Private School Kings

Red Card

I was seven years old and my hand was bleeding. My brother and I were in the bathroom, and he was wrapping my hand in gauze. Charlie was so careful with me, he always was. His hands felt light on my skin. He was good at this kind of thing, or maybe he was just used to it. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

"If anyone asks, you fell off your scooter, okay?" Charlie wasn't looking at me when he said that. He just stared at my hand.

"That's a lie." We both knew I didn't even have a scooter.

He sighed, but not an annoyed sigh, a sad one. "Everybody lies Murphy."

"Not you." Charlie was one of the most straightforward people I knew. If you said something stupid he'd tell you it was stupid. If you were bothering him he'd tell you to fuck right off, and he was only twelve so that was a big deal. That honesty got him in trouble sometimes, but I liked it.

"I lie..." His hands stilled for a moment. "Sometimes."

"Not to me." Even I wasn't sure if I meant it as a question or a statement.

"No." Charlie answered as he pulled the bandage tight and finished the wrap. "No, I guess not to you."

"Never to me." I bent forward so that he had to look me in the eyes. They were brown, same as mine, but his were so soft. That softness wouldn't last, the years would dull it into nothingness, but for a moment it was there and it was beautiful. "Promise."

"Okay, never to you."

Charlie kept that promise until the day the police came for him. That was the day he told me nothing would change. He told me he'd be back soon. He told me everything would be okay.

Everybody lies.

Charlie was right. That's what I kept thinking as I swayed down the hall of the boys dormitory. 

Everybody lies.

It had actually been easy to get inside. Something was seriously wrong with the security at Pruitt. Maybe that was the point. Once you were there you couldn't do anything wrong... or maybe once you were there you could do everything wrong.

I knew how to find Fletcher's room from the night I'd spent there after the  Lords party at the ruins, and even with my feet struggling to find traction on the carpet I made my way there with relative ease.

My hand felt heavy at my side but I raised it to knock anyway and it sounded much too loud in the empty hallway. There was a long pause and then --so slowly-- the door opened.

"Murphy?" Fletcher's face flicked through a range of emotions like an old film reel, surprise, confusion, excitement, and then he must have seen the bottle in my hands because it turned to concern. Only now I found myself doubting whether or not that concern was real. Whether it had ever been real. Fletcher always knew what face to make, what thing to say to keep me in on the plan. Even the first time he'd kissed me had been that morning I'd tried to back out of the Lord's plan. "Murph," He grabbed my wrist and pulled me gently towards him. I stumbled in, unsteady on my feet, and he shut the door behind me. "Are you okay?"

I pulled my hand hard, wrenching it from his grasp. My head felt heavy on my neck but I looked up into his eyes anyway. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to see how he'd made me feel. "Fuck you."

His mouth quivered between a smile and a frown. He must have thought I was joking. "What?"

"Fuck you Highgaurd." I never called him that. It was what Heather had called him, but now 'Fletcher' seemed too intimate, it didn't fit the person in front of me, this strange boy who lied like it was the easiest thing in the world and still made my heart skip when I looked into his impossible eyes.

"What?" He said again, and this time there was no hint of humor in his voice, just fear.

Somewhere deep inside myself I knew that what had happened to Magnus wasn't Fletcher's fault, not really. Something was wrong in Pruitt, really wrong, and it tainted everyone who touched it. I could feel it tainting me, but I couldn't shake that image of Fletcher as he was crowned king, the way he whooped with victory, face flushed with that terrible energy. This was the boy I had given my heart to. He was the only person I had loved in so long, and now I knew that that person was only ever a fabrication. He had never existed at all. "Fuck you." I said again. The boy in front of me had been stripped of the mystery he used as armor, and now I saw him for what he was, just another hypocritical little rich kid who played games he didn't understand. That's why I said what I did next, "Magnus McCoy," I put the emphasis on the last name, the thing that tied him to Heather, "died because of you." Fletcher stepped back, face slack like I'd slapped him. "You were a lord. You were going to be king. You were just like them." I realized with a start that my cheeks were wet. I had begun to cry.

Fletcher's eyes sparkled too. "You went to see Heather." I nodded. "You said you wouldn't," and now I realized why he'd asked me not to in the first place. Going had seemed like the tactical choice, but he knew she was going to tell me. It was the only reason she would have wanted to meet. Even then he'd been lying to protect himself.

"You lied to me." I told him. "All you did was lie."

"I didn't want you to think I was one of them." He said it so quietly. He was ashamed. He knew it had been wrong and he had done it anyway. Or, just as bad, he didn't know. Worse actually, because that meant he was only ashamed that I'd caught him.

"But you are!"

"I was. I'm not anymore. I stopped when Magnus..." His eyes dropped to the floor. "I stopped and now I'm trying to stop them. Magnus was like a brother to me, Murphy. I wish I could save him, but I can't. This is the only thing I can do."

"You know who's brother he actually was? Heather!"

"She chose her side. I chose mine."

"But I never got to choose." I threw the bottle before I even thought about it, and it hit the wall behind him with a loud crash, splintering into a thousand pieces. "All you did was lie so that I would do exactly what you wanted me to do. You and Madeline both. You treated me like a fucking puppet just like they do." I had thought I was a person to them, but I had always been the scholarship kid, the outsider, the easy prey, "You think you're different but you're not. You're still just like them!"

Fletcher was crying now too, but I didn't feel bad. I turned, tripping over my own feet on my way to the door but still managing to stay standing.

"Murphy," It came out a desperate, garbled, sound.

"Leave me alone!" I hadn't been angry like this in a long time. A long, long time. Maybe I'd never been angry like this. They used me. Everyone here just wanted to use me.

Fletcher stood in the doorway as I turned to close it. For a moment, it looked like he would say something else, try to stop me again, but he didn't. He stepped back and I slammed the door in his face.

The hallway was filled with heads peeking out of doors. Our fight had been so loud it must have drawn all the boys attention. They stared at me with their vulture eyes, and I turned and walked down the hallway, trying to ignore it. There would be news of this in the morning, but right now, drunk off my ass and disillusioned with everything I'd believed in, I didn't care.

"Murphy?" I turned to see Tim, standing in flannel pajamas and squinting at me like a mirage that could disappear at any second. "Are you with Fletcher Highgaurd?" His voice was full of pure disbelief, but there was a note of something else under it, jealousy.

"Not anymore." I said and then I stepped forward and put my hands on either side of his face. I drew Tim towards me and kissed him, pouring all of my hurt and anger into the embrace. Tim kissed me back, hands rougher than Fletcher's had ever been, more sure. They scaled my sides with ease. This was something the king knew how to do. There was a comfort in it, in letting him take control, but only for a moment. Then, I pulled away. I had to.

"Shit, Monroe." Tim said in a breathy whisper. That, and the red staining his cheeks was almost enough to make me pull him back in. Almost.

"Bye." I said. Then I turned my back on him and the rest of the lords and made my way to the door with all the speed I could muster. "Bye." I said again, and this time it was only for me.