The Fall of Troy Read online

  Published by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  Copyright © 2019 Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, or recording, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design:

  Najla Qamber, Qamber Designs and Media

  Formatting:

  Stacey Blake, Champagne Book Design

  Editing:

  Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit www.drrebeccasharp.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Battle of Troy

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgments

  Other Works by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  About the Author

  To those who are brave enough to fall for the forbidden.

  After a ten-year siege on the walled city of Troy, the Greeks employed one last effort to win the fruitless war.

  Building a giant wooden horse, they hid a select group of men inside while the rest of the army feigned retreat.

  The Trojans took the horse as a trophy for their victory and brought it within their walls.

  That night, under the cover of darkness, the Greeks crept out from the hollow horse

  and let in the rest of the army effectively destroying Troy from the inside out.

  Since then, the fall of Troy has been written in infamy,

  a lesson for all to abide.

  That the strength of your walls doesn’t matter when you invite the enemy inside.

  “Troian.” My eyes felt so sluggish. Like weights stacking on a barbell, the pounding in my head added heaviness to my eyelids with each steady throb. Still, I heard his voice, so I tried to open them. “Troian.”

  He sounded mad.

  He was never mad.

  He was never… anything.

  Like old garage doors, my eyelids peeled up bit by bit and I saw my father’s outline in the fog of bright lights surrounding him.

  I was in an ambulance.

  The antiseptic-filled air was bitter and lacking.

  Just like me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut trying to escape the onslaught of my senses, but what I escaped to was the reason why I was here. What I escaped to was worse.

  I’d kicked off the heels I’d purchased especially for this afternoon. I’d wanted to look grown-up. Professional. I wanted him to see that I wasn’t just a kid and I was worth his time.

  He was my father, Damien Milanovic. Cancer curer and chemist-extraordinaire.

  He was supposed to come to my Chemistry Honors Awards ceremony this afternoon. He’d promised. It meant more to me than graduation itself. I’d worked my ass off this past year to make it to the top of that class to show him that I was smart… that I was worth just a few minutes spent away from the lab and his life’s work.

  He was probably still there—at the lab—working on the latest data and results from the drug he’d just put into clinical trials, even though I’d texted and called and left him a voicemail earlier to remind him about this. He’d been around more lately… That was what made my stomach twist, thinking things were changing, that he wanted to be home more. But to be on the safe side, I’d texted Lilith, my best friend, to have her remind him since she was interning with him as one of our graduation requirements. I shook my head. I should’ve known that work would always take priority.

  It was fine. It was only a high school ceremony. College would be different. Next year, I would try harder and then he would care.

  I just wanted him to care…

  I’d told myself that story so many times, it should’ve turned into a Disney fairytale by now. It hadn’t. And the worst part was that I had a good life. I shouldn’t complain. After the divorce, I’d chosen to stay with him. It wasn’t his fault that I’d turned him into a single parent when he was already responsible for saving the world—or at least the very sick people in it.

  Don’t inflate yourself, Troy. It was a stupid high school ceremony. Anyone in their right mind would agree curing cancer is a little more important.

  That was my problem—letting my emotions get the best of me about this. My father valued logic and reason and rationality. A teenager throwing a tantrum over a stupid award wasn’t going to win me any points.

  “Troian.” The word brought to a halt the sense that I was moving—floating like I was on a raft on calm seas. “Troian, can you hear me?” the woman’s voice repeated.

  It was firm but kind—like a school teacher wanting an answer to a question.

  I turned my head to the side, sinking farther into the softness behind my head and remembering that I’d only wanted an answer to a question, too…

  We lived in a rowhome in Alexandria, just outside of D.C. where it was a (relatively) easy commute to Quantum Pharmaceuticals, where my dad worked.

  “Dad?”

  No answer.

  Grumbling, I opened the refrigerator door and stared into the cold box, deciding what I should make us for dinner. When the divorce happened, my dad made sure to find someone to clean the house, keep the fridge stocked, and get me to Vernon Academy Preparatory School (before I had my license) on time.

  At some point over the last few years, probably when I realized that doing well in school wouldn’t be enough to garner my father’s attention, I’d taken over more and more of the household things—like preparing dinner. And lunch. Sometimes breakfast if I caught my dad before he left in the morning. I thought it would make him notice me a little more. It hadn’t.

  Sighing, I let the door shut. I should’ve gone out to dinner with the honors group after the ceremony, but I just didn’t feel up to it—not after he didn’t show.

  Thump.

  My head jerked to the ceiling. Was someone…

  I quickly glanced around. The door had been locked when I got home but the alarm system had been turned off.

  No one was here.

  My heart thudded.

  Thump.

  Maybe something fell. My dad wasn’t careful about putting things away. He wasn’t careful about anything unless it was happening in his lab.

  With a huff, I trudged up to the second floor where the master bedroom was, setting my bag down at the top of the landing. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t even concerned. My best guess? He’d hung towels on the back of his bathroom door again eve
n though they were too thick for the hooks and they’d fallen onto the floor. Either that or he’d overfilled his dirty laundry hamper and it spilled again.

  Don’t worry, I would take care of it. I always took care of everything.

  “Troian, can you hear me?” This time the question came with a slight jostle of my shoulder.

  I pried my eyes open once more, regretting the decision immediately when I saw that the sterile cell of the ambulance had turned into the white palace of the hospital.

  “Yeah.” I winced. My throat was so dry. “What’s going on?”

  I hissed as her little pen light flashed across my eyes as she checked my pupils, moving on to my heart, lungs, and blood pressure.

  “You gave your family quite a scare,” she said matter-of-factly.

  As if hearing the mention, the door to my room slid open and my father rushed in. I almost didn’t recognize him for how sloppy he looked. He never allowed one hair out of place, let alone a shirt untucked or rolled-up sleeves.

  I looked to him for answers to all of this, but it wasn’t until I saw her peeking through the window in the door that I realized he was the answer. He was the reason for all of this.

  “Is she okay?” His voice didn’t sound like him either.

  All in all, I seemed to recognize nothing about the man who’d been my sole guardian for the past six years.

  My tongue burned with the acid that surrounded it. If he’d cared how I was, we wouldn’t be here.

  The nurse gave me a sad stare. “Her vitals are normal—” She broke off as the door opened once again and an older Asian man in a white coat appeared.

  “Miss Milanovic.” The name sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “I’m Dr. Lee. Glad to see you are finally with us.”

  He took the iPad from the nurse and scanned down the data she’d just entered. “Everything looks good.”

  “So, I can go?” I blurted out. “I don’t want to stay in the emergency room all night.”

  “This isn’t the emergency room, Miss Milanovic,” Dr. Lee informed me calmly. “You were cleared as stable, although quite drunk, when you arrived. This is part of the psych ward.”

  “W-What?” I stammered, breathlessly. “No.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t belong here. I’d like to leave.”

  “Unfortunately, Miss Milanovic, based on how you arrived tonight, I’m going to have to insist that we keep you under observation for forty-eight hours for your own safety, at which point, you have one of two choices.”

  Neither. Already I knew I wanted neither.

  “You can either complete a year-long program in a juvenile psychiatric facility or I can release you into the care of a parental guardian under the condition that you maintain a weekly appointment with a psychiatrist to assess and monitor your progress for the same length of time.”

  I laughed. More like a cackle really. In retrospect, it probably only furthered his belief that I was crazy.

  “Are you joking? That’s ridiculous,” I insisted, shifting in the bed and wincing as it pulled on the bandages over my legs. “I don’t belong in a psych ward. If anything, he belongs in one.” I glared at my father whose concerned eyes flashed with the wound I’d inflicted and was about to dig deeper. “He’s the one screwing a high-schooler. He’s the one screwing my best friend.”

  Searing pain hit my head as the last of my memories came rushing back.

  Without a care in the world, I threw the door open to his room and my world came crashing down.

  My best guess hadn’t even come close to reality.

  Even my worst guess would’ve never come within a hundred yards of this nightmare.

  My best guess never would’ve been that I’d walk in to find my best friend naked with her legs wrapped around my dad’s (also) naked back as he screwed her.

  The doctor peered over his shoulder with a judgmental stare but unfortunately, my father wasn’t the one with the hospital tag on his wrist, lit up with codes and colors that all scanned one thing: suicidal.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Milanovic. Those are your choices,” he replied tightly, reading down his iPad like it provided him anything other than an excuse not to look at me.

  All my best guesses… all my best intentions… all my best attempts… they evaporated like water under the sun. And all that was left was the very worst of myself: a girl who’d done everything, given everything to please someone, and still remained unseen.

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I said with a low, hollow voice, hating the words as they slid from my lips like a deathbed confession. It might be the truth, but it wasn’t going to save my life.

  “Those are your choices.”

  My eyes dragged like they held a cross as I eyed my Judas—both of them.

  I’d chosen him once six years ago, and in return, he hadn’t chosen me. He’d forgotten about me. For her.

  “I’ll take parental supervision with therapy.” My gaze never left my father who stared at me like I was an unknown. Like I was one of his science experiments he’d thought he’d left to run smoothly on its own, only to find out that it had blown up the entire lab.

  The doctor sighed in relief, glancing up at the clock like he had somewhere to be. “Now, if you—”

  “But not with him.”

  Every eye in the room locked on me like I’d just stepped into a bullfighting ring wearing a red leotard.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s my choice,” I repeated. “But I don’t want to do it here. With him.” I looked back to the doctor, vehemence and resolution dripping from my words as they soaked through my tone. “I’ll do whatever I have to do, but I’m going to do it living with my mother in Rhode Island.”

  I thought I’d made the right choice back then, but today I learned the most important lesson of being an adult: Sometimes, there are no right choices in life.

  Sometimes, bad things happen and the only thing you can do is pick between worse and worst.

  I hadn’t been trying to kill myself.

  Click. Click. Click.

  I knew how it looked. Bottle of Jack. Knife. Cuts on my wrist and legs. Spilled bottle of pills… I knew it looked really fucking bad. No wonder no one believed me.

  Click. Click. Click.

  My teeth clamped down into my tongue, drawing blood. No, I hadn’t been trying to kill myself but I was sorely tempted to stab the nerdy blonde sitting across from me in the Registrar’s office at the Rhode Island School of Design who’d been clicking her pen for the past ten minutes. Click, click, click. Like that wasn’t enough to drive a person to murder.

  I stared at the newsprint course listing in my hands, smudged over with ink from all the circles and Xs that I’d marked. I was a semester behind, so I had a lot to make up for.

  Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas.

  In the things we loathe become the things we love.

  Les Fleurs du Mal. The Flowers of Evil.

  The famous book of poetry by Charles Baudelaire had become my refuge over the past six months after my father, the man I’d admired most in the world, had shattered me. A week after that night, I’d been on a plane out of D.C., my previous plans to attend George Washington University forgotten, in order to live with my mother—the woman I’d seen only a handful of times since the divorce.

  Of course, it was a shock that I was coming up here and moving in with her. Of course, it was a shock that I submitted a late application to the Rhode Island School of Design, deciding to pursue a degree in the thing that was as far from chemistry that I could get—art.

  It was all a shock. But so was walking in on your father screwing your best friend. So, I left that girl behind—the Troian who’d wanted his attention so badly she never saw it coming—in favor of someone new, someone sadder but stronger.

  In the things we loathe become the things we love.

  Since that night, I found myself with a slight obsession—click, click, click—with the beauty of sadness since it se
emed that was all that was left of me. And Baudelaire’s poems? They managed to turn the melancholic and bitter pain of love and loss into something breathtaking.

  He wrote about the gray kind of sadness that existed inside me—like when it’s been cloudy and raining for days and it was time to accept that the sun just wasn’t going to shine again. Or perhaps that the sun never existed at all…

  Click, click, cl—

  “Miss Milanovic?” Ms. Williams’ nasally voice interrupted my thoughts and violent tendencies as she peered out of her office like a frumpy schoolmistress from the eighteenth century.

  Rage and relief washed over me. Relief that I was finally going to escape my clicker-captor and rage because my last name—something that had previously been a source of pride for me, the daughter of Dr. Milanovic, had become my Trojan horse. A gift bestowed on me by my father who snuck around in the middle of the night, in the midst of my ignorance, and razed my whole world. Funny how it had always been my first name that lent itself to that myth.

  “Yes.” I nodded as I stood. Plastering a smile on my face, my fingers dug into my gray woven bag so they wouldn’t be free to grab the pen from Miss Clicker’s fingers and throw it in the trash. I couldn’t afford any more missteps. Not for another six months.

  I walked into Ms. Williams spacious office and a wave of unease rolled over me. I hated disorder. It grated on me like nails down a chalkboard and ‘cluttered’ didn’t even begin to describe this woman’s workspace. She was a registrar who packed like a rat. Books. Papers. Sticky notes. Oh… wait… there was actually a computer on her desk. I almost missed it through all the shit she’d piled on top of it.

  “Miss Milano—”

  “Please,” I interrupted her, trying to widen my smile to make up for the sharp edge in my tone. “Call me Troy.”

  Call me anything but that name.

  Her squinty eyes narrowed even farther. “Miss… Troian,” she began again tightly, sifting through the largest stack of papers to her left. It wasn’t Troy, but it wasn’t the M-word either. “Okay. Let’s see here.” Her eyes whizzed over a few lines. “Oh… oh dear.”