Page 128 of American Royals

“Not really.”

At the choking sound of her sob, he came forward and threw his arms around her. They stayed like that, hugging, for what felt like a long time.

Sam didn’t bother with words. There were some feelings that words couldn’t express; and anyway, this was Jeff, who understood her on an elemental level. Who had once shared the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Finally they broke apart. Blinking back tears, Sam grabbed a miniature jar of honey and spooned some into her tea. “I know this is ridiculous, given everything else that’s going on, but I have to ask.” Because she was curious, and because she needed to distract herself, if only for a second. “Why is Daphne here instead of Nina?”

Jeff gave a strange laugh, acknowledging the banality of her question. “I assumed that you knew. Nina broke up with me last night.”

“Seriously?” Sam sank into one of the plastic chairs. Jeff pulled out the one next to her and slumped forward, elbows on the table.

“She told me she wanted no part of this,” he said helplessly. “The media, the scrutiny. It was too much for her.”

“But …”

But you both looked so happy last night, Sam wanted to protest. And the day before, in the Dress Closet, Nina had been beaming and blushing at the mention of Jeff. What could have possibly happened to change her friend’s mind?

She looked again at Jeff’s face, and the questions died on her lips. Her brother was suffering enough without having to relive every detail of their breakup.

“Jeff … I’m so sorry.”

He nodded morosely. “When Daphne came to the hospital this morning, I couldn’t turn her away.”

Now Sam understood Nina’s text. When she first read it, she’d been too numb with grief to question why Nina wasn’t coming. It was because Nina didn’t want to face her ex-boyfriend the very day after they broke up. Sam didn’t especially blame her.

“I’m sorry I made things awkward with your best friend,” Jeff added, as if reading her mind.

“It won’t be awkward,” Sam assured him, though she worried he was right. Her friendship with Nina might not be the same after this, because there would always be the ghost of Jeff between them. A space where he should have been.

Jeff picked up a muffin, then set it down again. “This all happened too fast,” he said quietly. “Everything is changing, and I don’t know how to stop it. I just want it all to go back to the way it was.”

“I know,” Sam agreed.

And yet … after the events of the past few months, things would never go back to normal. Jeff was right. Everything had changed. Or perhaps she was the one who had changed. Because Sam was no longer content to let the days skip idly by.

For so much of her life, she and Jeff had been aligned on nearly everything. They posed for a joint press portrait each year on their birthday, attended the same soccer camps, were raised by the same nanny. They communicated in truncated twin-speak—this; sure now?; okay time. Even as they grew older, they attended the same parties, hung out with the same group of friends. They kept no secrets from each other.

They had always felt like two sides of a coin: the pair of court jesters, the frothy fun twins. The emotional cannon that their family sent out whenever they needed to distract America.

Sam wasn’t sure when that had shifted. Perhaps it was her father’s illness, or Teddy’s words, which had percolated in her mind ever since Telluride.

All she knew was that Jeff no longer felt like her second self. That for the first time in her life, she felt closer to her older sister than to her twin brother.

Maybe this was what it felt like to finally grow up.

DAPHNE

Daphne should never have doubted her abilities.

When she’d arrived this morning with a bouquet of lilies and asked the hospital staff to admit her, Daphne hadn’t been certain they would let her through to the royal wing.

She’d been startled when Jefferson came down the hallway himself and threw his arms around her with surprising emotion. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me,” he’d said roughly. “Will you stay?”

“Of course.”

He’d led her to the waiting room, where they sat in a pulsing, anxious silence. Jefferson kept reaching for Daphne’s hand, as if seeking the simple reassurance of human contact.

She hadn’t realized that it would be so easy. That after months of careful plotting and maneuvering, months of calculation, all it had taken was a single act of tragedy for Daphne to work her way back in.