Page 80 of Gilded Fake

“I’m done,” I say, pushing back from the table.

She wraps her arm around herself, protectively cradling her hand to her chest, covering it with her other, as if she thinks I’ll wrestle the ring from her finger. “You can’t be,” she says. “You can’t be stupid enough to throw all this away over some basic bitch. Pretty soon she’ll be fat as me, and you won’t even want her anymore. Then what? What you have is an infatuation. What we have is forever.”

“We don’t have anything,” I say. “And I wouldn’t get a tattoo for an infatuation. It always meant something.”

“You can’t know that,” she cries. “You don’t remember!”

“I’m done arguing with you. It’s over, Dixie.”

“I don’t accept that,” she says. “You can’t break up with me. I have a ring.”

“Keep it,” I say. “When you accept we’re over, you can sell it.”

“No one wants a used engagement ring,” she points out. “I won’t get anything for it!”

“Fine, I’ll cut you a check,” I say, standing and pulling out my wallet. “How much do you want?”

“I don’t want a check,” she protests. “I want you, Colt. What can I do to prove it? I’ve done everything you ever wanted. What have you done for me?”

“You’re right,” I say. “I haven’t done shit. Which should be proof enough that this doesn’t work.”

“It does,” she insists. “You want me to put that collar and leash on me? I’ll crawl around on the ground for you if that’s what you want. I’m not giving up on us, Colt. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you. Look at all I’ve done already. I took down the queen of the entire school so you could have your throne back.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” I point out. “If anyone did that, it was Harper, or maybe Devlin for coming back.”

“It was me,” she insists. “I took the throne from her so you’d be proud to be by my side. So you’d have a queen. Now you do. Why can’t you be happy with that?”

“Because she was your friend,” I point out. “I didn’t want to see you destroy someone you spent the last two years claiming to like. Stabbing your own friends in the back for me? I didn’t ask you for that.”

“But I did it,” she says. “For us.”

“For you,” I say. “You did it for you, because you wanted to be queen. You wanted me to be king more than I ever did.”

“And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my throne,” she says. “To keep you there with me, where you belong. We’re together now, and we always will be.”

I drop my head back and squeeze my eyes closed. “Dixie. I just broke up with you.”

“I’m not letting you throw this away over a piece of ass,” she says. “We’ll get past this, and you can make it up to me like you always do. It’s just the pills talking anyway.”

“I thought the pills made me honest,” I remind her. “Or does that only apply when it means you get what you want?”

“I will get what I want,” she vows, her eyes hardening. “I always do. You just watch.”

“I hope you do,” I say, swiping my laptop off the table and turning to go. “But it won’t be me.”

eighteen

Rumor Has It… The newly minted prom king was seen cavorting about with the disgraced leper who usurped the throne last year. Did his brain damage lead him to forget who the true queen is, or could a substance be responsible for the lapse?

Gloria Walton

“This seems a bit excessive,” I say as Colt sits down and arranges me on his lap while I set our two plates on the table in front of us.

“A bit?” Harper asks, shoveling rice into her mouth.

“Shut up and eat,” Colt says, scooping up a forkful of food and lifting it to my mouth. I give him a look, but he just waits, his gaze cool and unrelenting, until I open my mouth. He slides the fork in, giving my thigh a squeeze with his other hand. “Atta girl.”

I chew slowly, forcing myself not to look around at all the people who are whispering and staring. The kings occasionally bring a new girl to their table if she’s fire in bed or they want a challenge and are trying to seduce her into sleeping with them. They don’t associate with girls of lower status, at least not publicly—unless it’s to force me to sit at their feet and worship them, that is. But no matter how pretty or unattainable a girl is, they never leave their table for her. That’s what makes every spot at their table precious, exclusive, and so coveted that girls will pull each other’s hair out in locker room brawls over a fucking chair.

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