Pretty Misfortunes (Cruel Boys of Raven Oak Prep #2)

~Chapter XIII~

~Madelyn~

IT WASN'T TRUE. It couldn't be.

Blue couldn't be Carnation Sweet.

Ridley's sister. The Sparrows' first love.

The facts were there. In front of my fucking face like a bright neon sign.

Sitting in the library, alone, I stared at the screen for what felt like hours. Just studying the article and everything I could find about the obituary written two years ago on a murder of the Beautiful Girl in Blue as they called her. The headline was splashed with gruesome tellings of a young female student from Raven Oak Prep, who supposedly committed suicide at Pier 62, a year later after the disappearance of my mother Charlotte Monroe became worldwide news.

A year after I was sent to the psych ward.

The anniversary of my mother's acclaimed death. All Hallow's Eve.

Is that why we are connected? Was her spirit tied to me because she died the same night I lost memories to my mother's disappearance a year prior?

I swore.

"Language, dear."

I smile apologetically at the librarian. "Sorry, miss Weathers."

Diane Weathers quickly dismissed me with a flutter of fingers, and a small laugh under her breath about teenagers.

Looking back at the computer screen, I went over the article again and again:

"A heartbreaking chapter concludes for a fifteen year old student. Carnation Sweet studied at her local prep school Raven Oak since she was eleven. A model classmate and fellow friend to many, staff and students have banded together to commemorate their loss. She leaves behind a father and two brothers who also attend the upper class academy.

Jonathan Sweet- Headmaster of the elite - and father to the young girl has not spoken about recent events which police officers are investigating. Carnation Sweet was found dead in the waters of Elliot Bay on the late midnight toll of February 15. Interviews with witnesses state she was missing hours beforehand, during which many claimed she did not attend the grand fundraiser of her beloved father's academy: Raven Oak Prep. As a member of the student council, preparations for that evening for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Carnation Sweet missed her schedule which was taken notice by family and friends.

Later details are not circumstantial, however intelligence from police paperwork reveal Carnation committed suicide at an early stage in life yet to be told. And now, never will."

Fourteen? A year older than me.

This article was written in 2016. The same year my mother disappeared and was allegedly killed because of me. Now I was certain she was still alive.

Three years I lived with Blue. She came to me mid summer. At a time I was at my darkest and believed all that was being said about me was true. Her presence comforted me and helped rush the days I spent in that awful institution with those abusive guards. People already thought I was mentally unstable, so it was almost normal for me to talk to her when the warden and nurses watched over us patients.

The times aligned.

I sighed. Rubbing unconsciously at the scars beneath my sleeves because they were growing increasingly hard not to itch these past months since I left King County. "So not a coincidence."