Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(39)

Evidence: I can see myself in that little rectangle in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. My back is achingly straight tonight.

Staring at myself a little more, I know I’m a mixture of my mom and dad. My warm, medium-brown skin is a product of my dad’s fair and my mom’s dark brown. I have my mom’s flat chest, full lips, and her rich brown eyes. From my dad, I have his tiny dimples and long neck. My parents aren’t here, but every time I look in the mirror, small things remind me of them.

“No more online dating then?” Aunt Lucy asks. “You could always sit at a bar and wait for Mr. Right to buy you a drink.” She smiles into her sip of hot chocolate. She always says that she has an abnormal craving for marshmallows, and not just because she’s four-months pregnant.

Online dating. I sucked at it.

I gave up when I learned it’s all about numbers. The more people you meet for a first date, the more likely you’ll find a perfect match. But I don’t have that much time for a numbers game, and I’m not lucky enough to be an exception.

I twirl my pen. “If I sat at a bar, chances are, my Mr. Right would be buying a drink for the girl on the other side of me.” I hesitate to say more because I’m not alone. I share a suite with Nikolai, Thora, and Katya, but a bedroom and bunk bed solely with Katya, Luka’s sixteen-year-old sister.

I glance to the left.

At our wooden desk, Katya has her nose practically pressed to her own laptop. Cosmetics are spread out beside a tiny mirror. I think she’s watching makeup tutorials. I don’t ask. I’ve been trying to give Katya space.

I eye our cramped room, something that I’m sure resembles a dorm. Katya already decorated the walls with Aerial Ethereal posters, and her feather boas and knock-off purses are draped over the posts of our bunk bed.

We haven’t really spoken at all. Long, long ago, I used to be friends with Katya. To be in Luk’s life means to be in Timo and Kat’s—it’s just how it is. Whenever we went to Coney Island, we used to ditch the guys and play carnival games together.

We had one goal: to win a green stuffed dinosaur that we named Marvin. We won him a year later, and we joked about having joint custody. He stayed with me four days out of the week. Katya for three.

Then I got into trouble with Luka, signed the contracts, and abruptly stopped speaking to or even seeing him. Not long after, Katya confronted me by the gym’s water fountain. I was just fourteen.

She was twelve, and she tried sucking down her tears. Physically sniffing until they submerged. “Why did you two have to do that?” Her voice nearly split. “You really couldn’t stay away from drugs?”

I shrugged, too distraught to speak.

Katya frowned. “Luka said that you’re not friends anymore.”

I nodded.

“This isn’t fair.” She nearly burst into tears. “You’re my first friend that’s a girl. We’re…we’re friends, and you…” She took a breath. “You have to make up with him.”

“I can’t,” I said softly.

“Why not?” Her features cracked.

“I just can’t.”

“Not even for me?” Katya bit her bottom lip.

I knew I couldn’t stay friends with Katya. She was so attached to Luka. They’re inseparable. It was like asking Luka to be friends with my brother and avoid me—it’d never work.

I ripped off a Band-Aid by blurting out, “I can’t be friends with you either. Your whole family is a bad influence…” I couldn’t finish. Tears leaked out of her eyes, and I broke my heart and hers.

Later that day, I found our stuffed dinosaur at my door with a note that said, you can have Marvin. I’m a bad influence anyway.

I couldn’t even bear to look at that dinosaur, but I also couldn’t bear to throw him away. I crammed Marvin in a cardboard box, and he’s now collecting dust in our shared closet.

I try to let our last interaction from the past drift away, and my aunt’s voice draws my attention to the computer.

“What happened to ‘putting yourself out there’ and not being pessimistic about love?” she asks.

I clutch my journal tight and think, that’s exactly what I’m about to do. “Is that how you met Devon?” I wonder. “You just sat at a bar and waited for him?” It seems like a one-in-a-million likelihood.

“Yes,” my aunt says into a growing grin, an awful liar.

“You’re terrible.”

“She is.” Devon pops his head into the frame, his smile brighter than hers. He’s tall, black, a New York attorney, and Lucy’s doting husband of three years. “We met in the line of Superheroes & Scones, and she approached me.”

“Get out of here.” Laughing, she elbows him out of the frame. “And I only talked to you first because I wanted to know why a man your age was holding three Storm plushies.”

“For my nieces!” I hear him off-screen.

Aunt Lucy rolls her eyes but sets them back on me. “You’re deflecting again.”

“I’m not,” I say seriously. “I like hearing about you.” More than I like talking about myself. And I’d rather not stress my aunt out with my life. She’s pregnant. Unloading any kind of grief onto her shoulders won’t do any good. “How long will you get for maternity leave?”