With my fate sealed, Kyle and I continued down the hallway until we had made our way to where Nikita, Jaxon, and Colette were standing. My eyes found Nikita first, and I couldn’t help but smile. She grinned back at me, but there was hesitation in her gaze, so I didn’t try to initiate any sort of intimacy with her. I gave her a little nod as a greeting. She nodded back, and then my gaze shifted to Colette, and the smile quickly faded. Her hair, which was typically perfectly brushed, was unkempt and curling along the back where split ends were fraying outward. Her eyes were sunken in as if she hadn’t slept in weeks, and though she was already an absurdly thin person, she looked borderline emaciated with her collar bone jutting out from her neck and her cheeks slightly sunken. When Kyle said she wasn’t doing good, I didn’t think it was that bad.
It shattered me.
“Hey, Colette,” I greeted. “I missed you over the break.”
She forced a smile that she was no doubt attempting to make seem bright but only looked pained. “Hi! I missed you too. I have a Christmas present for you! You were the only one who I didn’t get a chance to give it to over the break.” She reached into her open locker, pulled out a small and perfectly wrapped present, and handed it over. “Open it!”
My hands were full with the box, so I shifted it to balance against my hip while I worked on getting the present open. Nikita tried to pull the box from me, but I clung to it, and she furrowed her brow at me. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I got it.”
But the damage was done. Nikita was already picking her way through the box’s contents, and I had no choice but to continue with my present from Colette and wait for the impending doom. I pulled off the wrapping paper, lifted the lid of the box, and laughed. Inside was a small porcelain nesting doll. My relationships with the members of The Royal Court were strained on a good day, but until the beginning of this year, we did all have something like a friendship. During a conversation with Colette, I’d revealed that I hated the concept of nesting dolls because I didn’t understand why anyone would feel the need to fit progressively smaller things into larger replicas. My irritation over the concept was amusing to her, and it became something of an inside joke between us.
“A nesting doll.” I leaned forward and gave her as best a hug as I could with my arms full. “Thank you.” Pulling back, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Um, I kind of completely ignored Christmas this year, so I don’t—”
Colette held up a hand. “Nope. Don’t worry about reciprocity. I knew you’d like it, so I got it for you.”
I grinned. “Thanks.”
“Nathan,” Nikita’s voice was low in my ear, “what’s this box of stuff?”
I might have been hoping for more time before she brought it up, or maybe even that she’d wait and do it the next time we were alone, but public embarrassment was just as good. I looked over at her with a frown. “It’s a box of Cherri’s stuff that I need to give back to her.”
“I was at your place every day for two weeks. I didn’t see any of this stuff.”
“Yeah…” I took a deep breath. Kyle, Jaxon, and Colette all watched us with evident nervousness. “I packed it all up after you went home to change that first day and hid it in my closet.”
“You hid it?” she asked. “Why?”
All I could do was shrug. “I don’t know. She’s a bit of a rough subject for us, and I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“So instead, you carted a box of her stuff in here right in front of me?”
“Well, truth told, I was hoping to bump into her before you so that I could just hand it over without needing to talk about it,” I admitted, and Nikita crossed her arms. “I now realize it was potentially not the right way to do things.”
Before Nikita could say anything else, Colette reached forward and snatched the box from my grip with a strength that belied how weak she looked. “Oh! I’ll give it back to her.”
“Uh, n-no,” I said, trying to pull it back. “That’s okay. I really want to do it myself.”
“Why?” Nikita asked. “Why do you have to do it yourself?”
“I want to apologize to her,” I said.
“You’ve apologized to her already,” Nikita said. “Many times.”
That sounded so strange, coming from someone who believed no number of apologies could be enough. “I mean, I’ve said sorry with a bunch of people standing around, and I more or less said it to say it, but I want to, I don’t know, make it clear how sorry I am.”
“Like in the past?” Nikita asked.
At first, I wasn’t certain what she was talking about, but then I thought about all the times I’ve apologized to Cherri in the past. I had often orchestrated big, extravagant displays to get her to forgive me and resume our relationship. “Of course not. Cherri and I are done. I just want her to know how sorry I am.”
Nikita was looking me up and down like she couldn’t decide if she believed me or not, but I didn’t get the chance to say anything to convince her otherwise. Our conversation was interrupted by a cacophonous murmur of voices bubbling up from the direction of the door. Everyone around us was stopping, pointing, and whispering to their neighbors with looks of shock on their faces. All five of us turned and looked around the growing commotion, and when we saw the point of shock, all of our jaws collectively dropped.
Cherri was walking through the front door, but it wasn’t the Cherri we knew.
The sea of students parted as a nearly unrecognizable person entered the building. Her formerly long hair had been cut short, all the way up to her shoulders, and it was straight apart from a crimp here and there rather than wavy like it once was. On top of that, it was no longer blonde. It was now dark brown at the roots and faded to blond at the tips. Her ears were covered in piercings down the cartilage, and two gold studs were in each of her ear lobes, which seemed to match the gold chain choker she was wearing. She was rocking a black leather jacket that I recognized as being one of Deon’s, a pair of dark blue jeans with rips and tears all over them, and a pair of knee-high combat boots. Her makeup palette was much darker than the light, pastel colors in the box I’d brought with me. Black mascara encircled her eyes, and her lips were a deep and dark purple color. She walked in with a scowl on her face and a swagger that I’d never seen Cherri move with before.
She’d morphed into a totally new person.
Jaxon was the first to break the silence amongst us. “Well, someone isn’t handling PTSD well.”
My hand flew out before I could stop myself, slamming into Jaxon’s arm. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
Jaxon looked shocked. “What the fuck?”
Nikita’s eyes widened, and I knew my reaction didn’t improve my position with her at all. “Nikita.”
She just looked away from me, back toward Cherri, and I did the same.
Behind Cherri, Sicily walked in, the go-to guy at Postings Proper for all your shady needs and Deon’s best friend. I can admit that I didn’t expect Deon and Sicily to bond the way they did, but it seemed they found a common enemy in The Royal Court and me. When everything went wrong with Deon, my dad and I made everyone drag Cherri away, even if they had to do it with her kicking and screaming, and the only person she would talk to after that was Sicily. It seemed the two were still spending their time together in the wake of Deon’s death.