Page 77 of Hexed
“You prick.” She huffs, twisting different parts of her outfit and squeezing out the water.
I lean back and rest on my elbows, watching her.
She plops down next to me and lets out a sigh, peeking over at me with a grin and nudging my shoulder with hers.
This feels nice, this…friendlything, and I think maybe we can do it. I just have to ignore the way she makes my body light up, the same way I ignore every other problem in my life I can’t correct.
The sun drops completely beneath the horizon, and we sit in silence and watch the moon wake up, rising to take its place, thousands of stars dotting the inky sky.
“When I was little, before my momma died, I used to be so jealous of the other kids I went to school with,” she says after a while. “When we were sitting in a classroom together, it was easy to pretend we were the same, you know? But as soon as we’d pile on the bus, it was harder to fake it. They were all friends, making spitballs and passing notes. And I was just…me.”
“You didn’t have friends?”
“Not really. I got invited to birthday parties sometimes, but my momma never really cared enough to take me, so why waste the paper? The invitations stopped showing up.”
“That’s fucked up,” I say.
She picks up a small shell from the sand beside her, running her thumb over the ridges. “Yeah. Itisfucked up, isn’t it? She was usually too busy working or trying to keep my dad happy to care much about making sure I had an actual childhood worth remembering, though.”
I don’t really know what to say or if she evenwantsme to say anything, so I just sit still and listen.
This is what I wanted anyway.
To know her. And it feels like she’s giving me a piece of her soul as she talks. It’s selfish because I’m not giving much back, but like the greedy man I am, I take it anyway.
She sighs, throwing the shell toward the water. “I just…I get it. Why you watched that family, I mean.”
Pressure builds in my throat, and I swallow around the ache. “I’m sorry you get it.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Don’t be.”
Two people, older than both of us, walk by hand in hand, and I wait until they’ve passed us to reply. “It wasn’t that I never got to be a kid. It’s just…that boy earlier? He was sohappy. So fuckingfree. I have no concept of what that feels like. All I can remember is how badly I wanted my pops’s approval. How I wanted to be just like him. How I spent my formative years trying to act so grown, and then by the time I was and I realized what I had missed out on…it was too late. And this life, it’s…” I shake my head, bending my legs and propping my elbows on my knees. “I love my life. I won’t sit here and pretend I don’t. But my ma didn’t cope, started popping pills and chasing them down with vodka when I was fifteen, and the love of her life mistreated her.” My chest throbs from the giant hole that’s pulsing in the center: the space where my mother’s love used to sit. “Your view on the world changes when you have to parent your parents.”
She nods. “My dad was an alcoholic.”
Relief washes over me that she’s bringing it up, and maybe that makes me an asshole, but I just said the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever said to anyone, and she isn’t judging me because she gets it, just like I thought she would. “That why you don’t drink?”
She gives me a look. “Who says I don’t?”
I shrug. “I’m observant.”
Venesa nods. “He loved his aquavit, but it’s hard to find in South Carolina, so he’d usually just pour anything he could get his hands on down his throat. His true love, though, was gambling. He’d go on benders and disappear for days at a time, and when he’d come home, broke and hungover, he’d never take the blame himself.”
She scoffs and shakes her head, disgust clear on her face.
“Who’d he blame?” I ask, although I fear I already know the answer.
“Momma, usually. Sometimes me.”
“Did he hurt you?” I try to keep my voice steady, but the thought of her being touched, of her beinginjured, makes fury pour through my body like lava.
She glances at me, and her hands twitch, her thumb moving to touch the nail of her ring finger as she fidgets. “Depends on your definition of the word, I guess.”
“Aria said he killed your mom.”
I hold my breath, waiting to see her reaction becausefuck, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
She nods and stares up at the black sky and dark waters. “And got away with it. Can you believe thatbullshit? Nobody even looked for him. No one seemed to care.”
