Page 148 of Because I Killed Him
“Phillipa was okay with that?”
Dickie snorts. “Blazes, no. But she couldn’t stop it ’cause Ed’s got his own money. All the Prew kids do. Their old man left each of them a gold mine after he died. Phillipa wasn’t happy about it, but then again, that broad’s never happy about anything.”
I know the gold mines Dickie is referring to. Everyone does. The minesare the largest in the Civilized World, worth more than the Prews could spend in twenty lifetimes. Given how comfortably Jack and Dickie live as orphans, Edmund must be giving them a lot.
Dickie and I go back to playing Highball after that. Even though I still have no idea what I’m doing, the game isn’t as frustrating anymore. Maybe because I understand Dickie better now, or maybe because it finally makes sense why he, Edmund, and Jack stick together the way they do.
When you don’t have a family that loves you, or any family at all, you have to build your own.
I spend the rest of the week turning Dickie’s story over in my mind, even during Cloning Theory, when I should be paying attention to Professor Hollings. Halfway through a lecture on telomere length and its role in clone viability and aging, he pauses mid-sentence and calls on me.
“Miss Waldsten. Define a telomere.”
My mind goes blank, but I grasp for something that sounds half-intelligent. “It is the sequence that tells cells when to divide, Professor.”
“Incorrect.” His gray eyebrows knit together. “Perhaps you should pay attention lest your exam score reflect your poor ability to focus.”
“Yes, Professor. I apologize.”
I sink into my seat, my skin prickling with embarrassment, but it only lasts a few minutes before Professor Hollings’s voice fades again, drowned out by the noise in my head.
There’s too much I’m trying to sort out, too many details that once seemed random but now feel like part of a pattern. Jack and Dickie have no parents. Edmund’s father is dead, and his mother might as well be. Even Charlotte is included. Her mom died in a hovercar crash when she was thirteen, and her relationship with her dad is so bad that she has to rely on Jack and me for money.
Then there’s me, the only one with two living, loving parents. It makes me feel like an anomaly, a crack in the pattern, almost as if I don’t belong.
But I want to.
The following Monday, Edmund returns to class. We spot him outside the first-year Lecture Hall, leaning against his hovercar with one shiny monk-strap shoe on the curb. He’s wearing an eggshell-blue seersucker suit and bronze-browline sunglasses that make him glint like a penny in thesun. The deep scratches that once marked his face and arms are gone, replaced by the same smooth, unblemished skin he had before. Rejuvenation cream can’t work miracles that fast, which suggests he had minor reconstruction, or, more likely, the surgeons came to him.
Jack, Dickie, and Charlotte cross the street to Edmund right away. Dickie throws his arms around Edmund’s waist with a wild, honking laugh that sounds more relieved than joyful; Charlotte offers an awkward, four-fingered wave; Jack hesitates, his hand clenching at his side, then settles for a clap on Edmund’s shoulder.
I hang back, pausing briefly on the first-year Lecture Hall steps before making my way to the curb, where Edmund stands. Every part of me wants to run to him, throw my arms around him, and tell him how much I missed him, how even a few days without him have burned a hole through my heart. Yet with each step, my feet grow heavier, as if I’m dragging his secret behind me on a chain, scraping across the pavement and carving through the concrete with every silent, splintering pull.
Edmund glances over his shoulder, his sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. When he sees me, he pushes them up and flashes a wide, easy smile that would’ve fooled me only a week earlier.
I smile back… but it hurts.
There can be love without happiness,
but never happiness without love.
—HENRY, A PINKIE
CHAPTER 35
I’ve only lied to Charlotte a few times. Once, I accidentally broke one of her porcelain jazz-dancer figurines and blamed it on her dad’s cat. Another time, I told her I couldn’t go tap dancing because Mom said no, but really I was curled up in bed, surrounded by snacks, binge-watching a tragic romance series on my Bond, with tears and chocolate smudges all over.
Now I’m about to lie again.
It’s late afternoon, and the campus is bathed in cool spring light that makes the clouds look painted onto the sky. I meet Charlotte on a dirt trail near the beach, one of dozens that wind through the forested edge of campus. She’s just placed third in a competitive distance run, and her eyes are alight, like they always are when she bursts across the finish line, chest heaving and body glistening with sweat.
I think it’d be just as difficult for her to stop running as it was for me to stop fencing. When she’s lost in the rhythm of her footsteps pounding the ground, she isn’t angry about Rosamund, sad about the breakup with Jack, or bitter about her fallout with her dad. Out here, I know she finds purpose in pushing her body to the limit. And whether she wins or not, it’s where she finds peace.
With the competition over, most of the paths are empty now, except for a few students hiking toward the observation decks. But even one pair of ears nearby means we have to keep our language formal. So Charlotte shoots me a text instead:
“Where were you when Jack, Dickie, and I went to Jolt & Jive? You said you were stuck, but you never explained.”
I tug on my earring, avoiding her gaze as I text back.“I meant I got held up, not literally stuck. I got some bad news. My dad’s running for governor of the Rainbow District.”
