Her Royal Highness, Page 2

  “Calling major BS on that, Mill,” Lee says, wiggling his toes at me. “You were talking about Scotland all last year.”

  “We watched Brave at least three times over winter break,” Darcy adds, and I give both of them what I hope is a stern glare.

  “A girl is allowed to change her mind,” I say, and then watch as they exchange glances.

  “All I’m saying,” Darcy finally says before taking the controller from the floor and shutting off the Xbox, “is that you shouldn’t give up a great opportunity for Jude.”

  “I’m not doing it for her,” I reply, but there’s that look between Lee and Darce again, and scowling at the two of them, I take the controller back, powering on the system again. I’ve still got two hours before I need to be home, and dammit, I’m going to kill a dragon.

  “This isn’t about Jude, and even if it were, who cares? Mason coming back isn’t changing anything.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “I would give up flushing toilets for that man.”

  I look up from my phone toward the TV my aunt Vi is gesturing at or, more specifically, the very hot guy in a kilt she’s referencing.

  It’s my third day over at Aunt Vi’s apartment, eating Snackwell’s and watching a show called The Seas of Time, about this lady who travels back in time and falls in love with a hot Highlander. I got addicted to it last year in the midst of my Scotland Fever, and brought over the DVDs for moral support. Aunt Vi’s latest breakup (Kyle the Bartender) has hit her hard, hence the sexy time-travel show and cookies.

  I frown, studying the guy on the screen. “I like Callum a lot,” I say at last. “Especially his hair. But I feel like I enjoy flushing toilets more? Maybe?”

  From her spot on the sofa, Aunt Vi sighs. She’s showered today, which is something, at least, and her dark hair is pulled back in a messy bun. “You have no sense of romance, Amelia,” she says, and I once again fight the urge to look at my phone.

  It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Jude, two weeks since we were kissing in the tent in my backyard, and she was supposed to get back from visiting her nana three days ago. I’ve been waiting on a text, but so far, no dice.

  It’s hard not to make a connection between the return of Jude’s ex-boyfriend and her sudden radio silence, but trust me, those are dots I’m really trying not to connect, no matter what Darcy said.

  I know what me and Jude have, and it’s not just “a distraction” or whatever. It’s real. It’s an us, like Jude said . . .

  There’s a buzz from the table, and I lean over, snatching the phone up only to deflate back into Aunt Vi’s uncomfortable- but-extremely-stylish white leather chair.

  It’s a text, but it’s from Lee, asking me if Jude texted yet.

  No, I type back, bagpipes and heavy breathing in the background. But she’s still hanging out with Nana?

  Another buzz, and there’s a series of

  Thanks for the positive vibes, I text back, frowning.

  The phone buzzes again, but I ignore it this time, focusing on the show, where Callum and Helena are now lying down, thankfully covered up.

  “Everything okay, kiddo?” Aunt Vi asks, and I nod, forcing myself to smile at her.

  “Yeah, just . . . you know, worried about Callum and Helena. Soon this British guy, Lord Harley, shows up, and he’s bad news.”

  Aunt Vi gives me a look, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She’s my dad’s younger sister, and was born when he was in high school, so she’s sometimes more like a big sister to me than an aunt. But every once in a while, she also tries the Mom Thing on for size, and I can tell that’s what’s about to happen now.

  “You don’t seem okay,” she says, turning on the couch to face me. “Is it school?”

  “It’s summer break, Aunt Vi,” I remind her. “But yes, in general, school is fine. School is always fine for me, you know that.”

  She screws up her face, looking an awful lot like me as she does. “I don’t know where you got your nerd gene from,” she says, “but it is strong with you.”

  I shrug. “From Mom, maybe?” And Aunt Vi’s face immediately crumples into a sympathetic frown.

  “Of course,” she says. “Your mom was super smart. Way too smart to have married my brother, I thought, but there’s no accounting for taste.”

  I smile back at her, not wanting her to feel weird, which is a thing that can happen when you bring up a dead parent, I’ve learned. Even with other family members. So I lighten my tone, crossing my legs as I say, “And being good at school equals scholarships, which equals money, and you know I love the hustle.”

  Aunt Vi laughs. “That you do.”

  Picking up one of the roughly five thousand throw pillows on her couch, this one in a slightly different shade of white—Aunt Vi is all about the monochrome look—she squeezes it to her chest. “So not school. Boy?”

  I nearly glance at my phone again, but just manage to avoid it. “No boy,” I say, which is true to the letter of Aunt Vi’s question if not the spirit.

  I can tell she’s about to press further, but then, thank god, Helena and Callum start making out again and her attention is diverted.

  “I miss Kyle,” she says on a sigh, and okay, yeah, that’s about enough of that.

  Rising to my feet, I put my phone in my pocket and point to the empty cookie box on the coffee table. “Oh, look at that. We’re out of cookies. I’ll run and get some more.”

  Her focus now back on the television, she gives a faint nod, waving a hand toward the kitchen. “There’s a twenty in that Himalayan salt dish by the front door.”

  I walk toward the bowl she mentioned, fishing out the twenty-dollar bill from a sea of change and ponytail holders. Once it’s in the pocket of my shorts, I look again at the bowl, holding it up briefly, then, after a second, tentatively touching my tongue to it.

  “This isn’t actually salt,” I call to her. “It’s probably just a pink quartz.”

  “Nerd!” she calls back, but I smile as I put the bowl back down and head out the door.

  It’s warm outside—hot, really—and the sky is almost painfully blue overhead. Aunt Vi’s apartment complex is in this new little community they’ve built that’s supposed to re-create the experience of small town living, so just down a redbrick sidewalk, there’s a little square with a drugstore, some restaurants, and a handful of boutiques.

  I make my way past the fountain, letting my hand trail along the wrought-iron fence, my rings making a satisfying clinking sound as I do. I think my dad feels bad that we haven’t gone anywhere this summer, but my stepmom had to work, and my little brother isn’t even one yet, so this didn’t seem like a great year for a Quint Family Vacation. I don’t really regret it, though. It’s given me a chance to do extra studying for the AP Environmental Science exam next year, plus I’ve gotten to hang out with Aunt Vi, who clearly needs me.

  And then there’s Jude.

  As I step on the mat activating the automatic doors to the drugstore (just a chain store, but with a redbrick entrance and striped awning to make it look nicer than it is), my phone buzzes again in my pocket, and my hands fumble to pull it out.

  Still not Jude, and my heart sinks a little.

  Can you get tampons while you’re there? Aunt Vi asks, and I text her back that I will.

  Inside the drugstore, the air-conditioning is going full blast, raising goose bumps on my arms and legs, and I hurriedly get the cookies and the tampons, stepping back into the sunshine with a relieved sigh, the bag dangling at my side.

  I turn to head back, and as I glance up, I see two people standing by the fountain.

  The girl isn’t facing me, but I’d know that hair anywhere.

  Jude.

  Like all my angsting over her text conjured her up or something.

  Except I’m pretty sure that if I’d magically made Jude appear, I w
ouldn’t have also brought forth Mason Coleman.

  And they for sure would not be kissing.

  My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that it almost hurts, a dull roar in my ears.

  They’re kissing. Jude and Mason. Kissing. By the fountain because yay, cliché, I guess, and also kissing, kissing, Jude is kissing someone, and it’s not me, and I am such an idiot.

  My face hot and my throat tight, I duck my head and try to move past them as quickly as I can, tears blurring my eyes.

  And maybe that’s why I don’t see the oh-so-charming old-fashioned sandwich board in front of Y Tu Taco También until I crash into it, sending it clattering to the ground.

  “No,” I whisper, possibly at the universe itself.

  But the universe is clearly not on my side today because I hear Mason call my name.

  Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I count to three before turning to see him and Jude walking over to me, their fingers interlocked as Mason pulls her along behind him.

  Of course Mason has no idea that this is weird. As far as he knows, we’re all friends. Have been since middle school. There shouldn’t be anything weird about me seeing him and Jude together, and also together.

  But Jude had said we were an us.

  The us-iest.

  And now she seems to be us-ing pretty hard with Mason. Again.

  “Hi!” I say, way too loud, waggling my fingers at them. Unfortunately, when I lift my hand, I’ve still got the drugstore bag dangling from it, and the flimsy plastic strap chooses that second to slide off my wrist, sending two boxes of Teddy Grahams and one package of Tampax onto Mason’s feet.

  I hate . . . literally everything about my life right now.

  Mason, to his credit, doesn’t get weird about picking up cookies and feminine hygiene products. Honestly, that just makes it worse. If he were the kind of jackass who seemed afraid of tampons, I could at least feel superior to him.

  I smile, taking my stuff and shoving it back in the plastic sack. “Thanks. Those aren’t mine. The cookies or the . . . I mean, I eat cookies, and I use tampons, because duh, but I was just . . . my aunt . . .”

  “No worries,” Mason says cheerfully. “I have sisters.”

  “Right,” I reply, but I’m still looking past him at Jude.

  She’s smiling at Mason, but I see the tightness of her shoulders, how she keeps playing with his fingers nervously.

  I cannot cry here in this fake town square, holding tampons and cookies in front of a taqueria, so I nod, then jerk my thumb toward the next block.

  “Well, hope y’all are having a good summer. I’m just gonna . . . head back. See you later!”

  I’ve salvaged about as much dignity as a girl who just basically flung tampons at the girl she likes and the boy the girl picked over her possibly can.

  I’m at the corner when my phone buzzes, and this time, finally, it’s the text I was waiting for.

  But all Jude says is I’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 for that,” 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.

  CHAPTER 4

  “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 Scotland school,” 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 means technically I’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 on not going 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.

  Putting the papers on the table, I go stand behind him, my hands on his shoulders. “I just . . . changed my mind,” I tell him. “The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I’d turned it down too fast. I got freaked out by the idea of how far away it was, but I can’t let being scared keep me from doing something awesome.”

  Leaning closer, I add, “And again, it’s school, Dad. It’s not like I’m asking to go follow some band around Europe for the next year.”

  He scoffs at that, twisting a little to look back at me. “I feel like I’d know how to handle that better than this, if I’m being honest. That I can understand.”

  Smiling, I give him a firm pat with both hands before stepping back.
“Maybe this is my way of rebelling. Tragically uncool daughter of very cool parents.”

  “I think you’re very cool,” Dad counters loyally, flipping a pancake. “So cool, in fact, that I was thinking we might go camping this weekend? Just me and you, like we used to. I also saw an ad for a gem and mineral show in Houston next week that might be fun. Haven’t gone to one of those in a while.”

  I give him a look. “Dad, are you trying to bribe me with science?”

  “A little bit,” he acknowledges, then nods at Gus, my baby brother, who sits in his high chair, happily smacking his plastic spoon against the tray.

  “I mean, if you leave, who can I camp with? This one is terrible at setting up tents. And you should have seen the mess the last time I asked him to gather firewood.”

  Gus shouts a word that kind of sounds like “TENT!” and I chuck him under his chin. “The family honor of keeping up with tent stakes and the camping stove falls to you, my brother.”

  Gus gives me a gummy grin, tilting his head to try to put my fingers in his mouth, and from behind me, Dad sighs.

  “You don’t . . . If this is about Anna, or Gus, or you thinking—”

  I cut Dad off with one raised hand. “No,” I say. “No tragic backstory at play here.”

  Dad married Anna three years ago, and they had Gus last year. It was definitely a change, going from being an only child with a single parent to having a stepmom and a baby in the house, but it’s also been a good change. I walk over to the kitchen table, picking up a can of cereal puffs and dumping out a handful for Gus, and I’m rewarded with another smile. My whole heart melts as I smooth a hand over his reddish hair. Gus looks way more like my stepmother than my dad or me—both of us have fairly boring brown hair and eyes.

  He’s also just about the best thing in my life, so my desire to try out school in another country has nothing to do with feeling out of place or unwelcome.

  “Scarecrow, I think I’ll miss you most of all,” I coo to Gus now, who babbles back, shoving a handful of the puffs into his mouth, and I sigh. “I don’t think he gets my pop culture references yet.”