Page 263 of Depraved Boys

“You’ve found something.” Cormac shot off the edge of his mattress.

“Was she pregnant?”

Cormac shook his head. “When I escorted her to the police station for a forensic exam, a nurse came and gave her the morning-after pill. I made sure she took it, and she slept in my room in case it made her throw up in the middle of the night.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“Why?”

I read aloud that passage, and he slumped back onto the mattress. “I can see why you thought Corrine might have been pregnant, but I think it’s about suicide.”

A chill fell across my skin, making it prickle into goosebumps. “From what I’m reading, Corrine hoped to reconcile with Kash but became despondent when he didn’t acknowledge her.”

Cormac shook his head. “I don’t know what she was thinking.”

I continued reading. Apart from the background harassment from the queens, little much else happened. Miss Claymore continued to urge her to improve her grades. Mrs. Benazir threatened to have her sent back to foster care for the summer holidays if she didn’t achieve a ninety percent average.

Corrine also worried about the effect her struggles had on Cormac, who kept trying to confront the kings and kept getting slapped down by them in increasingly humiliating ways.

Cormac is threatening to follow me in the ways of Icarus. He keeps getting close to the sun, but it never works. Yesterday, the Bitch and the Whore tipped jugs of water over his head for approaching the royal table. The kings laughed, and so did everyone else. The Scarecrow watched but didn’t say a word. Even she loves the sun.

My heart twisted for Cormac. It was understandable that he had believed his sister’s lies and wanted justice. It was disappointing, though, to see this biased version of Miss Claymore. Despite everything, I still saw her as the type of teacher who didn’t tolerate bullies. At least those who weren’t her.

“There are lots of nasty little encounters, but nothing significant,” I said to Cormac.

“Maybe skip to the end?” he asked.

“Good idea.” We could read the other pages later.

Today will be my last day on earth.

The leech will replace me with another scholar, and I’ll be forgotten in a few months, only to be brought up as a meme or a cautionary tale. That’s fine with me. I swallowed back the lump in my throat.

My only regret is the pain I’ll cause Cormac. But in my current state, I’m dead weight.

There’s that story of the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng. Chang’s poor health and heavy drinking meant that he died first, and the otherwise-healthy Eng had to carry the dead body of his twin for hours until he succumbed. That’s what my misery is doing to Cormac.

That’s why I have to cut away the necrotic tissue before he succumbs, too.

A tight fist squeezed my heart, and tears filled my eyes. Corrine hadn’t been driven to suicide by the bullies. She had wanted to die because of the effect she had on her brother.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“It’s horrible, and you have to remember she probably wasn’t well when she wrote this, and—”

“Tell me,” he said in a voice filled with steel.

I blinked away my tears and read out the passage.

Color leached out of Cormac’s skin, and his face slackened. “She killed herself to save me.”

Gathering the papers to my chest, I walked across the room and settled next to him on the mattress. “That’s not how I interpreted it.” I wrapped my arms around his slumped shoulders and gave him a tight squeeze. “From everything I read about you in there, you were the perfect, loving brother.”

“But not strong enough to support her,” he said through clenched teeth.

“You did your best.” I gave him a gentle shake. “There’s only so much a teenaged boy can do. Corrine needed professional help.”

Cormac shook his head. “Finish it.”