Private School Kings

When Kingdoms Fall Pt.2

I didn't talk to Heather as she pushed through the droves of blue and white decked Pruitt students, but it didn't seem to matter. She didn't talk to me either. She didn't even look back to make sure I had followed. Like always, Heather was certain.

We passed through the quad, past the dorms, past the dining hall, and towards the trees.

Heather was quick to find the small, brush covered, path that had become familiar to me throughout my year at Pruitt. Even though I hadn't walked it since the ball, I knew exactly where she was leading me. We were going to the ruins.

As my feet beat the hard dust --packed tight from years of stampeding students on their ways to Lord events-- I couldn't help but wonder if this would be the last time I followed this route. Now that Tim was gone, and the Lords were falling apart it seemed likely that there might never be another party here.

For what I thought might be the last time, I took it all in, the celadon pine needles, the dew dappled maples. The scent of dirt and rain in the air, and the sliver of sky above the tallest trees, just a slit of clear, cold, blue.

I had always had trouble finding any good at Pruitt, but standing there with the battlefield behind me and the future ahead all I could think of was how beautiful it was. I had missed so much spending all my time with Fletcher and Madeline or Heather and the Lords. I didn't know a thing about what Connecticut was like outside of Pruitt. There was a whole world out there, one much better and realer than this one.

"Coming, Monroe?" It was Heather. She was already at the door of ruins, one impatient, exquisitely manicured hand resting on the ornate door knob.

I nodded, wrenching my gaze from the trees and focusing instead on the crumbling stone.

Our legs moved in sync as we sped up the stairs, Heather's heels giving a loud clack that completely silenced the gentle fall of my sneakers.

Inside, it was the same as always. Heather crossed the room quickly, slumping into the chair Tim had sat in the first night we came to the ruins and pulling out a massive bottle of vodka from beneath her blazer.

Her eyes didn't leave me the entire time. Not even when she took a long, aggressive sip from the bottle.

I was the one to finally break the silence. "Why are we here?" I asked, my voice echoing inside the empty room.

Her lips quirked in a sardonic smile. She had been waiting for me to ask. "To toast you! You won Monroe. Congratulations." She leaned in as if she were about to divulge some great secret. "I always knew you were interesting."

She held the bottle towards me. In her face I saw the Heather I had imagined before I knew about her brother's death. A one dimensional girl with a thirst for drama. The devil I remembered. It was comforting in a way, seeing the world in black and white the way I had. Now everything was confusing shades of gray, and all I wanted was for things to go back how they were.

I took the bottle.

--

Heather and I shared sips for a while, though hers were almost always bigger than mine. It reminded me of the days we'd spent at the beginning of Fletcher's scheme, me and Heather in her dorm drinking and gossiping as the minutes bled away. It was so easy then. Even if it was all a lie, it had been easy.

Heather must have been thinking the same thing because she said, "We were almost friends."

It wasn't a question but I felt the need to answer her anyway. "I know."

"Almost, but you probably hate me now." I didn't disagree. "Almost." She said again, raising her bottle in an imaginary toast, "To other lives!"

I closed my eyes, imagining how different things would have been if I'd grown up with Fletcher and Heather and Madeline, imagining how different I would have been. "To other lives." I echoed.

Like those days in the dorm the minutes started to bleed away. As I fell into a comfortable buzz I stopped drinking, satisfied, but Heather, like always, just kept going.

Her eyes went unfocused as she stared towards the far wall, head lolling on her neck. She was strikingly pale. Even under makeup, the dark circles beneath her eyes stood out like crescent moons stained black.

"I didn't used to be like this," she slurred, "I used to be happy Murphy. I used to be..." She trailed off and I recognized something in her fractured gaze. There it was. The same intensity -- the same desperation -- that had first drawn me to Fletcher. She too had a storm. "I used to be good." She said the last word with such strong emotion. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know what to do. I'd seen people fall apart like this before. I'd seen my mother fall apart like this.

I hadn't done anything then either.

"We weren't always this way," Heather said suddenly, gripping my arm like she was trying to rip it in two. "None of us, not even Tim." She was tearing up now, almost pleading with me, but I didn't know what it was she wanted me to give her. "They made us like this." She shut her eyes like she was trying to block it all out.

I knew I should have felt sorry for her. She looked so small, so pitiful, but all of the sudden I was angry, enraged even. Everyone at Pruitt always made excuses. It was all they did. "Who Heather? Who are they!?"

"Murphy-" She interjected, but I couldn't listen to her shit.

"God, take some responsibility. Why can't any of you ever just take some responsibility!" I yelled. "You treat everyone like your little playthings! We're people Heather! I'm a person!" My voice cracked. It was all too much. After everything I'd been through; all the lies, all the games, this was the breaking point. Heather had no right to be the one to fall apart. Not after everything she'd done to me.

As my chest heaved with rage Heather's mouth pulled into a straight line. Her gaze sharpened, and she managed to focus on me. "We weren't the first Ladies Murphy. They weren't the first Lords. This is how it's always been." Her voice was flat, lifeless.

"It being tradition doesn't make it okay! You're not forgiven just because other people do bad things!" I couldn't look at her.

"I'm sorry." She slumped against the wall, and her lids drooped, but she'd said it. In all the time I'd known her Heather had never once apologized. Now, hearing those words from her lips, it genuinely scared me.

We sat in silence after that. She kept drinking. So much that she didn't even notice when I went to the bathroom and switched what was left in the bottle with water.

I was scrolling through my phone when the double doors creaked open.

I'd seen Tim Watson when he was tired, I'd seen him when he was angry. I'd seen him when his carefully structured facade was cracked and splintered, but I'd never seen him like this.

He was, in a word, unhinged. His hair, normally pressed so carefully into place, was all stuck up like he'd just gotten out of bed, but his eyes, bloodshot and ringed with black, told me he hadn't slept in days. He wore his Pruitt uniform, well most of it. Somewhere along the way he'd lost the blazer, and his shirt was buttoned unevenly and all the way untucked.

Also, he had a gun.