Page 2 of Wanted You More

The wind whipsaway the plume of smoke I blow out the bottom of the window that I cracked open. I’m reaching for the lavender air freshener spray when I hear, “You’re not supposed to do that.”

Spraying the can around me as I lean back on the cushioned pillow seat, I give my little brother a quick once-over to see the disapproval molded across his face. Even behind his thick blue glasses with a glare in the lens and the long brown hair covering most of his forehead, I can see his furrowed brows pinched with judgment. He acts older than most fifteen-year-old boys but looks a lot younger.

“What are you going to do? Tattle?”

Wolfe frowns, walking into my room and closing the door behind him. He stays by the door awkwardly. “Dad is doing the best he can. Why isn’t that ever good enough for you?”

I take another puff of the joint before leaning forward to exhale it out the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He walks over, nose scrunching, when he locks eyes on the item between my fingers. “He asked you to stop smoking months ago. And this was Mom’s favorite room. Can’t you stop for her if you can’t for him?”

Wolfe isn’t the type of boy to do anything malicious, so I know he’s not intentionally playing unfairly. He’s closer with Dad than I am, so he wants me to stop doing the exact opposite of what our father always tells me.

Like smoking.

And drinking.

And having sex. Not that he knows I’m doing that. I’m just going to assume he wouldn’t be okay with that. What father would be?

Nose twitching, I scratch it before glancing around the room. Everything in here is white. Too white. White walls save the accent wall with a blue floral pattern on it. White bedding with fuzzy blue pillows. Hardwood floors with a white rug that Wolfe and I used to drag our feet across to create static to zap each other with. All the furniture is white with gold handles and colorful accents covering them because Mom loved pops of bright colors.

“The room will be fine,” is all I tell him, toying with the rolled joint. “It’s not like cigarette smoke that can ruin white walls. Plus, it takes a long time before it stains stuff anyway. Mom’s room won’t be tainted by me.”

This time, my little brother is silent. It doesn’t stop me from seeing the pain on his face when I do turn toward him.

Closing my eyes for a second, I reach outside and press the end of the joint against the ashtray I keep on the windowsill. Leaving it out there, I carefully close the window and spray the freshener again to get rid of the strong smell.

“Happy?” I grumble, pushing off the cushion and walking over to where my phone is plugged in on the nightstand. Next to my phone is a picture frame I can’t force myself to move, no matter how haunting the image inside it is.

Unlike Wolfe, who has Mom’s chocolate brown hair, big green eyes, and bright, toothy smile just like the one in the image immortalized by my bed, the only thing I got from her is my button nose, pointy chin, and leggy stature. My ash blond hair makes me look washed out, which isn’t hard to do because of my pale, pinkish-toned skin that never gets much color, no matter how long I’m in the sun. I get my hair, and haunted brown eyes, from my father.

Sometimes it’s hard to look at Wolfe because he’s practically Mom’s twin. Everybody around Cherry Cove has said so. I used to be a little jealous because Mom was effortlessly beautiful. She’d been in the Miss America pageant once, and even though she didn’t win, she might as well have. People still say she was cheated by coming in third place.

When I notice my brother still staring, I flop down onto my mattress and pat the empty spot beside me. He doesn’t hesitate to take the invitation. We used to do this all the time growing up. When he’d have bad dreams, I’d sneak into his room and tell him random stories about Mom until he fell asleep.

Wolfe lies beside me, staring at the ceiling just like me. We’re silent for what feels like forever before he asks, “Does it hurt?”

It.I try not moving my hand to the spot just below my right collarbone that he’s referencing. My arm hasn’t been the same since that day. The doctor I saw for it when the pain got unbearable said it was probably fibromyalgia—which was a cop-out response when they couldn’t find an actual reason for the sudden chronic pain. Nothing came up in blood work or image screenings, so they said it was a trauma response from the “traumatic event” I’d experienced.

Rolling that shoulder before settling further into the bed, I murmur, “No. Not as much as it did anyway.”

I guess it’s not a total lie. There are good days and bad, but I get why he asked. When he first caught me smoking pot, I’d told him it helped with the pain. That was the truth. Mostly. Now, I’ve just gotten used to how weed makes me feel.

Turning onto my side to face him, I use my bent arm as a pillow and rest my cheek against it while I study my brother’s profile. The acne cream I bought him is working because his skin has cleared up. He’d been complaining about his breakouts for weeks, so I’d done a ton of research and found the perfect stuff that one of our local pharmacies carried. I’d left it on his dresser with a note on instructions that the pharmacist suggested. That night, he’d knocked on my bedroom door to say thank you, and instead of me sneaking out like I normally would, we stayed in to watch cheesy horror movies.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” he mumbles, turning his head to face me and pushing his glasses up his nose.

My lips curl downward. “I’m sorry for being such a bitch all the time.”

He blinks after a second. “You’re not a bitch, Austen. You just try really hard to make people think you are.”

His words strike me deep in the chest, but like always, I don’t let him see it. Making sure my metaphorical mask is firmly in place, I flop back onto my back and say, “You should think about contacts. Those glasses hide too much of your face.”

A snort of amusement comes from him before he replies with, “Your breath stinks. Go brush your teeth.”

CHAPTER TWO

No conversation thatbegins with “So, I was thinking,” ever ends well when it comes from the mouth of Marybelle Lanette Stratus. The last time my best friend of three years uttered those exact words, we wound up in the back of a cop car wrapped in nothing but thin towels while being threatened with indecent exposure charges. Turns out, skinny dipping in the lake with two random boys who were in town for the tourist season wasn’t the best idea. They stole our clothes, money, and dignity, and bolted, never to be seen again.

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