Dangerous Creatures(49)
Blah, blah, blah.
The conversation faded into a strange collage of images Ridley couldn’t—and to be fair, didn’t really want to—process.
Red cups and college sweatshirts and late-night pizza and dorm restrooms. Football games. The dining hall. The Creation of Adam and Guernica and Hopper’s Nighthawks and the life of Buddha.
Did she really say public restrooms? With the kind of showers that you have to wear shoes in?
The conversation ended when Lena had to go to something called a study group to talk about things called handouts—or something like that.
What could Ridley say?
There was no way to explain the jam she’d gotten herself into, or the mood she was in.
How could someone as Light as Lena understand cheating at a card game and losing a marker, let alone two? How could Lena believe that someone was controlling Link and his stupid band, and using them for their own secret agenda? Worst of all, how could her cousin hear or solve or even understand the one problem that loomed over all the others?
Him and his stupid club. His threats and his lies.
Ridley herself could hardly stand to even think his name.
The phone crackled. “Are you listening, Rid?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m here. I’m just tired.”
“I’m worried about you. Every time I think of you lately, my ring turns bloodred. Like fire. Sometimes it even burns my finger.”
Red? Ridley’s ring always turned green.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Ridley glanced down. Now Lucille Ball was sitting at her feet, looking at her with enormous cat eyes, as if to say Red? Really?
Lucille Ball was not pleased.
“I asked Ethan, and he said Link never has time to talk,” Lena said.
“Well, you know. Rock stars.”
Lucille thumped her tail. Tell her.
“You’d tell me if something was going on, right?”
Lucille thumped her tail again. Tell your cousin.
Ridley ignored the cat. “Of course.”
“Anything the least bit out of the ordinary?” Lena asked.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Honestly, I’ve never been happier. Or more ordinary.”
Lucille howled, stalking out of the room.
By the time Ridley hung up the phone, she’d told so many lies she could barely remember her own name. She knew that her life in New York was nothing close to regular, and more importantly, nothing close to a success. She had lied on the phone to her cousin, and she had been lying to herself. She was not cut out for this. It wasn’t who she was.
Link was right. She didn’t belong here. Maybe the two of them really were through.
Maybe this week’s breakup was for real.
She couldn’t ask him, though, because he was avoiding her, spending all his time with Floyd in the practice room.
By the time she went to bed, she felt like crying. By the time she fell asleep, she was. Even in her dreams.
“I told you not to wear that old thing. You look like a hair ball some cat vomited up.”
Ridley pulled on her cousin’s sleeve, twisting the knit sweater out of shape. She knew she was being mean. She even felt mean, but she didn’t care.
Her cousin might as well be walking around with a big old target on her forehead.
“Shut up, Rid.” Lena looked like she wanted to shrink back into her locker.
“That sweater says Kick Me.” Ridley pinched her harder.
Lena was standing by the lockers, because Lena was always standing by the lockers. It was as far as she’d venture into the open waters of middle school.
Ridley had no problem venturing anywhere, on the other hand. It was just the trouble that ventured with her wherever she went that was the problem.
“Did you even do your geography homework?” Lena asked with a sigh.
“Why do you care?” Ridley sighed back, one hand on her hip. She was wearing her favorite outfit: a kilt she’d cut off short with her Gramma’s scissors, a T-shirt with the neck ripped out, and a pair of old black boots she’d found in someone else’s locker, two schools ago.
Her first heels. They made her feel good. Tall, like she could look down on everyone in the whole world, the way she liked it.
Lena handed her a piece of paper covered in pencil scribbles. “Here.”
“Aww, you doing my homework now, just in case?”
“Someone has to.”
Ridley held up her hands, refusing to take the paper. “Has it ever occurred to you, L, that what happens at this miserable little Mortal school doesn’t matter?”
“Stop.” Lena was embarrassed.
“None of these stupid little brats—” Ridley raised her voice even louder.
“They’re not brats. Not all of them.” Lena looked around uncomfortably.
“Or their stupid teachers.”
“I like my teachers.”
“Or their stupid history. Their stupid laws. Their stupid sciences.”
“Rid.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not for us Casters. Not where we’re going. Not with the kind of life we’re gonna have.”
“It matters to me.”
Ridley slammed her cousin’s locker shut. Lena could just make her so mad sometimes. She was a punching bag for Mortals. She had begged to go to Mortal school—she tried so hard to please them, all the time. And she was just so bad at it.
Margaret Stohl Kami's Books
- Hell Followed with Us
- The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School
- Loveless (Osemanverse #10)
- I Fell in Love with Hope
- Perfectos mentirosos (Perfectos mentirosos #1)
- The Hollow Crown (Kingfountain #4)
- The Silent Shield (Kingfountain #5)
- Fallen Academy: Year Two (Fallen Academy #2)
- The Forsaken Throne (Kingfountain #6)
- Empire High Betrayal