Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“When are you going to settle down?” Jory asks the question with a lopsided grin, but his tone is tinged with a note of seriousness I don’t like.
“You sound like Sevilla.”
Sevilla is his girlfriend slash fiancée. I haven’t seen her much lately, because, well, she doesn’t like me and thinks I am a bad influence.
“She’s right about a lot of things. We’re old enough to take things seriously now. Mistakes we make now are going to follow us. It’s not like when we were kids and they just got brushed off. What we do matters.”
“You sound worried, Jory.”
He gives me a look that I recognize from when we were kids. It’s the one he used to get when he’d really, really fucked up. I feel my stomach sinking in sympathy for him, even though I’m the one currently on the run from the law, some kidnappers, and probably in deep shit with the academy.
“What’s wrong? What have you done?”
“I think I got her pregnant,” he says.
“Shit. What’s she going to do?”
He looks at me aghast. “What do you mean? She’s going to be the mother of my children. Always was going to be. It’s just a little earlier than we planned.”
Sure it is.
One second Sevilla is all about plans, the next she’s forgetting how pups are born? I don’t think so. Oh, well. She’s good for Jory. Whatever that means. I hear people say it enough so it’s got to have some kind of meaning.
“In that case, congratulations!” I hold up my coffee and give him a smile.
“Yeah. Thanks. But see, it means…”
“What?”
I shove a pancake into my mouth so nothing stupid can come out of it.
“It means you can’t come around like this anymore. If Sevilla were here, or the baby, and you show up basically naked with half the city after you…” He gives me an apologetic look, and I swallow the sharp, lancing pain I feel in my gut as I realize exactly what he is saying, and why.
I’m losing my oldest friend because I’m a piece of shit. He wouldn’t put it that way, but I would. I’m trouble. I bring trouble. And he’s about to settle down and play house with the woman who is most likely the love of his life.
He’s about to be happy.
And I can’t get in the way of that.
“I understand,” I tell him. “Don’t worry, I won’t come back. I get it.”
“I’m sorry, Darcy, but she’s going to move in soon and I need everything to be perfect for her. If things ever… if you get… maybe in the future, if you, you know…”
“If I get normal?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. But yeah,” he says. “I’ve got to be respectable.”
“Don’t worry, Jory,” I tell him, sucking up my hurt pride. “I understand. Really. I do. You’re going to have a baby. That’s the most important thing. The baby has to come first.”
The words feel like they’re turning to ashes in my mouth. I always thought that was a weird expression and I had no idea what it meant. But I do now. I’m saying what I have to say, because saying literally anything else would make me the world’s biggest asshole.
There’s a part of me I’d never dare give voice to, and that’s the part that wonders why that wasn’t true for me. I didn’t come first. I got abandoned. I was left and raised in an institution by a parade of people I don’t even really remember. But Jory’s kid is already more important to him than I ever was to whoever my dad was. Feels bitter.
“Hey. Good luck, man. I’ll see you around,” I say, pulling my—well, his—clothes up into more appropriate positions.
“You don’t have to go right now,” he says.
“Oh, but I do. You’re gonna be a great dad, Jory. Catch you later.”
I get up and I go, because I’m very close to crying and I don’t want to let Jory see that. I don’t want him to feel any more guilty than he obviously already does.
“Darcy…”
I hear him say something, but I don’t hear what it is. Blood is rushing in my ears as I run off, back to the academy. I hope my absence hasn’t been noted. I’ve gotten in more trouble than this before.
I try one of the rear side gates to the academy, hoping it’s still early enough that nobody is on guard yet. It’s not entirely uncommon for the lesser gates to be manned by students who often run late.
Today, as I have already established, is not my lucky day.
“Darcy, where have you been?”
The soldier at the gate is in my class. His name is Brian, and he’s good at math. None of this matters, but it’s what I think of when I see his country boy face looking at me with curiosity. Brian is excited and honored to be at the academy. He can’t believe his fucking luck.