The Truth About Kian

01. I used to rule the world

:: C H A P T E R  O N E | I USED TO RULE THE WORLD ::

It was raining again.

I had woken up to an empty and very cold house, and I crawled out of bed while cursing myself for forgetting to turn on the thermostat the night before. The spring chill had slipped under doors and window linings, infusing the house with a melancholy emptiness. The cold, along with the dull grey morning light, made me feel the absence of my work-obsessed parents more sorely as I got ready for school.

I dawdled during breakfast, absent-mindedly reading the paper until I realized that I was 10 minutes late for the bus. The wind whipped through my thin jacket and my hair was dripping by the time I sprinted to the idling bus at the corner of my street.

St. Benedict Academy was strangely quiet when we pulled into the bus lane next to the building. The parking lot was filled with its usual quota of imported sports cars, but despite the fact that it was ten to nine, no students were rushing through the doors.

To put it simply, the noisy school that educated the children of the Scire's elite had turned into a ghost campus building over the weekend.

By the time I dashed through one of the front doors, I was shivering and not looking forward to sitting through morning assembly in my wet uniform. The main foyer was silent. The normal rowdy chaos caused by my classmates was absent, and in its place, there was an eerie quietness that bothered me.

Students were clustered in little groups as I slunk along the edge of the hallway, dripping water on the polished floor.

Eva Cartwright wrinkled her nose in my direction when I took my usual corner spot. "Reed," she said in a loud whisper, "you're supposed to be cleaning up the mess, not making it."

I paused in the middle of untangling my headphones. "Sorry?" I said, knowing full well where the conversation was going.

Eva feigned a look of surprise. "Well, you're only here because you're a custodial intern, right?"

The insult was an old one, but it still made my cheeks redden. I gave her a bland smile as I stuck the earphones in my ears and turned up the volume. I could have replied with an even crueler retort (I had a massive supply), but after being at St. Benedict for three years, I knew that when I fought fire with fire, I was the one who always got burned.

Deciding that I didn't want to deal with my wealthy classmates this early in the morning, I let my eyes slide over the familiar scenery.

St. Benedict Academy had been built in the late 19th century. Although the building looked its age in Scire — a town where modern mansions were the norm — it had aged gracefully. The cream marble tiles might have been scuffed with black shoe marks and the wooden walls were a little scratched, but the glittering chandelier 20 feet above our heads was still intact and magnificent.

When I had first received the scholarship for St. Benedict, I'd been ecstatic. But after spending nearly three years surrounded by students who hated me and teachers who expected me to attend an Ivy League school that I couldn't afford, public school didn't look so bad. Now the only perk of St. Benedict was that it was going to get me out of Scire.

Suddenly, an arm settled on my shoulders, and Jules' dark face moved close to my own.

"Know what happened?" he asked, pulling a worn paperback out of his leather bag.

"No," I said, leaning my head on his shoulder so I could read the book, too. It was The Great Gatsby again — my favourite.

"Whatever it is, I hope it lasts," he murmured, his lip curling as he surveyed our subdued classmates with blatant dislike. "They're much more bearable when they're quiet."

"That's horrible, Jules," I said softly. "It makes you sound like them."

He snorted. "Oh, they've made it very clear that we aren't a part of their little group." His slender hands clenched around the book, twisting the battered cover between his long fingers.

"It doesn't matter," I said as I watched Maurice Dawson burst into tears and bury her face in a handful of tissues. She was an Inheritor — one of Scire's elite rich whose billion-dollar fortune had been in her family for decades. Inheritors never showed their emotions, and I was so used to their impassive, cruel masks that it was strange to see their faces wearing anxious sadness.

"They'll probably be working for us in a few years anyway," said Jules, throwing a dark look at Maurice. "And they'll be buying my coffee from Starbucks."

I could see the misery in Jules' eyes, and I didn't bother to ask what he was talking about. I already knew; it was the only thing that people in Scire ever talked about.

Money.

Scire was the type of town where war always raged between the working class and the Inheritors. The lines were drawn between us. Our self-worth was measured by the amount of figures in our bank accounts, and it had always been the rich versus the not-quite-as-rich.

For the most part, I kept my head down. The woods around Scire were dense and green, and it was a place where no one was planning the next reputation-ruining prank. I often retreated there, snapping photos of wildlife and writing stories that took place thousands of miles from Scire.

I knew why Jules hated the Inheritors: he wanted to be one of them. But no one could cross the lines to the other side — you couldn't be friends with the enemy, and you most certainly couldn't fall in love with one.

In the nearly 200-year war between the working class and the Inheritors, only one boy had ever bridged the gap.

Kian Daniels was a senior scholarship student at St. Benedict — the brilliant, beautiful boy who had led us to national championships in basketball for the past four years. Since he was a senior and we were juniors, we weren't part of the same groups, but he always said Hi in the hallway. He knew what it was like for us. Scholarship kids all had to deal with the hatred of our rich classmates — the resentment that came along with earning your way into an elite school like St. Benedict.

But Kian had overcome all of that. He had single-handedly managed to win over the Inheritors, and that made him a god in the eyes of other scholarship kids.

Jules snapped his book shut as the bell rang, calling us to morning assembly. We brushed past a group of Inheritors huddled by the trophy case. Maurice glanced up, her eyes following us. Jules ignored her, his clenched jaw the only thing that betrayed his true feelings.

As we entered the wood-panelled room, my eyes were drawn to the line of grim-faced adults at the front. It was the first time that I saw Mr. Weese, the history teacher — my favourite teacher at St. Benedict — without a smile on his face. Jules dropped into the chair beside me just as the principal stepped up to the podium.

Headmistress Harrison was a slender woman in her mid-forties who had a pointed face and a mouth that always seemed twisted in a perpetual snarl. After catering to the whims of Scire's rich and snobby parents, I could hardly blame her for looking a little bitter.

"It is with great regret that I announce the death of a valuable member of our school community," said Headmaster Harrison. She paused, glancing around the room with a pained rather than irritated pinch to her mouth. "Kian Daniels committed suicide on Saturday night."

I inhaled sharply. Several girls burst into tears. Jules glanced over at me, his expression stricken. I glanced down at my soggy black flats and wrapped my arms around my waist.

Beautiful, brilliant Kian. His future had stretched ahead of him like a four-lane highway. He could have been anything that he wanted — athlete, scientist, actor — anything.

He could have had it all, so why had he thrown it away?

If the boy who was the darling of St. Benedict didn't want to go on, what hope was there for the rest of us?

***