Page 22 of Endless Anger
“And for the record,” she tells me, pausing in the doorway with Dad glued to her side, “wherever you go, you’re gonna do great. So don’t let anyone else’s opinion sway you, and pick whatever’s in your heart.”
They leave, and I spend a few extra minutes sitting there, swinging my legs back and forth.
Would it be the end of the world if I didn’t wind up at Avernia College? I doubt it’d matter at all in the grand scheme of things, and I know I could get in elsewhere. Probably.
I just…don’t want to.
For years, I’ve had my eyes set on this one place. Any time I looked anywhere else, I’d be drawn right back to those hallowed halls, and since I’ve spent a lot of my life resigned to the fact that I can’t have everything I want, this is something attainable.
Something I can do that might actually have an impact on the world around me. Maybe if I can get away, burying myself somewhere no one knows my name or my history, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.
It’s stupid to hang on to such a surface-level dream, but at themoment, it’s all I really have. With everything else changing so quickly, this feels like the one thing I have any semblance of control over, and I want it.
Ineedit.
Exhaling, I eventually get up from the bed and make my way downstairs again, taking the tray of seed starters Mom shoves into my arms.
Avernia will be different, I tell myself.
The way Aplana never was.
All I have to do is make myself believe it.
6
ASHER
EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
I should probably takethe bottle of vodka away from Foxe right now. I’m not sure how many drinks he’s had, but as we make our way through the massive sunflower field behind his house, he keeps tripping over himself.
Once we get to the big clearing in the middle of the field, a few of the kids Foxe and Aurora invited from school start setting up plastic chairs and picnic blankets, and two guys whose pale biceps are almost fluorescent in the moonlight get to work on a bonfire.
We’ve been using this place for small get-togethers since middle school, though back then, there were fewer of us. That was how I liked it.
Now, I’m forced to babysit my overindulging cousin while he pauses to puke off to the side somewhere and watch as some pricks I don’t recognize make Lucy blush.
I hate that I can tell the moment her cheeks pinken.
She’s buzzed, presumably; normally at these things, she hides in the corner until she’s had enough to drink or smoke to become somewhat sociable. Even then, her niceties are short-lived and generally devolve into rants about social injustices by the end of the night.
“How much do you want to bet she winds up making out with one of them tonight?” Foxe asks, nudging my shoulder with his.
“I don’t thinkyoushould be gambling.”
His mouth falls open. “I’ll have you know the five big ones I lost last weekend at the track were only because I had too much to drink, and I filled out the wrong slot. Otherwise, my odds were great.”
My gaze drops to the glass bottle in his hand.
He rolls his eyes and ditches me for the blond coordinating the lantern setup on the outer edge of the gathering.
Speculating on who Lucy might gift with her attention—or more—isn’t a game I want to play, anyway.
Maybe these guys are interested in hearing her talking points. I know I’d listen to her for eternity. But somehow, their interest feels more nefarious.
Perhaps it’s the way their stares occasionally drag down the length of her slender form, clad in a short red plaid skirt and a T-shirt layered over a long-sleeved shirt. Her legs are on display, wrapped partway in tall black boots. She’d tempt a saint with those pale thighs, and there are none of those on the island.
Least of all me as I fantasize about murdering the two students before her.
