My Fated Dragon Prince

The Perfect Time

It’s only midnight when I wake up, but I don’t let myself fall back asleep. I don’t leave my bedroom, either; I won’t risk running into Chuck in the middle of the night. I lie in bed, watching my ceiling fan spin, thinking about Archie.

I wish he was here. I’d show him the ridiculous letter, and first he’d laugh hysterically, but then he’d see how it’s getting to me and soften. He’d wrap his arms around me and tell me that there must be some kind of explanation, and that, whatever it was, he’d help me find it.

That’s how he always was. Funny, but kind. Full of love and warmth. Everything a lonely, broken girl like me needed.

Without him, I’m lost.

I avoid Ash’s gaze in the morning. I can tell she wants to know about the dream, but I don’t have the strength to talk about it yet. I still have no idea what any of it means. Maybe I’m just going insane, the same way my parents did before they had me. Maybe I belong in the same looney bin they met in.

Charlie picks me up from school, like he usually does. He doesn’t take me to school, though. He takes me to Echo Park Lake.

“Charlie,” I say as soon as I lay eyes on the paddle boats. “No.”

“Come on.” His tone is so sweet—so harmless. He has gentle, brown eyes that are so eager to please. “Remember our first date?”

I remember. He smoked me out a few times before our true “first date,” and the second time, he asked me how I felt about paddle boats. I told him I’d never been on one, and he gasped and said, “But you live in LA!”

Technically, I live in Compton. But I didn’t bother correcting him.

“Of course, I remember it,” I tell him. “But I missed half my classes yesterday. I should go to school.”

He sighs as he pulls into a parking space. “I just want to make you happy, Nell. What’s going on with you lately?”

I hate when people ask me that. They always want it to be something new or different, the reason for my sadness. They’re never satisfied with the fact that I lost my best friend.

“Charlie,” I say again. “Just take me to school.”

- - - - -

I should have stayed in Echo Park.

I make it through my first four classes relatively painlessly, but lunch is a different story.

I sit with Charlie and his stoner friends, like I always do. I’m something of a queen to them, which I never really understood. There are tons of cool, edgy stoner chicks in our class—far cooler than me. I wear the same thing pretty much every day—black tank, ripped jeans, and combat boots—and I keep my dark hair long, not cropped into slick, alternative haircuts like them. I don’t even bother with makeup anymore.

Anyway, Trent Taylor usually sits with his football team and his cheerleader girlfriend, Lexi Morrison, across the cafeteria. But today, Lexi comes over to our table, and where Lexi leads, Trent follows.

“Hi, Nell,” Lexi says sweetly to me when she reaches our table. Charlie and his friends gape at her; they never receive attention from cheerleaders, especially not ones as blond, blue-eyed, and perfect as Lexi. “Noticed you and the boyfriend skipped class yesterday. You two finally seal the deal?”

I resist the urge to groan. “Didn’t realize my s*x life was so interesting to you, Lexi.”

She extends an open hand to Trent. “Told you.”

I realize when Trent forks over a twenty what the point of this absurd conversation is, and try to hide my blush. Seriously? They made bets over whether I’ve slept with Charlie?

“It’s a good thing you dumped her when you did, babe,” Lexi tells him as she takes his hand to pull him away. “Once a prude, always a prude.”

I know Trent well enough to know that if I looked at him, I’d see some semblance of apology in his eyes. He’s not as cold-blooded as his new girlfriend; he would never intentionally hurt me, even after I broke his heart by dumping him. (Yes, it was me who dumped him, despite what Lexi claims.) But I don’t look at him. I don’t really care.

Charlie does, though, I realize when I turn to face him. He’s embarrassed.

I get it—really, I do. I’m eighteen now, and I’ve been with him for half a year. What am I waiting for?

I’m waiting to fall in love, I want to scream at him. Is that such a crime?

It is, though, I realize. Because if I’m not in love with him by now, I never will be. 

- - - - -

I know I need to end things with him, but I can’t do it today. I’m exhausted, confused, and afraid, and the last thing I have the energy or willpower to do is dump someone.

When I step inside my house that evening, Chuck’s fingers are around Ash’s neck.

“Ash!” I shriek, thoughts of Charlie and even of Farnethia disappearing as I launch myself at Chuck with all my weight and tackle him to the ground. I hear Ash drop to her knees, coughing and sputtering, but before I can check to make sure she’s okay, I feel Chuck’s fist bury itself in my gut.

It’s not the first time he’s punched me in the stomach. It’s actually his favorite place to do so; he doesn’t want to risk someone at school seeing my bruised face and calling child services. 

Being punched in the gut sends me into the same blind rage that it always does, and as I drop to my own knees, clutching my stomach with one hand, I reach out with the other to scratch him in the face. 

This is a common mistake that I make: fighting back. Ash learned long ago not to fight him, but I never did. 

“You little b***h!” he shouts at me, and I feel him tackling me to the ground, shoving his knee sharply against my groin as he pins my arms to my sides. Chuck has this extraordinarily creepy way of threatening to sexually assault me without actually doing so. He likes to see me squirm. 

“Chuck!” Ash wails as she scrambles to her feet and comes over to us. “Let her go!”

His knee is still digging into me down there, and his voice drips with disturbing hunger when he speaks. “She’s a spoiled little slut, and she needs to be taught a lesson.”

I take his meaning with a chill of fear that goes all the way down my spine. I was wrong, I realize. He doesn’t think Ash will leave him if he does this. Either that, or he doesn’t care.

He pins my legs down with his and brings my wrists over my head, pinning both of them above me with one of his hands and using the other to reach for my shirt. I scream and writhe, but it only seems to make him hungrier.

By the time his free hand starts to rip open my shirt, I’ve pretty much given up. There’s nothing I can do, and there seems to be nothing Ash will do. He was right about her, I realize. She cares more about him than me.

In this moment, I regret having waited. I wish I had slept with Trent, with Charlie, or even with both of them. It wouldn’t have been love, but it wouldn’t have been this. 

But then she hits him in the head with a frying pan, and I realize that she does care more about me than him, after all.

I leap to my feet as Chuck sways backwards, dazed by the impact. I grab the frying pan from Ash and thrust it against his head, again and again, harder each time, tears streaming down my cheeks, until Ash begins to scream.

I don’t stop for him. I don’t stop because I’m afraid to kill him. I want to kill him.

I stop for her. I stop because I won’t be the cause of her screams. Not after how many times he has been. 

“You have to call the police,” I tell her. “He’ll kill us both for this.”

She nods. The tears in her eyes are too much for me, and I turn away from her, rummaging through the drawers until I find the duct tape. I bring it to Chuck’s unconscious body and start binding his wrists and ankles together as I listen to her call.

“Yes, hello, this—I’m—Ashley Davidson is my name. 1213 Sycamore Street. My husband just attacked my daughter and I.” Pause. “N—no, we were able—we—he’s unconscious now.” Pause. “Yes—I understand. Thank you.” She hangs up.

When her eyes meet mine again, we’re both silent for a long time. Finally, I address the elephant in the room. “You know what this means, right? Even if this Farnethia business is real… I can’t leave you.”

Her eyes seem to twinkle, and she offers me a tiny smile. “Or maybe it’s the perfect time for you to go.”