We The Pretty Stars (Court High Book 4) by Eden O'Neill

Author:Eden O'Neill [O'Neill, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-27T05:00:00+00:00

*

I turned in the middle of the night, by myself, and I didn’t understand. Opening my eyes, I realized I wasn’t by myself, but Royal had retreated to the other side of the bed. He sat on the edge in nothing but his boxers, his head in his hands.

Basically naked myself from fooling around earlier tonight, I brought the blankets up to my chest. Shimmying, I got to the edge of the bed, and when I touched his back, his head shifted my way. My hand came away clammy, sweat coating his muscular frame. I touched hot skin. “Hey. You okay?”

Royal’s hand covered mine, gripping on for dear life, and moving, I guided his cheek to make him look at me. His eyes were completely bloodshot, red and dark-rimmed. “Royal?”

A silence filled the room, and I brought him completely to me, guiding him back with me under the sheets. Together, I held him close, and he buried his face in my neck.

“Em…” was all he said, my name in harsh and tortured tones. He hadn’t sounded this way before.

“Hey, talk to me.” I folded my fingers into his hair, praying to God he’d talk to me. That he’d let some of this out. Whatever it was, he didn’t have to do this alone. Thick arms eventually moved around me, and seriously, I questioned his ability to fuse me into his flesh. He held me so hard, so long.

His lips pulled apart on my neck. “I saw their faces, Em… I see them all the time.”

“Who, babe? Who?” He sounded so terrible, tears burning my own eyes. I felt so much pain in his voice. What the hell was going on?

Coarse fingers dug into my flesh, my boyfriend holding on for dear life. “My mom. My sister,” he rasped, tugging me into him hard. “What the fuck? Why can’t I let go?”

Why would he want to? Let go of them. “Why do you need to let go?”

“Because I’m a piece of shit,” he gritted, his hands so hard on my flesh. He pulled me hard. “Because it’s my fault they’re dead.”

He’d said something like this before, admitted he was the reason they’d died when his dad hit him once. He said he deserved it. But how? “How was it your fault?”

Eventually, with some coaxing, I got him to pull away, to face me, face this. His eyes weren’t just lined in red but glassy, a shine to them like he straddled a thin line on the cusp of snapping. Maybe he was on the brink, these moments with me the only ones keeping him from hacking that rope clear through.

“I got so sick,” he said, the swallow hard in his throat. “I got sick, and I was scared.”

“Okay.” I smoothed my hands on his face.

He gripped one. “My family and I were supposed to go skiing. The whole family. My dad. Me. My mom and my sister. Because I got sick I couldn’t go, and my dad stayed with me. He wanted Grace and my mom to still go, though.

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