Page 35 of Serpentine Valentine
It almost hurt to look at her, something in my chest panging like a discordant note. It was just that she looked sofreshand soyoung, so untouched by the cruelty of the world. We were the same age, but I felt ancient standing there bearing the burden of my nightmarish memories.
“Slytherin doesn’t suit you.”
She smiled a little at the crossword. “No, I’m decidedly Ravenclaw, but I’ve always had a huge crush on Draco Malfoy.”
Of course, she did. The woman didn’t know what was good for her, but could I blame her when she’d been raised by the heartless Mina Pallas?
“Why are you here?” I asked, all the weariness I felt suffused in my words.
“I had a difficult day,” she said finally after a pregnant pause, pen poised over the newsprint. “You seem to be able to make me forget myself. Everything, really. So I thought…” She shrugged eloquently.
I wondered if it had anything to do with Jerrod. His name was on everyone’s lips today, whispers and echoes of other transgressions that had been hushed up and buried over the years by his wealthy parents. Juno had texted earlier to tell me two more girls had gone into the director of student life’s office to talk about their pasts with the varsity rower.
It made me feel giddy and reckless to know I’d done that.
Forced that monster out from under the bed into the harsh light of day. I hoped he was suspended and arrested, but I was realistic enough to know that probably wouldn’t happen.
Still, he’d bear the mark I’d put on him for the rest of his life, those whispers of rape haunting him like the memory of him haunted his victims.
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.
“My mother is the president, so it wasn’t hard. Everyone on campus knows the mansion on Charity Lane is haunted. It makes sense that you’d live here.”
“I didn’t move in for the poetry of it,” I drawled. “Rent was cheap. Typically, students don’t like to room with ghosts. Lucky for me, I’m used to them.”
Luna hummed, mouth pursed as if she wanted to question me aboutmy ghost stories but didn’t have the courage.
Silence settled between us like dust on unused furniture. Still, she didn’t look at me, but it felt welcoming instead of dismissive. Almost as if she wanted me to study her.
So I did.
I traced the lines of her features until I thought I could memorize them in my sleep. It irritated me to do so. I was supposed to be a spider casting a web for her to fly witlessly into, yet I felt bizarrely like the one ensnared in her unintentional grip.
“Word repeated four times in the last line of Shakespeare’s ‘all the world’s a stage’ speech,” she asked me the crossword clue without raising her gaze, sucking at the tip of her pen.
It led me to wonder what her lips might feel like sealed over something else. My fingertip, the shape of my nipple, the swollen glands of my clit.
“Lex?” she asked, looking at me then, her eyes so green against the green of her sweater they looked unreal.
I cleared my throat and crossed my arms and ankles, affecting an aloof pose because I felt anything but. “‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’”
Her eyes lit with admiration, and she smiled. “Which play?”
“As You Like It.”
“Jacques,” she agreed, naming the character whose monologue it was. “It’s not my favorite, but you have to admit, it’s got merit.”
“I don’t have to admit anything, but yes, I like the play.”
She was playful today, so totally unlike the shy or furious woman I thought I would be met with at our next encounter. It was disarming, which, for me, was dangerous.
She’s pretty. Grace’s voice echoed through my head.
I snorted. She was pretty like Botticelli’s Venus was pretty. The worddidn’t do either justice. She was…she was like something from a dream.
Only I’d stopped dreaming so long ago, I almost couldn’t believe she was real.
“Let me guess, you preferHamletorKing Lear, something dark and singularly unromantic.”
