Page 6 of From Angel to Rogue (Four Foxes #6)

KATY

The only friends I could rub in Sabrina’s face were Petra, Kim, and Norman.

The three classified front-row nerds of our class. Yes, they were nice people, but they only cared about physics, chemistry, and math.

And I didn’t know anything about physics, chemistry, and math, but it wasn’t hard to pretend. Although they were getting more doubtful about my actual interest every time I got graded.

It was easy to fake my intrigue in the subjects, but that wasn’t the case when it came to actually studying them and producing the result.

It didn’t take long for me to understand that people didn’t want to ever know the real you.

The word friends was just an airy label, one that people used loosely to make you fit into a certain category.

Friends weren’t made of genuine connections, although sometimes it did happen, rarely, to the lucky ones. Most times, friends were made for pure, deliberate transactional relationships.

It was either of the two scenarios. You’re either the popular, pretty, untouchable, or you wormed your way into the jocks, queen bees, goths, stoners, nerds, and the hippies by pretending to be them.

My obsession with food and lack of concrete goals weren’t making me popular anytime soon, so I chose the nerds because they seemed to be my safest and easiest way in.

I just had to carry a bunch of thick textbooks, spend a ridiculous amount of time in the library, and partake in lengthy, boring conversations about things I didn’t understand.

Did I like it? Not really.

But then, did I have any choice? Not really either.

Because I’d rather be with them than alone among Sabrina and her rude parade, who loved to flaunt their smug smiles at me.

Although she mostly ignored my presence, she loved to taunt me from time to time, and I just wanted to scream and fight that it wasn’t fair, and that pretty privilege wouldn’t get her far.

It was a term that I learned on the internet about how just being pretty could get you anything you wanted. I wished I was pretty like that. I was kind and nice and good, but why couldn’t I be pretty?

Why did someone mean and cruel and rude like Sabrina get to be pretty and get everything she ever wanted.

How was that acceptable?

I was still a little out of breath when I trudged my feet back home from school. Exercise and sports still weren’t something I loved to do, and it didn’t help that I loved to eat more chocolate than necessary. And it showed with the way I had sized up from last year.

The setting sun spilled glimmering orange lights through the fluffy clouds. I hated getting back home so late, but I needed to hang out with my friends in the library so they could prep for their summer classes, which I certainly wasn’t joining even though I said I would.

I had gotten so good at pretending that it didn’t even feel like a chore anymore. But I was glad today was the last day of school. Middle school was officially over and I would start high school at Bellevue High this fall. Maybe there was a slight chance for me to still make actual friends.

For now, I couldn’t wait to get into the new sweater project I had lined up for this summer break.

The heavy beats of my brother’s drums and the slithering notes of perfectly pitched guitar sounds blended through the air as I neared my house.

Unlike me, my twin was one of the lucky ones.

He found himself friends who actually liked him for him.

He was no longer the rowdy little kid who was frustrated with the world.

Instead, he found his calm in his music—he found his purpose.

Along with it, he found his two best friends, Emmie and Mikey, who played the guitar and bass and went to middle school on the other end of town.

Together, they bonded over their shared obsession with music and were a band now.

They even wrote their own songs and played them at every hour of the day, and judging from the obvious sounds leaking through the garage, today’s practice space was at ours.

They were nice, more than nice actually. They were good people who formed a real bond with my brother. I was happy for my brother, but deep down, I wished I had friends like that.

Emmie’s younger sister, Lily, was nice and kind to me, and I actually liked her but she already had a best friend—Mikey.

Those two were too close and have been best friends for years and hanging out with them always made me feel like I shouldn’t really be there.

So I only met Lily when Mikey wasn’t around, but it was hard considering they were always together.

“Hey, Mom,” I announced as I entered our home and padded straight to the kitchen. “I’m back.”

“Hey, Katy, good day at school?” she asked as she whisked away the brown gooey batter, which I knew was for my favorite chocolate cupcakes. As much as I liked to limit myself to the amount of sugar I consumed on a daily basis, my mother loved to spoil me.

“Yes, Mom,” I muttered, pressing a kiss on her cheek as I hugged her from behind.

She flashed me her kind smile over her shoulder before she went back to whisking.

I nuzzled my cheek against her neck, inhaling her sweet lily scent as it laced with the chocolate in the air.

She smelled like home.

I sighed deeply as her familiar warmth seeped into my body. My mother was my second comfortable place on earth.

My twin was my first. We understood each other in ways others couldn’t possibly comprehend. He just got me and I was forever grateful that I at least had one best friend attached to me for life.

The loud crunch of tires hitting the gravel made us both look out the window. Lined with Mom’s herb plants, it looked out onto our usually quiet street, which was now crowded with a huge white U-Haul truck.

A man and a woman, looking the same age as my mom and dad, stepped out of a torn-down navy-blue SUV and walked straight ahead to speak with an older-looking gentleman who hopped out of the U-Haul.

The back door of the SUV dashed open, and a pair of pale thin legs clad in a mini checkered skirt and Vans jumped out.

My eyes trailed along the length of her tight green T-shirt plastered on her like a second skin, and the beaded necklaces that hung around her delicate neck.

Her warm brown hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, accentuating the sleek contours of her cheekbones.

She was the same age as me and I just couldn’t help but feel jealous of how gorgeous both her face and her body looked.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to think that way, but lately, I couldn’t help but compare myself to all the pretty girls my age.

They had something I didn’t have and that made me very jealous.

I was so busy staring at her that I didn’t notice the tall boy who arrived beside her. Whatever he said made her smile and something about that sent a pang through my heart.

Though he had his hoodie drawn up, I could see waves of his dark chestnut hair falling over his piercing brown eyes.

The shade was so deep like my favorite chocolate.

When he lifted his head, his face came into full view and the warm orangy-yellow sun lit the sharp angles of his beautiful face. A tiny gasp escaped my lips before I could stop myself.

I’d never seen a boy so beautiful before.

So beautiful that he made my heart feel funny.

Made my head spin dizzy.

And made my knees feel weak.

I had never felt this way before, let alone for a boy.

Was this what the girls in the movies felt when they spoke about love at first sight?

And was I having a crush? On a boy whose name I didn’t even know. Yet I wanted to learn, to study each syllable of it, so it could be the last whisper on my lips each night before I fell asleep.

Study all his favorite things so they could become my favorite.

I didn’t know anything about him but I wanted him.

I wanted him more than anything in this world.

I wanted all his truths, his lies, his pains, and his laughter.

I wanted it all.

And as if he could feel my eyes on him, his eyes snapped toward our window and for some reason, a betraying blush heated my cheeks.

It wasn’t like he could look right at us with the way the sun glared, but it made me feel like I was looking at something I shouldn’t be looking at and was caught red-handed.

“They must be the family moving in next door,” Mom said, turning her attention back to her batter.

“It would be nice to finally see some people in that empty house and they look like they are a family of four as well. You should bring them cupcakes after I bake them, honey. They could use a little treat.”

“Ye…yes, Mom,” I muttered before I sneaked one last look at the boy who seemed to have returned to his conversation with that girl.

He was making me feel ways I couldn’t explain, and I didn’t want to linger any longer. “I’m going to my room. I have homework.” I quickly darted out of the kitchen before Mom could say anything else.

The thunder of rock music reverberated through the thin walls as I crossed the hallway and dashed into my room, the blush still burning my cheeks.

What the hell was that about?

I was busy casting the sixteenth slipknot on my wooden size four needle, cross-legged in the middle of my bed, when I heard a faint scraping sound.

Frowning, I looked up, and everything in my body froze when I met a pair of warm brown eyes staring intently at me. The same eyes that I’d been trying a little too hard not to think about for the past thirty minutes.

I blinked.

Once and then twice.

And he was still there.

Please don’t tell me out of all the rooms, he chose the one that had a window right across mine?

As if his gaze wasn’t just imploring the insides of my soul, he shifted, dropping his bag onto the bed, and went out the door to drag two large suitcases inside.

The entire time, I sat in the same place, watching him like a possessed fool.

Only when he set the last of his bags down and shut his bedroom door did I snap out of my trance.

My heart did the same funny feeling it did earlier.

I stumbled out of my bed, hiding my yarn and needles under a pillow as I neared the window. Like there was some invisible shining string between us, pulling me to him.

I swallowed, beating my shyness as my shaky fingers drew my curtains closed, leaving behind the tiniest gap on the edge.

And for the next ten minutes, I stood there watching him in secret as he moved around his room. The ache in my heart was growing into a deep longing.

A longing to get to know him.

A longing to have all of him.

If I thought he was beautiful before, I was wrong.

He was more than just beautiful.

He was mesmerizing.

He looked more like the teenage models that you would see on the front pages of magazines.

With all the perfect features—sharp jawline, smoldering eyes, and tousled hair. Everything. A perfect package.

Somehow, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t just on the outside.

That he was good on the inside too.

And just like earlier, as if he felt my heavy gaze on him, his hands paused their rummaging inside his suitcase, and his eyes sliced to mine.

Exactly to where I was standing, like he knew I was watching him the whole time.

I yelped as my heart leaped to my throat. Not knowing what to do, I quickly ducked under the ledge, a screaming fire flaming my entire body red.

My hands crawled up and dragged the curtains shut, completely this time.

It took me a few minutes to gather myself and get back to my knitting, but no matter how much I tried to concentrate, my mind drifted right back to the person on the other side of my lacy blue curtains.

About an hour later, Mom called out for me to take cupcakes to our new neighbors and I jumped at the opportunity with too much excitement.

I even rushed back to my room and donned one of my pretty red summer dresses, brushed my hair till it was nice and shiny, and glossed my lips with my favorite rose-colored lip balm.

Instead of going to their main door like a normal person, I slid through the side door, and my feet took me right to where I knew his bedroom window would be.

It was the most brazen thing I’d ever done. But like a fool who climbed a tree too tall for a fruit, I went anyway.

The steady sound of piano notes flowed through the closer I got. So smooth and soft that it felt like a warm caress to my skin.

Curious, I peeked into his window while I hid most of my body behind the wall, and my breath hitched.

His chin was tipped low, locks of his velvety hair falling over his face while his thick lips bowed in a relaxed curve. His fingers flew over the black and white keys like he had memorized them over and over again his entire life.

I didn’t know much about music, but even I could tell that this was mastery of the instrument.

He had his eyes closed and never missed a single note. It was a classical number, the symphony of it so utterly beautiful that I just couldn’t stop staring at it.

At him.

All of a sudden, he halted abruptly, and his eyes drew right to me for the third time today. This time, I was really caught.

And there was no escape for me.

In a slow, deliberate move, he pushed away from his keyboard and took measured steps toward me. The entire time, his eyes never left mine.

My heart felt like it was fighting to jump out of my rib cage while my palms turned clammy on the tray that I was holding.

No boy had ever spared me any attention in school, let alone looked at me this intently.

“My brother has a band. You should join,” I blurted in panic before I could stop myself. Great, Katy, that wasn’t the first thing you should tell a guy you have a crush on.

He stilled as if that was the last thing he expected I would say. “What?” he muttered, the low timbre of his voice sending an invisible tremor through my body.

“Band,” I repeated louder, my eyes wide. “My brother and his friends recently started a band, and they need one more member. Rock music. I think you should join them. You’re good,” I rambled.

He didn’t even hesitate when he replied, “No, thank you.”

Embarrassment flooded my blood like a fast-moving train. My cheeks stained red, and my heart sank to my stomach.

What was I thinking?

Someone like me wouldn’t even stand a chance with a pretty boy like him. He only had to grace the school hallway with his cool presence and girls like Sabrina would be falling on their knees for him.

And I would just be an invisible speck in his stunningly bright life.