Page 57 of Broken King

She has no idea how much that thrills me even thinking about that. If only I could tell her that might happen, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go all the way to Rome again. Even the thought of all those people in the city seeing me like I am now makes me think that can never be.

I don’t want to make her think I’m a complete mess, so I force a smile and nod. “That would be nice.”

We’re quiet for a long time as we walk holding hands toward the rear of the estate. I never come out this far anymore, and I don’t know what it even looks like these days. Matthias has a beautiful place here, and I’m happy to see the people he’s got landscaping it are keeping it like it was when my parents had the property.

“I’ve always loved this place,” Kate says in a dreamy voice.

Surprised, I look over at her and see her expression is pure bliss. “I loved growing up here. It was like we had our own private place to get lost in. My brothers and I weren’t supposed to go past where my mother couldn’t see us, but we always did. Then she’d come out to find us, and she always looked the same when she finally did. She’d have her hands on her hips, and she would shake her head. She didn’t even have to yell at us. We just knew when we saw that we were in trouble.”

Kate listens to my story and the next one I tell about the day Theo fell out of a tree at the edge of the estate. I talk about how angry my mother was when she had to walk all the way out there to find my older brother had broken his leg and how we all were grounded for a week after that, forced to stay inside.

“Not that hanging out in the game room was really any sort of punishment,” I say with a laugh. “I know Marius didn’t think it was since he spent the whole time shooting pool.”

My mention of the one King brother she’s sure hates her gets Kate’s attention, and after a few long moments of silence, she quietly asks, “Why is he back here? I’m sure he has a house of his own somewhere, right?”

“He likes to check up on me. He pretends like he isn’t here for that reason, but I think that’s it.”

“Oh.”

I don’t know why, but before I can stop myself, I add, “He was the one who found me. After I tried to…”

My sentence remains hanging in the air, unfinished because I instantly regret bringing up trying to kill myself. We were having a wonderful time, and now it’s all gone to hell because I couldn’t keep that to myself.

But Kate doesn’t shy away from that conversation. “You mean when you tried to commit suicide?” she asks in a voice full of emotion.

I nod, still regretting I brought it up. “Yeah. I’m sorry. That just sort of came out. I didn’t mean to bring down our good time.”

She stops walking and slips her hand out of mine. In a flash, that regret I felt a second ago mushrooms until all I want to do is go back to my room. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I just have to not fuck it up.

Kate steps in front of me and stares up into my eyes. “I hate thinking you were so unhappy you tried to do that. I know why you would. I get it. But if you ever feel anything even close to that, promise me you’ll call me, Ronan. I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll come over, and we can talk it out. Or if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine too. We can just sit in silence. All that matters is you don’t go through with it.”

No one outside my family has ever said anything like that to me. Her kindness makes my breath catch in my chest.

“I don’t want to do that. Not anymore. I was in a really dark place after the accident. I got strung out on the painkillers they gave me, and when I had to stop them, things got bad. I hid it from everyone, but that one day I couldn’t imagine going on. So I tried, but Marius found me, thank God.”

With a smile, she takes my left hand and gives it a squeeze. “Then maybe I had him all wrong. Maybe he’s a good guy after all.”

“He is. He’s just a pain in the ass sometimes. Don’t take anything he says seriously. He just likes to bust ass.”

“Well, even if he hates me, I can’t hate him now because he made it possible for us to be here on this beautiful day in this beautiful place.”

I silently finish her sentence as we start off walking again. With a beautiful woman.

When she takes my hand this time, I feel like the entire world is lifted off my shoulders. That day when I wanted to leave this world, I couldn’t imagine ever feeling this good again. Now I can’t imagine even considering taking my own life.

Kate begins talking about her job she starts later this summer, and I listen to every word, happier than I remember feeling since my accident. I can tell she’s nervous about finally having a full-time teaching position, but I can’t think of a better person to work with third graders.

“You’re going to be great at it. I know it.”

Fear fills her expression. Blowing the air out of her lungs, she says, “I hope so. I don’t want to screw up some poor little kid’s mind. All I’ve ever wanted to be was a teacher. You know that. I’m sure you’re bored of me talking about it since I’ve been obsessed with being a teacher from when I was fifteen and I got to be junior counselor at summer camp.”

The way she says that makes it seem like we’ve been together all that time, and I like that. I regret nothing more in my life than what I did to break us up. It was stupid, and I swore to myself so many times if I ever had the chance to make it up to her, I would.

Now I have that chance, but can I do it as the man I am now?

“So I start in August, but I’ve already been gathering ideas and supplies. I guess I’m a little excited about it.”

The way she says that makes me think she feels like she should be ashamed of feeling that way. I don’t like that. Kate has never been as confident as she should be. She has so much goingfor her, the best thing being that she cares about people. She’s the perfect example of who should be a teacher.

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