Page 76 of American Royals
A darker, heavier emotion flitted behind Beatrice’s deep brown eyes. “As always, you have no idea what’s really going on,” she said cryptically. “I hate to break it to you, Samantha, but not everything is about you.”
“Trust me, I know that. It’s all about you,” Sam shot back.
Beatrice bristled. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. You’re the one who can do anything you want, and no one even cares.”
“Exactly!” Sam cried out, triumphant. “No one cares!”
She was shouting by now. Some rational part of her realized that the staff must have heard. That was the downside of living in a palace—that nothing was private, certainly not her tears or hysterics.
At Sam’s words, Beatrice seemed to fold inward, like a balloon that was deflating. “Sam, I would trade with you in a heartbeat.” Her whisper was so quiet that Sam wasn’t quite certain she’d heard.
Beatrice seemed utterly broken; the sight of her like this slammed into Samantha’s anger, twisting it into something else.
Except—Beatrice had won. She had Teddy; she had the throne; she had everything. So why did she seem so miserable? She looked as sorrowful as Teddy had been, as if this engagement had somehow been forced upon them both. But they didn’t get to play the victims here. Not when she was the real casualty of this engagement.
“Forget it.” Sam started toward the door. “You and Teddy clearly deserve each other.”
NINA
Nina tossed and turned listlessly. Her eyes were closed, but she knew she wouldn’t fall asleep, despite the blackout shades she’d ordered online and stapled to the top molding of her window. Well, it was one p.m.
She’d been hiding in her dorm room ever since those horrible articles came out the other day—when the paparazzi set up camp outside her dorm. The few times Nina did leave for class, or to work at the library, she’d texted Rachel and Logan to come meet her at the door. They would stand protectively on either side of her while Nina shoved her way forward, trying her best to ignore the paparazzi’s shouts.
Nina, give us a smile! they cried out. Nina, when’s Jeff coming to visit? When she kept her head down and didn’t answer, they began saying much worse things, calling her cruel, nasty names. Nina knew they were just trying to upset her, because pictures of her walking weren’t any good to them. They needed a shot of her crying—or better yet, yelling—to get a real payout from the trashy blogs that bought these photos.
Even when she did make it to a lecture, Nina felt the weight of everyone’s stares. She’d seen more than one student surreptitiously take out a phone and snap a picture of her looking disheveled and sad. The one time Nina had ventured to the campus convenience store, to buy shampoo and tissues, she’d seen her own face all over the magazines at the checkout counter. One of the headlines actually read, NINA TELLS JEFF: “I’M KEEPING THE BABY!”
She went back and bought an extra-large box of tampons after she saw that one.
Her parents kept calling to check on her, to ask whether Nina wanted to come home for a while, but Nina insisted she was fine. It was one thing for the press to start attacking her, but the way they’d been treating her parents was completely out of line. At least when she stayed at the dorms, she drew the paparazzi away from her family’s house.
A knock sounded at her door. Nina shifted, squeezing her eyes shut. “Wrong room,” she called out. The only person who ever came over was Rachel, and she was in class right now. The same history class that Nina was supposed to be in. Well, at least she knew Rachel would share her notes from the lecture.
The knock sounded again, a familiar one-two-three knock that could only come from one person. It used to be their secret knock, back when they played at being knights in a castle. “Please, Nina? I want to talk,” called out Princess Samantha.
Nina’s stomach twisted. She’d been avoiding Sam the past few days, for almost the same reason she was avoiding Jeff—she didn’t know what to say to her. It was all so unbelievably weird.
She tore herself reluctantly from bed and went to unlock the door, hitting the light switch so the fluorescent bulbs flared to life.
“Nina!” Sam tilted forward a little, as if she were about to throw her arms around her friend in one of her usual hugs, then seemed to change her mind. She stood uncertainly in the doorway.
Suddenly, Nina saw her room through Samantha’s eyes. It was smaller than Sam’s closet, and had the worn, lived-in look that comes from decades of students. Note cards were tacked over every last inch of the wall, covered in Nina’s blocky handwriting. She was always writing things down: literary quotes, reminders to herself. Alongside the note cards were collages of pictures—of Nina with her parents, or hanging out with her college friends. There wasn’t a single photo of Nina and Sam.
Sam had noticed; Nina saw from the way she pursed her lips. But she didn’t say anything.
“Hey, Sam. Um, you can come in.” Nina gestured to the twin bed, which was starting to look a little rumpled and stale. Sam climbed obediently up onto the blue paisley bedspread, but Nina had gone to stand near the window, to peek behind the shade. The reporters were all still gathered there, their lenses gleaming hungrily in the afternoon sun, though they had taken a few respectful steps back in deference to Sam’s bodyguard, who stood at the door with arms crossed.
“I kept expecting to hear from you,” Sam said quietly, as Nina came to perch on the bed.
“I sent you a text.” Nina glanced at the carpet, evading Sam’s gaze. She knew she owed her friend more than that single message. But every time she’d pulled out her phone to call Sam, she’d thought of how the conversation would go—the apology she would have to give, for keeping this a secret—and had put it off. She had plenty to worry about without adding Sam’s hurt feelings to the mix.
Sam leaned forward, her legs crisscrossed before her. “Why didn’t you feel like you could tell me about you and Jeff?”
So many reasons. Nina tried to think of the simplest. “I didn’t know what would happen between us,” she said honestly. “I didn’t want to make things weirder than they needed to be, in case it didn’t work out.”
Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. “So if you guys had broken up before this happened, you would never have told me?” Sam asked, visibly hurt. “I keep thinking about all the things we did in Telluride … that comment I made, about how I wanted to find Jeff a girlfriend. Were the two of you laughing at me behind my back the entire time?”
Nina blinked. We weren’t thinking of you at all, she wanted to reply. Didn’t Sam understand that this hadn’t been all fun and games for her—that it had made her miserable?
