Page 38 of Underground Prince

“Yeah? You ready to chat?”

I opened her bedroom door wider.

Verily’s hair was triple ombré, going from red to black to blue at the tips. She never needed salon treatment. Verily had been doing this for so long, since freshman year of high school, that she’d become a DIY pro.

She said, “I made coffee. You wanna grab some of that first?”

“I want that,” I said.

“I’m aware. You’re a mutant before caffeine.” She pointed around her doorway and to the kitchen. “So go drink it.”

“No, that.” Now it was my turn to point, and she batted away my hand from her hair.

“What?” Her brows furrowed at my caveman communication. “You want my hair?”

I smiled.

A mix of confusion, apprehension, and downright eagerness dawned. “Really? But you…”

“I’m tired of this.” I pulled at a hank of my hair. “It’s nothing. Like those hairs you pull off when you’re husking corn. Long and dry and brittle and—boring.”

“Scar,” she said. “Your life is anything but dull. You’ve moved back to New York City, and you’re actually smiling again, and you’ve only just entered a secret society—”

“Looking too much like a cherry, apparently.”

“This is a little too fast. Don’t you think?” She set down her dryer and picked up a brush. “Too much?”

“Never,” I said in a rush. “Last night was…Theo made me feel…”

She dropped the brush.

Oops. In my blistering round of thoughts where I wanted a big change right now, I hadn’t monitored myself.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said.

“I’m stuck in a rut,” I went on, as if I hadn’t blundered. “He thinks he’s pigeonholed me, like he knows exactly what I’m going to do and when. I’m not predictable.”

“No one thinks of you as routine, believe me.” She shook her head. “I sure don’t.”

I sucked in a breath, deciding to lay out what I’d been thinking since Theo kicked me out last night. “I want him to fuck off.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Verily said, resuming combing her newly dyed locks. “But I’m not going to do this for him. I’ve been trying to tell you—I don’t want you to have anything to do with that guy. So if this is a game to you or something, where all you can think of is besting Sax or—”

“No, it’s for me. I want this.” My voice crumpled, but I forced it to even out. “It’s not enough.”

Verily took a few moments to think, before her words escaped her. “Changing your hair isn’t going to alter the past.”

“I know that.”

“Your memories aren’t going anywhere, no matter what you do.”

“I know that.”

“Scar, I feel like you’re self-destructing. In some way. And there’s nothing I can do.”

It was becoming harder to keep my expression serene. Crevices were digging in, cracks begging to tear open further. “Just do this for me. Please.”

“Maybe this is too much,” Verily said, but it was more to herself. “Bringing you in, it was selfish of me.”

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