I just had with enjoying her anger, dissipates without a trace.
“What do you know about who’s related to me?”
I don’t mean to be so harsh, but the topic of Aiden has always been sensitive for me. At school, no one knows that Liam and I have an older brother, and the few people in this town that do, I don’t know, they just never mention him.
I prefer it that way. He’s none of anyone’s business but mine.
“Hmm, I didn’t know before, but you just confirmed it.” She smiles, shaking her head.
“Don’t toy with fire, it’ll burn you.” I warn, though in the back of my mind I somehow suspect she’s the one who’s going to burn me to hell and back.
“Oh honey, I was conceived in flames,” she counters, but it lacks conviction, tasting instead, of that sadness creeping back into her eyes.
“Did you get that line from a fairytale story, too?” I question, keeping my voice low.
She sighs heavily, glancing down the hall at another hospital door. “It’s what my mother used to say.”
I don’t miss the way she uses past tense, or the way her tiny frame trembles. It’s her mother in that hospital room.
When I don’t have anything to say, she resumes picking up the next two chairs, her shoulders still tense with the weight of problems we would both rather not talk about, filtering in like storm clouds over us.
I notice the way she carries herself, to the way she moves; so graceful, so delicate, so secretly vulnerable, like she doesn’t want the world to know—let alone me—that she’s in pain. She has to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. You’d never guess that she has a sharp tongue in her arsenal. Lethal and cutting deeper than a double-edged sword.
But when you look closer, beyond the well dressed, flashy, sassy exterior, you’ll see her.
“What’s your name?” I know she’s not going to tell me. This girl has defiance in her very core. She huffs, shaking her head.
“That’s none of your business now, is it?” she mocks, enjoying her upper hand.
“It’s just a name.” I tilt my head to the left, pressing my bleeding knuckles to the side of my leg so she doesn’t see the blood.
“Will you tell me the name of the person you’re here for, first?” She looks at my hand that I’m trying to hide and smirks. The little minx knows I’m in pain.
“No.” Aiden’s identity is definitely out of the question.
“Well then, no.”
She turns around, a wicked glint in her eyes. It’s better than the emptiness that’s threatening to take her under, like it’s done to me.
“Is it possible that you don’t want to tell me your name because it’s something stupid, like a color or maybe you’re named after some spring flower.”
“Some spring flower?” She smiles coyly, eyeing me.
“Yup, like Daffodil.” I try my hardest not to laugh at the horror on her face. “I mean, your high school life is about to be fucked if that’s your name. They’ll be calling you Dumb Daffy.”
She stops, places her hands on her hips, her button of a nose scrunched up in a condescending frown.
“Seriously? Dumb Daffy?” she mocks. “That’s all you can come up with?”
“I can keep going if you’d like,” I offer, feeling a lightness in my chest I haven’t felt in a while. “Though I suspect it’ll hurt your little feelings.”
Her eyes flash with anger and something else I can’t place. Leaning in, I stare at her, but she blinks, and it’s gone in the next second.
She grabs the last chair, taking her time to respond when I’m all but hanging on her next words. Turning around, she pretends to be calm when I know she’s close to smacking the lights out of me, but instead, like a master of resting bitch face with a touch of faux southern sweetness, she smiles but it doesn’t reach her wide eyes.
I wonder what her real smile would look like if the fake one makes her one hell of a sexy bitch.
“You know what I think of you?” she starts, eyeing me.
“That I’m rude?” I shrug. “Yeah, you mentioned that one already. Are you running out of material?”
“You’re not just rude, you lack a personality.” I’ll take that, only because Liam says the same thing.
“Sure, and you need to mind your damn business,” I counter.
“Nope, that’s not it.”
“Oh, more material.” I wave at the floor dramatically. “Please, do go on Daffy.”
“I think you’re a mental case. I heard they’re looking for