Page 106 of Scarred Crown

She steps into the room, immaculately dressed in her typical blazer and skirt even though she was woken in the dead of night, and she closes the door. Alex inherited her midnight eyes and black hair. Though her hair has gone silver with age, her eyes are just as sharp.

“I wanted a chance to speak to you alone without all the fuss of other people.”

I’m certain she means Vicky, and another wave of sadness washes over me. Gran has always liked Julia. I’m sure she’d be delighted to realize Julia and Alex are together. The thought turns my stomach.

She comes close to the edge of my bed and pats the spot where my knee lies under the blankets. My legs got off fairly well, all things considered. Some bruises, but no breaks.

Her gaze bores into me. “You haven’t seemed like yourself for quite a while now.”

I flush, and my pulse pounds in my skull. A headache sits at the edges, waiting to take over. There’s nothing honest I can say in return to ease her mind. I haven’t been myself. No one knows me, and I don’t even know myself.

“We’ve all been very busy this fall and winter season with diplomatic trips, but you haven’t gone unnoticed. It seems to me that something has happened between you and Julia. While the two of you were once like twin souls, she’s hardly around anymore. Is that your choice or hers?”

Trust my gran to cut to the quick. She’s spent her whole life reading people and navigating their moods.

“We’ve just drifted apart.” My voice is rough from ill use. Everyone has been so busy talking about their own feelings since I woke up that I’ve hardly had to say a word.

Her expression turns assessing. “Perhaps.” She lets out a sigh. “And perhaps it was always meant to go this way. That sort of closeness is often reserved for romantic relationships as we grow older. You have been spending more time with that Vicky girl.”

Does she realize how close she is to drilling into the truth?

When I don’t respond, she puts the back of her hand to my forehead. “Cool, perhaps a bit too cold,” she says, drawing her hand away. “Alex is our granite, and Brice is our putty. You’ve always fallen somewhere in between. Hard on the outside, but soft on the inside, like a walnut. It’s okay to let the softness show, Nicholas. Sometimes it leaks out of us, even when we don’t want it to.”

Tears flood my vision, but I can’t look at her. Instead, I focus on my hands folded on top of the white hospital sheets.

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“Oh, on the contrary, your poor heart is breaking about something. Talk to me, Nicholas. I see you. Talk to me.” She strokes my hair and then squeezes my hand. “Give your gran your problems. Might lighten your load.”

I sniff and run the heels of my hands under my eyes. Crying solves nothing. “It’s not Vicky,” I say. “Julia is dating someone I don’t approve of.”

“Have you told Jules this?”

“If she’s happy, it’s none of my business. She doesn’t need my approval.”

She takes in a long, deep breath. “I suppose in many ways, that’s true. You don’t like hearing about her boyfriend?”

“That’s not it,” I say. Though that might be the problem if Julia ever told me about Alex in the first place. “We’re just.” I clear my throat when it threatens to close. “We’re growing further and further apart, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

“You miss her friendship,” Gran says.

She’s so close to guessing what I haven’t told anyone. So, I meet her gaze, and I hold it. She searches my tear-stained face, and her expression softens.

“Oh,” she says. “I see.”

Goosebumps rise across my skin, and I break eye contact to stare at my lap again. “Yeah.”

“Does she know?” Gran asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s not what she wants.”

“That certainly explains how cool you are with Vicky.”

Am I? Distant, maybe. “I know you don’t like her.”

“On the contrary, I like her just fine. I’ve never been completely convinced you like her.”

I flush. Her observation causes shame to rise in me. There’s nothing wrong with Vicky, and I hate that she might feel used when this is over between us. But I am using her, and I can’t bring myself to stop just yet.