“How’s Rapunzel?”
I can’t remember what I said in response, probably something about the garden we’d planted or how she sometimes snuck into my bedroom.Uncle Jay was cool with information like that.
“You love her, don’t you?”I remember him asking.
“We’re Antony and Cleopatra.Marie and Pierre Curie.Fitzgerald and?—”
“I get it,” he laughed.
“We love each other, but she doesn’t know it yet.”
“I bet she knows more than you think,” he told me.“Just be there for her.As many times as she needs.The rest will fall into place.”
I wasthere, but I wasn’t there enoughfor her.
Is that why she left?Was it my fault?
I lay there for hours, floating between fuzzy conversations and blurred images, hoping to find the answers.Only I can’t—not without Venus.
CHAPTER10
Venus
I race homein an unrestrained panic, itching to create distance between us.I twist the wheel in my hands until my fingers throb and my rings pinch.I need the pain, want the pain, desperate for a distraction.I am livid and devastated, caught in an emotional tidal wave.Furious at my father.Sad for me.Desperately sorry for Henry.Embarrassed because I surely embarrassed him, especially if that redhead was his girlfriend… or wife.
I refuse to think about that.
This is why I hate emotions—they come on so inconveniently.They barge in, uninvited, unplanned, and unwanted, and seize control.A hostile takeover.Why couldn’t I speak to him like a normal person instead of running away?
The look on his face… hehatesme.Henry truly and utterly hates me.
Tears blur my vision as I turn onto our street and then down the dirt lane leading to the fairy house.Dust kicks up behind the tires as I barrel down the path and come to a jolting stop, crooked, in Dad’s usual space.I slam the door shut and race up the deck.
Inside the house, I start grabbing things.
My journal from the kitchen table.
My pouch of pencils, pens, and markers.
My clothes, scattered on the floor.
I retrieve my hammock and blanket.
I’m haphazardly filling my suitcase when I hear the front door open.It barely registers that someone has entered the house.I don’t care.I keep stuffing items in, desperate to be on the next flight out of here, no matter where it takes me.On the plane, I’ll make a plan when I can think, when I can breathe?—
“Venus, are you okay?”
Ivy’s soft voice makes my shoulders jerk.I don’t look up.I don’t say anything.
In my periphery, I see her move further into the room, but slowly, like I’m a feral animal she’s afraid to approach.
“Venus, what’re you doing?”
“Leave me alone, Ivy.”
“Dad shouldn’t have done that,” she says.“You saw Henry?What happened?”
I groan, my fingernails digging into my palms as my hands fist.“Isn’t itnicehow you two are so close?That my business spreads through the household like a damn brushfire.”
