Sam often felt like she was the opposite: sharp on the exterior, with an angry, prickly shell that hid the sensitive beating heart beneath.
Maybe she should just go back to Hawaii. At least everything felt simple there.
“Oh, Bee. I’ve really made a mess of things.”
It felt a little silly, talking to Beatrice when she probably couldn’t hear, but it was better than silence.
“Remember when you told me to ‘go all in’ on my relationship with Marshall? Well, I did. We ran off together to Hawaii. I chose love over duty, just like we talked about.”
Was it her imagination, or did Beatrice’s hand move? Sam grabbed it, wrapping her warm palms around Beatrice’s cold one, willing her sister back to health.
“I left you a letter, actually; you may have gotten it before you—before your accident. I had no idea,” she hurried to add. “I’ve been gone for a month, and I never knew you were here, hurting. I hate that I abandoned you.”
With each word, Sam felt the weight pressing down on her chest lighten a bit. So she kept talking.
She told Beatrice everything that had happened since the League of Kings final banquet. She described Hawaii and the boat and the funny little kitchen with its red tiles, her efforts to cook breakfast that had ended in burned toast, and nearly a burned house. She off-loaded her worries about Jeff and her insecurities about the future. It was such an overwhelming relief to let the words pour out, to admit her flaws and shortcomings to the one person who would always forgive her.
Sam had no idea how long she sat there, holding tight to her sister, but eventually the words ran dry. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, holding Beatrice’s hand to her forehead as if asking for a benediction.
She couldn’t leave.
No matter how much simpler things were in Hawaii, no matter how desperately she missed Marshall, she couldn’t go back. She might not be a princess anymore, but she was still Samantha Washington—and she would stay here and fight for her family.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered, still clutching tight to her sister’s hand. “But it’s not the same without you. Wake up, Bee—please. I miss you. We all need you.”
“Wake up, Bee. Please.”
“Just five more minutes,” she said automatically, snuggling closer to Connor.
This had become their morning routine lately: Connor would stir first, only for Beatrice to drag him back under the covers and ask for more time.
She kept telling herself that they should stop, that the next time Connor snuck into her room she would send him away. There was no possible future for them, and they both knew it. Yet Beatrice, who had always lived by logic and reason, found herself acting irrationally.
She and Connor might not have forever, but she could give them right now.
“I miss you,” he murmured, which was strange.
“Miss me? I’m right here.” Beatrice tucked her head into Connor’s shoulder, letting her hands trace over his tattoo. She was getting braver, now, about touching him—though he was still wearing his boxers, because she wasn’t ready for that, not yet.
She felt the rumble of Connor’s voice in her chest as he replied: “We all need you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bee…”
She squinted, disoriented. The lights were too bright, oversized fluorescent bulbs glaring down at her.
“Bee?”
Samantha was in a chair next to her bed, looking disheveled as usual, mascara ringing raccoon circles around her eyes. And what had she done to her hair?
“Oh my god.” Sam’s hands flew to her mouth in momentary shock; then she stumbled to her feet and began shouting hoarsely. “Doctor! Someone! Come quick—Beatrice is awake!”
Beatrice tried to sit up, but her body felt so heavy, her legs and arms and especially her eyelids. It was a colossal effort to keep her eyes open. She felt them fluttering shut, sleep wrapping its tendrils around her, as soft as falling backward into a bank of snow.
She forced herself to look up again, and saw that Samantha was still staring at her with a shocked sort of awe. “Thank god,” Sam breathed. “We were so worried, Bee.”
Something was very wrong. Beatrice nearly laughed at herself for that thought: of course something was wrong. She was in a hospital.
“Why am…”
“Shhh,” Sam admonished. “You were in an accident, but everything is fine. Now that you’re awake, it’s all going to be fine.”
An accident? Beatrice cast her mind back, but she couldn’t remember anything. Her mind felt spongy and strangely porous, as if her memories were droplets of water, impossible to separate from one another. Images flickered before her: Teddy standing next to her at a party, both of them making polite, empty conversation; her father’s face, lit by the flickering firelight of his office as he said how proud he was of her. But she couldn’t sort the memories into any kind of sense.
“Did I…fall?” The words were muffled under a plastic breathing mask, but Sam must have read the movement of her lips, because she shook her head.
“It was a car accident.”
Beatrice’s chest seized in fear. If it was a car accident, had Connor been driving? Was he hurt? The machines next to her bed beeped more quickly, registering her elevated pulse.
Before she could ask, a sea of people in scrubs and white coats rushed through the door, wielding medical instruments and clipboards, nearly tripping in their haste.
“Your Majesty, I’m Dr. Jacobs. I’ve had the honor of managing your care while you’ve been here at St. Stephen’s,” said a man with glasses and white hair. He began removing the breathing mask over her nose, grinning in a likeable and decidedly unprofessional manner. “I have to say, I’m thrilled to see you awake. Now, please just take it easy while we perform a few basic tests.”
Beatrice nodded, too shaken to point out that Your Majesty was her father’s honorific, not hers.
The doctors tried to shoo Samantha from the room, but when Sam said she wasn’t going anywhere, they gave up and let her stand to one side. Beatrice’s eyes kept darting curiously to her sister. She was grateful not to be alone, of course, but it wasn’t as if she and Sam were particularly close. She wondered if Sam was here because their parents had insisted upon it. She didn’t look like she’d been out partying, in her leggings and faded vintage T-shirt, but there was something rumpled and stale about her, as if she’d spent the night in a stranger’s bed. Why couldn’t she have packed a bag with a fresh change of clothes? There were showers here in the VIP section of the hospital. But then, Sam had never really acted the part of a princess. Which was why Beatrice had to be princess enough for both of them.