Page 23 of Hexed
“Well, I just…I?—”
“Tuh-tuh-today, Venesa.” Aria chuckles. “Jesus, you’re so pathetic.”
Her words slam into my chest, and I physically stumble a step. “What?” I don’t even know what else to say.
I notice all the people hanging on her every word, and reality comes crashing down on me. Gone is the nice Aria from this summer, and in her place is this…she-devil.
I amnotwelcome here.
She rolls her eyes and leans forward, something dangerous glinting in her gaze. I’m not sure what’s going on or what happened; I’ve never seen this side of her before.
Stupidly, perhaps, I thought we were friends. I found comfort in knowing I had a family member who actually cared.
“Are you deaf or just dumb?” Her eyes narrow as she trails them up and down my body with a disgusted look on her face. “All that extra weight blocking your ears?”
My stomach growls right on cue, loudly. Giggles burst from the girls sitting on either side of her.
“No, I…”
Is she calling me fat?
Heat rushes to my face, my cheeks flaring what I know will be a bright crimson.
“Look at her, she’s blushing,” some girl croons from Aria’s side. “Go back and sit with that freak you walked in with, little piggy. You two are perfect for each other.”
Aria’s jaw clenches, and she shoots a dark look at her minion, but then she tilts her head to the side. “You didn’t actually think…” She tsk-tsks, gazing at me with a self-satisfied smirk. “I would never be friends with a used-up piece of trash who was so desperate to be like us she killed her momma and even her daddy couldn’t wait to get away from her.”
Grief reaches through my chest and squeezes my heart until it splinters like a fractured bone.
Someone’s standing behind me, and I run into them, my backpack flying from my shoulder and its contents spilling out on the floor.
I drop to the ground, scrambling to pick up the odds and ends, biting my tongue so hard, I taste blood.
No tears, though. My father trained those out of me years ago.
Aria scoots forward from the table, her cute aqua shoe with a purple bow on the top nudging me in the chest and making me fall over. My palms smack the linoleum floor hard, and anger ignites in the center of my chest.
“Look at you, on the floor cleaning, just like those bottom-feeders in the ocean. Get away from me, you fucking urchin, before your filth gets all over us.”
“Aria never told me she grew up with her cousin,” Enzo notes, taking a sip of wine from across the table.
His voice cuts through the memory, and my chest smarts. I reach up and rub at the ache, focusing my attention on him instead.
I’ve never seen a man exert power over Uncle T and live to tell the tale, but I guess I’ve never met a man like Enzo Marino either. I still wish I hadn’t. He puts me on edge.
We’ve made it through most of dinner, and it’s been an awkward time, filled with small talk and everyone pretending like the prodigal daughter who defied her father and ran awayhasn’tbeen gone for the past six years.
The room itself is cold, filled with monochromatic colors and a glass chandelier that looks like icy raindrops falling from the fifteen-foot ceiling. The tension that always exists between Aria and me makes it feel like hell has frozen over entirely and made its new home right here in the Kingston formal dining room.
I finish chewing my piece of lamb before replying with a mocking tone, “Now, why wouldn’t you want to talk about me with him, sweet Cousin? I’m hurt.”
“In New York, it’s easy to forget you exist,Urch,” Aria says, a chilly warning in her stare. “Don’t take it personally.”
That nickname still stings like a papercut, even after all these years.
“No worries, Aria. You alwayshavebeen a self-centered bitch, so it’s not surprising you wouldn’t want people to know about me.”
Aria’s lips pinch together until they form a tight white line.
