Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(40)

I feel her assessing me. “A lot longer than most. A perk of working for a company owned by a feminist.” Barely pausing, she asks, “What’ve you been writing?”

I go still. In the video screen, she can see my pen but not the journal. “Just…a list of things I need to fix and work on.”

“Like…?”

“I can’t really say.” I peek at Katya again. She’s slumped forward, face in her hand. She looks upset at something.

My aunt takes the hint about the list, but she’s not finished prying. “And Luka?”

I jolt. “What?” My neck instantly heats. “What about him?”

Severity shrouds her usually sweet-natured face. “I talked to Brenden yesterday. He said you’re working with him.”

“Who’s Luka?” Devon asks from off-screen.

Her eyes flicker to him. “No one, baby.” To me, she adds, “No one, right?”

A lump lodges in my throat. “Yeah…yeah, he’s just a co-worker.” I understand her concern. Like Nikolai and Dimitri, she sees him as a youthful fling—someone I dated and got into trouble with. He’s a kid that used to make me happy. A long-ago memory.

No one worth risking a career over.

No one worth risking the dreams of other children.

He’s no one.

I open my mouth, and I ache to shake my head. To say, he’s so much more than no one. How can I explain this to my aunt? She’ll say that I’m in love with the idea. The fantasy.

Not reality.

But she’s not here. She has no idea how much I trust Luka with my body, my heart—my life.

Katya suddenly sniffles. She’s crying? I’m staring at the back of her head, so I can’t tell for certain.

“I have to go,” I say to my aunt.

With casual goodbyes, we log off, and I pop out my earbuds. Swinging my legs off the bed, I sit on the very edge. I hate that I hesitate to approach or even call out her name, but I do.

I shouldn’t tear open a friendship that we closed poorly and painfully. I should leave her alone.

Marc’s email must’ve shattered more than one fortification in my mind—because I stand up. When before, I would’ve never even chanced nearing Kat.

I set my journal on my bed and reach our desk.

She startles at my presence and quickly shields her face with her long straight hair.

A YouTube makeup tutorial plays from her laptop. I watch a vlogger showcase a compact of highlighter or blush. I can’t really discern which.

“What do you want?” she asks uneasily.

To rewind time and never have to hurt you. I examine her spread of cosmetics, which must’ve cost a ton of money. She may’ve even tapped into her savings.

“What?” she asks just as cautiously.

I pick up a tube of lipstick. “I always thought you’d stay sporty with me.” I try to smile, but it won’t form. We both believed intense makeup was a hassle. All I use: eyeliner, lipstick, and concealer, just to hide zits.

“People change.” Her tone is soft and morose.

People change. I didn’t just miss Luka’s life. I missed my friend grow older.

And it’s not like I collect a million friends either. The tiny handful that I made from the past few years have all transferred to touring shows. I’m left with my brother and Zhen.

I miss having girls around me, but really, I miss Katya.

I set the lipstick down. “You really want to wear all of this?”

Katya takes a breath. “Yes,” she combats.

My defenses don’t skyrocket. I lean against the desk. “Nikolai?” I’m guessing he’s already been on her case. “Did he tell you to return it all?”

“Yeah.” Katya slumps forward. “I thought if I’d buy the best stuff it’d make me look less like a clown, but then I figured out that, no, I just paint on makeup like a literal clown.”

I get it.

We all have to do our own costume makeup, and we can’t choose the design either. AE gives us a detailed picture of the colors, strokes, blends, shapes—all around our neck, eyes, and lips. Those Aerial Ethereal classes teaching us how to shade and shadow were my least favorite.

I was awful at first. Plus costume makeup is so much different than one coat of lipstick. It’s drastic and extreme lines that pop your features. All so the person in the very back row can see some facial detail.

Katya tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I suck at everything the first thousand times I do it, and I swear Nik would be great at cat-eyeliner on his first go-around. He’s better than average at everything.”

It’s why we never let her brothers try to win Marvin for us. They would’ve succeeded in less than half the time, and the point wasn’t just to get the stuffed dinosaur. It was to prove that we didn’t need a boy to validate what we always believed: that we had the power to do anything we wanted ourselves.

I hope she never lost that after she lost me.

I bend to the laptop and click into another makeup tutorial. “Yeah, well, we don’t need Nik.”

“We?” She’s skeptical.

I glance over my shoulder at Kat.

Thick, blocky eyeliner shrinks her usually big eyes, doing the inverse of what she probably wants. Dark-red, blunt lip-liner makes her mouth look cartoonish, and pink blush streaks her cheekbones, very over-drawn like stage makeup.