Page 55 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

Her unfocused eyes take in the dim surroundings with confusion before her gaze falls on me. A small hopeful smile pulls at her lips.

My breath catches. She hasn’t smiled at me in years.

She sets a hand on my cheek.

“Astor?” She asks, her voice full of longing.

It’s another knife to the chest.

“No, it’s Phoenix.” I answer, taking her hand off my cheek and placing it on her lap.

“Oh.” That one disappointed syllable slices through me and I turn away. “Why are you here?” She asks, disinterestedly.

This reaction is more in line with the way she usually greets me.

Growing up, Astor was always her favorite and, deep down, I knew that. But when he died? I became completely invisible to her. She shut herself away with her grief and left me with nothing to turn to for comfort except my own growing resentment.

He’d died and I’d lost all three pillars of my life because of it. Him, my parents, and Six.

It was obvious the wrong twin died that day.

I could live without the constant fucking reminders everywhere I went, which is part of the reason I ignored Six the last couple of years and also why I never came home.

The last time I saw my mother before today was over two years ago.

“Thomas sent for me,” I say, standing. I haven’t called my father by anything but his first name in years. “You didn’t think I was coming back to see you, did you?”

She turns away from me and grabs a foil pack, pushing a couple pills out of their aluminum casing and into her palm.She tosses them into her open mouth and washes them down with a swig of vodka from a nearby bottle.

“Close the door behind you,” She says, settling back on her pillow and away from me.

I expel a breath through my nose in scornful laughter and do as she asks.

It’s so great to be home.

Clearly my mother’s state remains unchanged, so why did my father bring me back here? It’s not out of a personal desire to see how I’m doing, I know that for a fact.

I jog down the main staircase and stop in my tracks when I come face to face with Six. She’s the last person I expected to find standing in my foyer, wide eyed and frozen in place as she stares up at me.

Her parents never sold their adjoining estate, even after they moved to Hong Kong. I know she’s spent some holiday weekends here with her family since coming to RCA, but we’ve never been here at the same time.

Not since I turned eleven.

She’s been turning up everywhere I’ve been lately, but this time can’t be a coincidence.

“This is starting to feel like you’re stalking me,” I say, sauntering down the last few steps and over to her. “Hasn’t your ass had enough?”

She blushes furiously and her cheeks do their best impression of trying to match her fiery red hair.

Somehow, I get too close again. I’m looming over her and can see every eyelash, every freckle, every mole on her face.

“I’m not,” she answers, purposely ignoring my question.

“Does the fact that you didn’t answer my question mean your ass is ready for more?”

“You ask a lot of questions about my ass for someone who claims to have no interest in sleeping with me,” she points out.

I smile unkindly, swallowing the rest of the space between us with one step and grabbing her by the throat.

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