Page 60 of Ruthless Court
Both can be true.
Piper climbs off her bed and lifts one of my smaller boxes.
“I’ll help.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She carries it into the hall.
That might be the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.
* * *
Briar Hall is twenty minutes from the athlete quad if I walk fast.
Thirty with boxes.
I make the trip six times.
Piper helps with the first load, then leaves for dinner with Jules and Kenzie. The remaining trips belong to me, a borrowed cart with one crooked wheel, and a Snickers bar that melts inside my back pocket.
By the final load, my arms shake.
I stop beneath the stone archway and look back toward the path.
The newer dorms are hidden behind trees and distance.
No courts.
No training complex.
No bouncing ball chasing me through the evening.
A girl from the second floor holds the door while I drag the cart inside.
“New transfer?”
“Escaped transfer.”
She glances at the boxes. “Athlete quad?”
“Was it that obvious?”
“You have the expression.”
“What expression?”
“Like you survived a month-long group project.”
“I did. Nobody else knew we were being graded.”
She laughs and points upstairs.
“Room 308?”
I nod.
