Page 81 of Gorgeous Misery

I don’t know her well, but my one conversation with Indie pretty much gave me the highlights. Indie is a car crash. She’s a bull in a china shop. She’s a get-it-done kind of girl too, but in a let’s-blow-it-all-up kind of way. She is not subtle. And maybe that’s not fair because I don’t know her the way I do Wendy. But Wendy is so, so, so fuckin’ different in the way she handles things.

When Indie walks into a room, she brings a Metallica soundtrack with her. It’s very much a Kill ’Em All kind of beat going on. She is powerful, distinct, and unmistakable.

Wendy is a Brahms’s Lullaby. She slips into your life with soft silence. She’s in the background. Elevator Muzak. You don’t notice her until it’s too late.

And you’d think that this would make her arrogant. That she’d have an ego a mile high. And sure, she comes off that way at times. If she feels cornered, she’s not above making boastful threats. It’s not her skills that she second-guesses, anyway.

It’s everything else.

Her hair, her make-up—if she wears it—her clothes, the tone of her voice, the way she walks, how she dances—she won’t dance, ever—all that shit that teenage girls worry about when they’re thirteen. But here’s the difference: those teenage girls figure it out. And by the time they’re twenty-four, they have some kind of system going. They have a hairstyle, they know what kind of clothes look good on them, they have perfected the art of eyeliner and understand lipstick.

Wendy never did that shit when she was thirteen. When she was thirteen, she was in her prime assassin days. She was an accomplished professional. None of that girly shit mattered when she was thirteen. She was way too busy being Creepy Wendy to give a single fuck about boys, or dates, or best friends.

But everything changed when she turned seventeen.

That day. What a fucking day.

She went… backwards that day. I don’t really have another word to explain it. And I’m not saying she reverted back to some stupid little girl—Wendy Gale has never, ever been a stupid little girl. But something… snapped.

I really thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. And I want to tell her this, but she wouldn’t even know what I was talking about.

Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to start explaining.

“Hello? Nick? What are you thinking so hard about?”

I smile at her, but don’t say anything.

Because I’m thinking… I have regrets.

And I don’t want her to know that.

CHAPTER NINETEEN - WENDY

Nick is worried about me and I hate it when he worries about me.

“Just thinking about you, Wen.” He sighs. “I want to ask you all the questions right now. But I can’t. Just…”

“Just tell you I’m fine?”

“No.” He actually laughs out loud. “I mean, yeah. But only if it’s true.”

I laugh too. “It’s true. I’m fine. We’re good.”

He picks up my hand and brings it to his lips, kisses my knuckles as he smiles at me. “Mrs. Tate.”

“Mmm. I’ve been thinking about that. Do I have to be a Mrs. Can’t I just be Wendy Tate?”

“Pretty sure that’s the tradition. Title comes with the marriage.”

“Yeah, but it’s us. Right? Are we traditional?”

“Maybe the better question is do we want to be traditional?”

It takes about two seconds of thought for both of us to laugh and shake our heads. “Nah.”

He pulls me closer to him and I’ve missed this. I always miss him when we’re apart, but this time it really does feel different. Not just because we’re married now and this is the first time we’ve been together since all that happened, but also because… everything feels so on track.

“Now I wanna know what you’re thinking.”