5. echo
echo
By lunch, my heel had rubbed a sore spot above my ankle, Sterling had assigned a response paper I had no intention of completing, and the lecture had left one useful thing lodged in my head like a splinter. Conditional protection.
The phrase fit Nichlas better than anything else had. He had moved like someone who knew there were rules around him and didn’t know which one would break first.
Priya claimed a table near the tall windows, setting down truffle fries, a salad with edible flowers, and sparkling water with lime before waving me into the chair beside her.
Devon sat across from us with salmon under some glossy sauce and vegetables lined up in obedient little rows.
Maren had saffron rice, grilled chicken, and a bowl of soup so smooth it looked painted.
I had coffee, half of Priya’s fries by spiritual right, and a lemon tart I had taken because it looked fragile enough to deserve me.
I bit into one of the fries and frowned.
It was fine, which somehow made it worse.
Father One would’ve hated the oil, the texture, the little sprinkle of herbs someone had added to make potatoes feel more presentable.
“This school charges people a kidney per semester and still can’t beat my father’s potatoes,” I mumbled, taking another fry before Priya could move the plate.
Devon looked up from cutting into his salmon. “Your father cooks?” he asked, Priya’s eyes moving from my hand to my face.
“One of them.” I dipped the fry into Priya’s sauce, which made it only marginally better.
“Father One cooks. Father Two makes everything more complicated than necessary. Father Three handles the family business, and Father Four is the reason several family conversations should’ve had legal counsel present. ”
Each of them paused their eating, Devon leaning back a little, his salmon forgotten for the moment, but he didn’t jump into the question the way Priya did.
She was already smiling by the time she said, “You can’t just casually drop four fathers into a conversation about potatoes and then keep eating like that’s normal. ”
“It is normal. For me.” I broke the tart with the side of my fork and found lemon filling inside. It looked awful. “That’s usually how normal works. Somebody suffers long enough and calls it routine.”
Priya dragged her fries closer. “Are they all married to each other? Is this a divorce thing? A stepdad thing? A tragic found-family situation? You have to give me a category, Echo. I’m not asking for medical records, just enough information to stop my brain from making a chart.”
“No chart,” Maren said quietly, but she was still watching me, still too focused on the map corner tucked beneath my notebook and the way my coffee cup had shifted over it.
I took another drink and let the heat sit on my tongue. “It’s a family thing. They raised me. They feed me. They judge my choices even though they’re historically unqualified to do that with a straight face. That’s all you’re getting before dessert.”
Devon’s smile moved slower than Priya’s. “And they’re fine with you being here?”
“Fine is not the word I’d use.” I looked toward the upper level instead of at him, where frosted glass doors sat above the cafeteria like the building had secrets stacked by income bracket. “Aware. Annoyed. Temporarily trusting me not to commit any major crimes before the end of the week.”
Priya made a sound around her water that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s specific.”
“My family believes in setting realistic goals.” I shrugged.
“Look, I came here for an education. This place accepted me and my fathers thought it would be a good experience before remembering that I don’t follow rules well.
” They seemed to accept that answer as I snatched another one of Priya’s fries.
At the next table, someone said Nichlas’ name. Behind me, a girl muttered, “Again?” and someone else answered, “What does he even do?”
“Nothing,” another voice said. “That’s the point.”
I kept my hand on Priya’s fries and forced myself to chew before I turned my head. “Nicky boy has fans?” I asked, light enough that anyone listening would’ve heard curiosity instead of the part of me counting how far the next table sat from the nearest exit.
Priya reached for her water and leaned in with it, her smile still fixed for anyone watching.
“Don’t call him that where people can hear you.
He’s not popular, before you make that face.
He’s not secretly beloved or tragically misunderstood or whatever.
He’s mostly just there. Business program, decent grades, terrible posture, always looks like he’s about to apologize to furniture. People don’t avoid him because of him.”
I looked past Devon to the upper stairs again. “They avoid him because of the Kings.”
Priya didn’t answer right away. She ate one of her own fries, probably to remind me they belonged to her, then nudged the plate back between us.
“Sort of. Not because he’s one of them. Absolutely not.
Nobody thinks that. He doesn’t sit with them, doesn’t get invited to the things people brag about getting invited to, doesn’t even have that thing where everyone pretends they aren’t staring.
He’s just covered. Like someone put a label on him and forgot to explain why. ”
Maren finally dipped her spoon into the soup. “Or explained it to the right people.”
Priya pointed the fry at her. “That’s what I mean. You say things like that and then wonder why people think you’re creepy.”
“I don’t wonder,” Maren said, and took a small bite without looking remotely bothered.
Devon wiped the edge of his knife with his napkin, eyes down. “Covered means leave it alone. That’s all most people need to know.”
“That’s all people here accept knowing,” I said, and his gaze lifted to mine.
For a second, the table went too still. I took another fry and smiled at Priya because she was the easiest one to make underestimate me, then ruined it by looking back toward the frosted glass doors.
“I’m trying to understand the local wildlife.
Everyone keeps saying the Kings like that should explain the food chain, but no one says what they actually are. ”
Priya blew out a breath and sat back, settling into the answer like she’d been waiting for permission to talk.
“They’re not a club, no matter what people say when they’re trying to make it sound harmless.
They’re not student government either, because student government wears lanyards and sends surveys no one reads.
The Kings are just… the Kings. They have rooms, people, rules, and enough money behind them that nobody wants to find out where the edge is.
People say they run things, but people say that about anyone with a locked door and a private table. ”
“Do they?” I asked.
“Run things?” Priya looked toward Devon, then back at me. “They run enough.”
Devon’s voice dropped, low enough that it stayed at our table.
“There are parts of Aldrich where official rules matter. Classes. Scholarships. Housing, sometimes. Then there are parts where everyone knows the official rules are what gets written down after someone important decides what already happened. The Kings live in that second part.”
I let that settle while the cafeteria moved around us. Before I could ask anything else, the room shifted.
A boy near the entrance stepped backward so quickly his shoulder hit the girl behind him.
Conversations thinned in a line from the doors to the upper stairs.
The woman who crossed through didn’t thank anyone for moving.
I glanced at the intrusion, all dark auburn hair, altered uniform jacket, and heels that made less noise than mine even though hers were sharper.
I leaned toward Priya without taking my eyes off the woman. “Why do I feel like she’s important?”
Priya’s whole face lit with the vicious joy of finally getting to explain something else properly.
“Camille Voss. Former girlfriend of the King, current problem, permanent fixture in rooms most of us don’t get to stand near.
No one knows what happened with the breakup, and everyone pretends they don’t care, which is how you know they care so much it’s embarrassing.
She still gets into the upper hall, still talks to security like payroll is a family hobby, and still gets treated like someone whose bad mood might show up in your father’s quarterly numbers. ”
Camille stopped near the guard by the upper hall.
He was older, broad through the shoulders, and visibly not impressed by most students.
Camille said something without turning fully toward him, and he opened the side door for her without checking a list, badge, or expression of permission from anyone else.
Interesting.
“She used to date one of the Kings?” I asked.
“The King,” Devon emphasized, then caught himself before giving me anything more useful. “People say it that way.”
Priya rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t make it sound like a fairy tale.
It wasn’t romantic enough for that, and Camille would probably have anyone who called her tragic removed from campus by dinner.
But yes, one of them. The one people mean when they say it like there’s only one.
They’re over now, but she’s still protected. ”
“Protected from what?” I watched the side door shut behind Camille. “A little college bullying? Someone replacing her conditioner with cheap vodka?”
Priya looked back at me, and the humor dropped out of her face so fast it almost annoyed me.
“You really don’t get it, do you? I knew you were new, but I thought maybe the whole not-rich thing was a performance.
Some people do that here. They wear thrifted jackets that cost eight hundred dollars and talk about being normal before flying home for ski weekends. ”
“I’m here for school,” I said.