched as to be ridiculous, Sakshi so glamorous and gorgeous, Perry so... neither of those things, but instead, they just look right. Perfect, really.
Laughing, I throw myself on both of them, wrapping them into a hug that’s made tougher by the fact that Saks is so much taller than me and Perry, but we manage it.
“No, not shocked, bloody well thrilled,” I say, and Perry guffaws, patting my back hard.
“Spoken like a true Scottish lass, now,” he teases, and I pull back, still smiling at both of them.
“Who would have thought?” Sakshi asks on a sigh. “All three of us finding love at Gregorstoun of all places.”
I try to smile. I really do.
But I can feel it wobbling on my face, my eyes stinging, and suddenly there are tears rolling down my face.
“Peregrine,” Saks says, pointing to the door. “Out.”
Fifteen minutes later, Saks and I are sitting on her floor, a tube of chocolate digestive biscuits half-destroyed between us.
“Oh, darling,” Saks says, breaking a cookie in half, “I am sorry.”
I want to protest and tell her no, everything is fine, I’m fine, it’s all deeply, deeply fine, but that would be a lie, so I let her pull me close to her, my head on her shoulder. “Flora always was a heartbreaker,” she says, stroking my hair, but I shake my head, pulling away.
“No, that’s the thing. She didn’t break my heart, Saks. I... I think I might have broken hers.”
Sakshi’s dark eyes go wide. “Oh, dear,” she murmurs. “That might be a first for Flora.”
Tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling, I groan. “You’re supposed to be making me feel better,” I remind her, and she pats my arms again, all fluttery fingers.
“Of course, of course. I mean, how could you know Flora had a heart to break? And it’s probably her due. Like I said, she’s always had quite a reputation as the love-them-and-leave-them type.”
I think of Flora making me a fake Thanksgiving, of herpicking out the perfect dress for me. Of how happy she seemed to have me at her side in Edinburgh.
My eyes are stinging again, and I wipe at them with the back of my hand. “She’s a lot more than anyone thinks she is,” I say at last. “She’s funny and smart and kind. Well, not always on that last one, but she tries, is the point. And she’s just got that hard shell because her insides are marshmallows, basically, so she has to have a protective coating, you know? But once you get past that, she’s just... she’s...”
Saks is still sitting against her bed, and she’s watching me now with her mouth hanging open a little bit.
Self-conscious, I stand up, dusting off the back of my jeans. “She’s just a lot greater than anyone knows,” I finally finish up, and Saks leans forward, asking me the question I was really afraid she was going to ask.
“Then, darling, why did you leave her?”
CHAPTER38
The next few days are somehow even worse than I’d thought they’d be.
The school feels empty without Flora in it, and, as I expected, I spend way too much time Googling her.
I even set up an alert, which feels like a special kind of pathetic.
Dad knows something is up whenever we Skype, but I just blame my general sad-sackness on school, the weather, and being homesick, which is kind of true. Being home at Christmas seems really nice now, and I start marking the days off with a big red pen on my calendar.
I’ve got twenty-nine more days to go when I trudge back up to my room after class one afternoon, tossing my bag on my bed.
With a sigh—I am a champion sigher these days—I open my laptop. There’s an email from Lee, a missed Skype call from Dad, and...
Another Hangout message from Jude.
