⚜️ DIANA'S DEVOTION ⚜️
PROLOGUE:
Through thick and thin, that's a bond of a rope that tightens and tightens against the strain of one's heart until there is nothing left but deceit and undecided secrets tamed by the woman I have known almost my entire life...yet I still don't know at all.
I was intimidated by Poppy Parker, I'll admit that. She's beautiful, she doesn't know how people still look at her when we're not all forced to watch the Royal Elite strutting their ignorant high tops and expensive heels down a polished floor where janitors worked day and night for a job that is not worth it in the end. I know of my wrongdoings, of the whining in my voice, of the demands people glare at me for, at the dirty looks I perhaps receive when my short-tempered hide explodes with the surface of my apparent mood swings.
I know that.
Am I working on it? Yes, I sure as hell am working on it, but put yourself in my simple adidas canvas shoes for a split second and tell me what it's like to always be left in the dark, told to wait, to be patient, she's tell the group when she's ready. Calm your small breasts said Carter. That was the first time I saw Trevor really shove a fist towards the hidden doctor of the group.
So, I made a decision.
To make ourselves known.
But I knew, deep down...that this was only the beginning.
I would change...once she shares a truth I've been begging years for to know and be a part of. Because Poppy Parker pulled me out of my shadows and made me leader of this group when we all know...she wears the crown.
CHAPTER 1
All I ask is that you listen. Or god forbid, put yourself in my shoes.
She died that day. Four years ago now, I was dumb and thirteen-years-old, not understanding an unimaginable reality that slid in the window and slapped me across the face, harder than I could squawk at the momentum. Her eyes were dried, but it wasn't just the eerie lost glow she had. She appeared nostalgic. Even when I grumbled at her absence, feeling the loss of my friend without feeling the loss of her forever. As I said, I was a dumb thirteen year old who shattered the second my closest friend told me why she had gone missing for weeks on end and left no word. I yelled, she stood. I growled, she stared.
Her eyes-what use to be beacons of utter mischief had dried and crisped to the glacially cold reality-she lost the two most important people in her life and I stood like a coward, I believed I begged for forgiveness-when even I knew I didn't deserve it. But I didn't, I wrapped her in a hug only a best friend should give and cried for her loss when she lost her tears long before I even knew she lost her family.
Thump.
I blink.
Trevor throws a pristine pillow against my back, "Are we studying or not?" He asks me, I begrudgingly place the photo frame back on my wooden set of drawers Mom bought carelessly from a vintage shop she found fascinating. The scratches on it got me grounded a few times and while Trevor-freaking-Gunner was lounging on my bed right now with his head focused on the seven-kilogram classics textbook in front of him.
I look at him, "Do I look like I want to study?" I mutter, moving his legs and dropping down in a heap with my rolled-up, wrinkly white socks curling at my ankles.
My forest green dress with a decorative belt half-annoying me. He places the textbook down, his brown eyes penetrating mine when he drops against my pillow and studies me, "Out with it."
"It's our senior year. After this, we could all be going our separate ways, Trev. I want to do something fun and crazy and wild this year, you know. But every time I try to converse with her, she's on a phone call, or she's side-tracked. We use to talk, you know. I'm closer with you now, and that's bloody weird. No offence." I tell him, looking back up to the ceiling, my mind mauling over my want to be a good friend, but my need to have my friend back was overpowering too.
"She lost her parents, Diana." He whispers. I look at him, "-not even I can imagine what that would be like." He stares into my eyes. I face him and tuck a hand under my head, pursing my lips.
He takes a breath, "You can't blame her for distancing herself. Losing your entire family-it could leave more damage than we could know. More than she could confide in us to understand. It's our job as her friends, to just be there for her when she needs to talk."
I stare at him, "You do realise it's almost been half a decade since that time?"
He sits up, "Why do you hate it so much? The rest of us let her have her space, Diana." He argues, scoffing and shaking his head, gathering his jacket, yet leaving his books, his mess behind.
"Or you gave up." I fold my arms, looking at him pointedly.
He grabs his wallet, "I'm driving to the mall, for some actual groceries? You want anything? Perhaps a 'take a deep breath' chocolate ice cream?" He proposes.
I wave him off, "We don't need anything." I mutter, grabbing my book and dumping on the carpet, opening to the next page, before he removes it and grabs my hand, ripping me up, we lock my front door. Sometimes I wondered why I was friends with him, he was a pain in my arse when he wanted to be. I lean back in the seat of his car, wondering why in the name of all goddesses did we have to leave before a test at this ungodly hour.
"We need brain food." He tells me, looking through the fruit isle. I plop a bag of pineapple lumps into the basket I'm forced to hold, he looks at it when he returns.
"Really?" He rolls his eyes at me.
"My reward for afterwards, they're going in the freezer." I grumble. By the time we packed the food and returned back to the car, I point at him, "You know what? We should all do something as a group. It's our final year, we're studying for a stupid math quiz that's worth less than the calculated hours we've put in, we need to do something productive."
"But you shouldn't have anymore brain cells to be productive anymore." He scoffs, behind the wheel.
I give him a flat look, "Why are you at my place again?" I ask him.
He sighs and just continues driving until he parks out front. He's at my place because we were studying. He's here because he's a manipulative douchebag who said he could tutor me in this class if I promised entertainment and company. Since he's such a loner and all.
I slide the pineapple lumps in the freezer, hiding it among frozen berries just so my sisters don't stumble upon them, they'll eat without thought of how in trouble they'd be with me if they did. Trevor chuckles at my antics, I flip him the bird and grab a soda, "I believe I said brain food."
"Yes, that's what you said. I spoke of no such thing. Can't we watch a movie?" I plead, looking through the CD's, he moves upstairs with a fruit platter. I roll my eyes, such a nerd.
"Irons still stealing those when you're not looking?" Trevor sounds amused, having caught my sly movement to the freezer. I give him the finger and lean back against the bed, adjusting the pillows and side-glancing the wall of climbing photos. Of all of us when we were younger. I was happy once. When she was. I was her sister, we did everything together, some by the book and some so rebellious when I wanted her to have fun, to act the same age, not whatever she was raised to be because I saw the stress it out on her. Even when no one else seems to have caught that.
"Remember when we first started Queen's city, you couldn't wait to get there." I murmur, pointing to his young-self, glasses and all.
He scoffs, "I can't believe you still have that picture."
"Why wouldn't I still have this picture?" I ask him, raising an eyebrow at him when he drops on the bed, shrugging, staring at the television. I had the sudden urge to shove him in a dumpster and wait for rubbish day.
He slept over, the next day, he was my ride to school, I felt glittery and unenthusiastic. Today-I didn't want it to be just another boring, run of the mills day, I needed the Saharan desert, I needed a flare, not the blandness of the naked Atlantic. I needed something to remember, because every day was just piling up, soon it would be exams, then Christmas and then...nothing. The lot of them were doing different things. Rosa-belle still had no idea after the shit her Mother is putting her through and While the others were smart, not a one of us struggling, I was lounging on B's and C's, despite Trevor's incessant want to tutor me, like the bastard knew school just wasn't my forte.
"We should do something this year, just the three-" I start with when they surround me by the locker, I look at each of them, Poppy is blank-faced and bored. Of course she is, when isn't she? Rosa-belle just looks stressed, probably seeing that her Dad left after her bitch of a mother kicked him out for chasing his dreams, not chasing gold mines.
"Well, if you'd just let me speak-" I narrow my eyes at Trevor, he gives me a look.
I gesture to everyone but him, and talk, he glares.
"-fine, alright, the FOUR of us, you bloody happy Gunner-" He interrupts me again.
"Fucking ecstatic, we're going to be late for class if your announcement won't reach my ears until tomorrow." He bursts with adrenaline.
I growl, "Then feel free to go deaf, arsehole. You're almost there, so why don't I give you a Ranger nudge." I offer, crudely.
"If it means not having to hear your Jurassic voice." He smirks, I was going to kill him.
"The four of us, there, Gunner, you're included." I fold my arms, gesturing to him.
"Yes, I am positively delighted, you bloody turd-blossom!" He smirks, always having the most creative of insults, a walking Shakespearean death eater all in one.
"Cry me a river, Gunner. Now, as I was saying, since the Royal Elite has gone MIA, I think it's time we stand up for our generation and do something different, something spontaneous-" I blurt out, cut off again. Oh, he's asking for a cinnamon role right up his arse right now.
"Oh, pushing in front of people in the lunch line always gives off the gruff-buff-leadership vibe if that's what we're going for?" Rosa-belle offers, I can't help it that she lacks creativity here, even when I could have sworn I saw her writing once, but she hides it. She always does.
"Tamper with the sprinklers and make it rain shredded exam papers in all the classrooms. A typical prank?" Carter suggests, giving Trevor a high-five and fist bump. I stare at Trevor, he suddenly mouths 'lame' when I do it and smirks because he knows me just so goddamn well.
"Spray tomato sauce on some tampons and throw it into their gold-rimmed lockers, that should piss them off." Wow, his Shakespearean creativity just lowered down to zero.
"NO, NO, NO, NO. UGH, you people have the weirdest, and some of the most disgusting imaginations. We need something that really poses a statement out there. Not the idea we'll make everyone think we closed our eyes and pointed at a book of cliche pranks and said, let's go with that one? That's stupid." I emphasise with flailing hands and hear her sigh, like she's just done.
"Why don't we just sit at their table?"
Her voice echoes, the idea-as always wasn't stupid or tarnished or cliche, it was just a simple, yet highly authentic and original idea. No one-and I repeat-no one would dare sit at the Royal's protective, luxurious table if they didn't have a death wish. The idea...was bloody brilliant!