Page 16 of Endless Anger
“What?”
Scoffing, she reaches for the piercing clamp on the counter and shakes her head, clutching my chin again as she positions the metal prongs over my nostril. “Forget it. Just hold still so I can do this.”
“But I want to know?—”
She slides the needle in so quickly, I barely even register the bite of pain before she pulls it back out, quickly filling the hole with a small sapphire stud.
My skin vibrates a little at the foreign sensation tickling the inside of my nose.
“There,” she says in a monotone voice. “The deed is done. You now have a hole in your face, just like my mom.”
Foxe whistles. “Your mom issmokin’, so by default, this is too.”
“Gross,” Aurora complains. “He’s your cousin, weirdo.”
“I can’t appreciate an attractive person if they’re related to me?” He huffs, leaning back against the poster-covered wall. “I mean, we’re all practically related. Our parents are closer than most cults.”
“Not sure that’s a great comparison,” I note.
He rolls his hazel eyes. “Back me up here, Lulu. You think Asher’s attractive, right?”
My pulse mobilizes, ratcheting to extreme levels in my chest.
I don’t want her to answer.
No. Not true. I just don’tknowwhy I want her to answer.
Or at least I don’t want toadmitthat I do.
Still, every atom of my being strains to hear the slightest shift inLucy’s breathing or to see the blush staining her face darken. She turns away from me, cleaning up the tools she purchased specifically to pierce my nose.
No eye contact is made. It’s almost as if I’m no longer here to her.
And she doesn’t answer at all.
“Boring,” Foxe says, staggering to his feet. He glances around the room at her desk and bookshelves cluttered with pet paraphernalia—dog tags, collars, leashes she and her younger sister, Logan, have crafted into key chains—and a raw mineral collection, finally finding his T-shirt on top of a pile of discarded clothing.
Bugs in resin line Lucy’s white dresser, next to a bottle of perfume and a picture from the day she buried her first dog.
It’s the three of them on the beach behind my house, plus her brother Lachlan. I’m nowhere to be seen, though Foxe’s nose is swollen and packed with cotton, so my legacy is unmistakable.
Still, I can’t help noticing it’s the only picture in Lucy’s room, aside from a few of her immediate family and the many animals the Wolfes have fostered over the years.
Almost like I don’t exist at all.
I’d expected there to be a disconnect once I graduated, because Lucy is the kind of person to withdraw when she feels too much, but I hadn’t planned on the erasure happening before then.
“We should head home,” Foxe tells me, tugging his shirt on over his head. He smirks at the piercing as he gets closer, nodding once. “Yup, just as I suspected. Hot like Aunt Cora.”
“If you want to bang Lucy’s mom, you should just say that,” Aurora grumbles from the bed. She’s fuming, even as she pulls up a random compilation video on her phone.
“Everyone in Aplana wants to bang Lucy’s mom.” Foxe shrugs, slinging his arm over my shoulder and dragging me from the bathroom. “Except Asher, who doesn’t want to bang anyone, ever. Right?”
I stare at him, resisting the urge to look at the raven-haired girl to his right.
“My dad would hunt you down if you even looked at her for too long,” Lucy says finally, washing her hands in the sink. “So I wouldn’t suggest trying anything.”
There’s a hint of wistfulness in her tone, a reverence she keeps in place for the few people she admires.
