Page 3 of Endless Anger
“He’s inside with his mother,” Dad says.
I glare at him. “Don’t tell her that. She just wants to give him googly eyes all day long.”
Dad chuckles. “What’s so wrong with that?”
“It’sgross.”
“Ah. Sounds like you’re projecting.”
Aurora calls out again to me, not having moved from her spot beside Lucy and Lachlan. “Asher, come back! We’re gonna spread the ashes in the water!”
I glance over at them, ather, but don’t respond. She’s looking at her brother now, laughing at something he says, all sunshine and happiness. Her fingers cling to that box though, the only sign that she’s still giving the dead dog her silent attention.
How do you compete with that?
If I go over there now, I’ll be playing second fiddle to something that isn’t even alive.
Dad seems to read my mind. “Doesn’t have to be a competition, you know. There’s enough of that girl to go around.”
My nostrils flare.Yeah, that’s the problem.She’s already spread thin, and I don’t want to be anotherthingshe has to balance her focus on.
Especially since she’s really bad at it, anyway.
Shooting my father a look, I step away from him. “You are way more annoying than Mom.”
“Oh, I’m devastated. Wait until I tell her about thegooglyeyes you have for her best friend’s daughter.”
Cutting my gaze to his, I watch for a moment as Dad’s facial expression softens slightly as if in understanding.
Or because he was baiting me, the jerk.
Dad clamps his hand down on my head again. “Come on.” He nudges me forward, nodding toward the house with his chin. “Let’s get you cleaned up before your mother comes back and assumes I’ve let all hell break loose.”
Keats,my short-haired calico kitten, curls up at the foot of my bed later that night. He kneads at the blankets, pulling them away from me, and I shift my focus from the thirty-second volume ofBerserkin my lap to him.
A sliver of darkness peeks in through the partially open bedroom door; I’m usually the last awake at night, unable to ever fully feel at ease in this big, creepy mansion. Despite Mom’s best efforts to make the fancy, overly furnished former hotel into something family-friendly, there’s always been somethingoffabout the place.
Or maybe it’s the inhabitants who are off.
I grip the book and Keats’s nape when the door begins to slowly creak, and the darkness is swallowed by the lamplight. I’m expecting Mom, who likes to check in before she goes to sleep, or Noelle, who insists on sneaking out to visit her endless parade of boyfriends, even though our parents let her see them any other time.
She says she enjoys the rush, but maybe I don’t get it because I’ve never been attracted to anyone before, so there’s no thrill to be had there. Or maybe it’s because my room is always the one being snuck into, rather than me trying to leave.
Lucy Wolfe’s thin frame slips from the shadows. Her hair is still in those two braids, pieces of her bangs sweeping into the corners of her eyes. The bright blue of her irises is undercut by the red rimming her lids, and I ignore the way my heart seems to pound extra hard inside my chest.
Get a grip, loser. She’s your best friend.
I’ve known her our entire lives, and I think that’s part of the problem. Maybe you can know a person too well, and your relationship starts to break apart in the midst of familiarity.
That’s how I reason away my reaction to her, at least.
She’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a black zip-up hoodie over a red tank top. Wolf slippers cover her feet, and I wonder if she came all the way from her house across the island in them.
I bet she did. They’re her favorite. Really anything to do with canines or their ancestral relatives interests her.
Walking over, she reaches a hand out, stroking the top of Keats’s head. He immediately starts purring, and the hint of a smile pulls at her mouth.
That smile feels like the eighth wonder of the world.
