Page 86 of Perfect
“Are you ready to go? I’ve got dinner waiting at home.” Alex shoots me a cold look over her shoulder.
“Sure,” she says tightly, and I can tell she’s not pleased with me. “I’ll see you guys next week,” she says to her friends before she turns away and lets me lead her back towards my place. I don’t touch her, but I walk close to her, hearing her phone ping a few times as we walk in tense silence for a block.
“Did your mom actually read youAnna Kareninaas a kid?” Her demeanor softens, and she smiles a little wistfully and nods.
“Yeah, she did. Went right over my head, but I dreamed of wheat fields for a while.” I look down at her and smile, wondering what she was like as a little kid. “She also read me kids’ books, like a normal mom. My favorite wasAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland.I made her read it to me a hundred times, easily. It was her favorite as a kid, too. It’s why she na-” Alex fakes a cough, and I try to hide my smile.
She basically just told me why her mom named her Alice.
“She painted a ton of the art from the books on my bedroom walls when I was born,” Alex continues, and a sharp thrill shoots through me as I realize this is her trying to be more open. “It stayed like that until Danny -” She forcibly coughs again. “Anyway, it got painted over at one point,” she says, getting somber.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. I cried about it for a year,” she says with a humorless little laugh. I’m going to kill him.
“Why don’t you tell me stuff like this more often?”
She shrugs. “It’s personal.”
“I’d like to hear more of your personal stuff.”
Alex scoffs and crosses her arms. “You don’t tellmeanything,” she mutters.
I run my hands back through my hair, sighing. “Sweetheart, I said I was sorry.”
She levels me with a skeptical glare and snorts out a laugh. “Yeah,right. I don’t believe you would have told me in the first place.”
“I was going to, I just…I wanted it to be on my terms.”
“Everythingis on your terms,” she snaps. “You get to control my life and come over whenever you want and fuck me and playhouse, and I just have to take it.” God, I hate how she views our relationship.
“Alex -”
“I don’t know why I thought I could actually talk to you,” she interrupts. “You know what? We’ll just fuck. That’s all you care about anyway.” She storms off ahead of me, turning down the dead-end street leading to my house, and I stare after her, frustrated and confused.
How did that go so poorly so quickly?
I scrub my hands over my face and let out a long sigh. Shewantsto talk to me. She’s mad that Ididn’ttalk to her. She wants more from me, just like I want more from her. That’s a good sign. I can do that. I follow her slowly, letting her burn off some of her anger, and find her waiting impatiently on the porch.
“I was going to apologize, so should I blow you here or wait until we get inside?” I grit my teeth and ignore her snide comment, bracing myself to be open the way she wants from me.
“Um, Melissa didn’t read to me that much, but someone gave her the firstHarry Potterbook one year when I was little, and that was really nice for about two weeks.” I unlock the door and open it, glancing back at Alex. Her anger deflates instantly, and she gives me a pitying look that I fuckinghate.
Ashley used to give me that look, which is why I never talked to her about anything.
“I thought you said she was a good mom?” Alex’s voice is gentle in a way that puts me on edge.
“I said she was my best friend,nota good mom. Are you coming inside or not?” She nods and walks in, glancing up at me as she slips her shoes off.
“What about your grandma? Was she a good mom?” I nod, staring at my feet as I unlace my boots.
“I mean, yeah, definitely. She was sweet and tough and sharp as hell. I was a handful, and she was super fucking strict, but she loved me a lot.”
“How were you a handful?” I give her a sly look as I kick off my boots.
“I was emotional and had impulse control issues as a kid, so I did alotof stupid shit. I got into fights, I set fire to an abandoned barn, I ditched school to get drunk at the beach, I crashed my first car into a tree, shit like that. Oh, and I got caught fucking Carrie Osman in the bathroom my freshman year during third period. Twice.”
She lets out a soft laugh. “Thatone sounds like you,” she says, her voice almost teasing. I can’t tell if she’s making fun of me, but her mood seems better, and I decide to use it as an opening.
