Which is why I’m hoping her sister’s presence at auditions might cool her off a bit.
“That was kind of her,” I offer.
“Noelle is kind,” Quincy says. “Her temper sometimes obscures it, but she’s kind, talented, and smart. Resilient to an absolute fault. I used to get so annoyed with her when we were younger because she told our parentseverything, and I locked my secrets up in a vault like I was afraid they’d be used against me.” She lets out a small laugh, shaking her head. “Which was ridiculous, because our parents aren’t the type. They always trusted us, and Noelle trusted them.”
I cross my arms over my chest, listening.
“When I came to Avernia… I was lacking something within, you know? It felt like something fundamental was missing, and I would look at Asher, who marched to the beat of his own drum with his drawings and obsession with his best friend, and I’d look at Noelle, wholovedperforming and being around people, and I’d feel defective somehow, because I preferred being alone. I didn’t like to talk, didn’t go out much… It felt like I didn’t know who I was, so I thought maybe looking into my family history would fix that.”
“It didn’t?”
“No, it did. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Noelle’s face when I left, like I was abandoning her. She’d been like a shadow to me, always wanting to go where I went with friends, borrowing my clothes even when they weren’t her style, begging me to go to rehearsals or run lines with her. And when I left, she seemed sohorrified, I almost didn’t go at all. She had no filter, and I was witnessing my first best friend’s heartbreak in real time. I didn’t know what to do with it though. I’m not great at dealing with others’ emotions.”
I’m not sure why she’s telling me this, but still, I don’t try to stop her. Apparently, those Anderson girls have more in common when it comes to word vomit than they seem to realize.
“Anyway, my bright idea was to try and push her away, hoping it would hurt less when I didn’t come back. I was pretty awful to her and said a bunch of things I didn’t mean about her wanting a career in Hollywood.” Quincy frowns, glaring at a worn spot in her desk. “I said I didn’t think she could make it and that they’d chew her up and spit her out. It wasn’t something I believed, I just… I don’t know. It was a stupid attempt at keeping her at bay, because something in me said she’d follow me here if I didn’t.”
Pain seizes my chest, the conversation a near mirror to a similar one I had with Bellamy before we enrolled at Avernia.
I knew, even before we were students, that nothing good awaited us here. I tried so hard to keep her from doing it anyway, but she didn’t listen.
She never listened.
Even now, I’ve been doing something similar with Elle.
“When I learned she’d moved out to LA anyway, I was so happy, but then she showed up here and she’s just so different. Gone is the bright-eyed open book I grew up wanting to throttle, and in her place is a woman I barely recognize half the time. She won’t tell any of us what happened to send her back to our parents last summer, but it’s obvioussomethingdid. And I can’t help feeling responsible for it.”
“Okay…”
“My point is,” she continues, pressing her index finger into the top of a book, “if you’re trying to recruit me because you’ve crossed the line with her, you’re going to have to find help elsewhere. I’m not going to help ruin something she loves. Not again.”
A pit opens up in my stomach. “Why would you assume?—”
“She might be different, but Iknowmy sister. She’s all those things I say, but her resilience often comes at the price of her own self-worth and others’ sanity. Her being here is a step in the right direction, and I don’t want her feelings or lust or whatever it is she might have going on get in the way of that. Not when there’s enough moving in the shadows for her to deal with in the first place.”
Swallowing, I force my head from side to side. “That’s not it at all. My co-casting director went on sabbatical, and I just need someone to fill in. I can’t handle auditions on my own, and I know you did some theater work as an undergrad, so this just made the most sense.”
She stares at me for a long, tense moment. Nausea rolls through me, making my muscles tighten.Can she see through me like her sister?
“Well, if you want my assistance because you think I’d be a good addition, then I’ll join you.”
28
ELLE
“I knowit’s wrong and we could both lose our spots here,” I say, pacing a dent in the carpet of the Obeliskos’s thirteenth floor, “but it’s like there’s this insatiable need that just bleeds into my skin every time we’re near. I can’t stop it, and it doesn’t help when he makes it so obvious he wants?—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Noelle,” Asher groans into his hands, his head in Lucy’s lap where they’re sitting on a dark leather couch. Well, she’s sitting; he’s sprawled out lengthwise. “You have issues with impulse control, we get it. Can you please just let me nap in peace?”
Lucy tsks, pinching his nostrils shut. “You’re supposed to be helping me study for this midterm, pretty boy.”
“Did you take your ADHD meds this morning?”
“Yes.” She releases his nose and pokes the silver hoop piercing one nostril. “Someone never lets me forget on days I have classes.”
“Am I supposed to apologize for being helpful?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re not being helpful now.”
