Page 27 of Endless Anger
Clenching my jaw, I release her and move backward.She didn’t hear me.“I said you need practice.”
Lucy’s wonder fades immediately, like a bucket of cold water splashing on us. “Well, that’s fucking rude.”
“You’re drunk,” I offer, searching for some explanation that’ll fix this. Put things back the way they were. I know she didn’t mean for this to happen. She wouldn’t have kissedmeif she hadn’t been drinking. “It’s fine. I’m sure the next guy you kiss will be under different circumstances.”
“I’m notthatdrunk, Asher. And that was a good kiss.”
Fuck. I don’t know what to do. Or say. Instinct has me locking up, pushing her out. My lips move before I’m ready. “You’re lying.”
Her mouth falls open. “What the fuck is yourproblem?—”
“Youare my problem, Lucy. Always have been.”
It’s mean. Too mean.
It’s not even what I want to say.
But at the end of the day, I’m a coward. My anger bleeds too heavily into every other emotion, and I’m afraid it’ll stain her too.
Fear and anger are driving forces that seek the same thing: complete destruction.
I just let them fuck everything up.
We stare at each other for several beats. Maybe even minutes.
My heart pounds in my throat, closing the airway as silence stretches thin between us. It feels like a million miles separate the distance, though we could probably close it in just a few steps.
Deep down, I yearn to erase the space. Indefinitely.
But I don’t.
Instead, I get up. Brush the dirt from my pants while she continues sitting there, watching me with a stunned expression haunting her face.
And I leave.
“You’re home early,”Mom says when I burst through the front door a half hour later.
She’s sitting in the living room, drinking lavender tea with her younger sister, Ariana, and Ariana’s husband, Cash. Dad’s off to the side, talking quietly on his phone, and I wonder if it’s Foxe’s dad calling to let him know I left the party already.
They lounge on our dark furniture while the television mounted above the gray stone fireplace plays some silent trivia show. The glow of the screen dances on the far dark green wall, and I focus on that while I try to regulate my breathing.
Cash adjusts his glasses, crossing a leg as he takes me in. One of his dark blond brows arches, but he doesn’t say anything.
I’m sure I look like a wild animal, so I appreciate that his judgment is unspoken.
His wife’s, however, is not.
“Jeez, what the hell happened to you?” Aunt Ariana asks, leaning over the arm of the sofa to peer closer at me. “You look like you got dragged three miles through the mud and then took a dip in the ocean to rinse off.”
Glancing down, I note that my clothes and hair are drenched in sweat. I hadn’t even realized it until this moment.
I don’t know when it happened. Maybe when I sprinted across town to get here? Or when I ditched Lucy in the clearing?
Concern wrinkles Mom’s forehead as she gets a better look at me. “Good God, Asher, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I bite out. “I just walked here from Foxe’s.”
“It’s unlike you to come home without Foxe or Lucy in tow,” Mom notes, gripping her mug with both hands. She gives me one last lingering glance before taking a sip. “Was the party okay?”
