Page 54 of Serpentine Valentine

I watched with a pit the size of Tartarus opening up in the base of my stomach as the girl stepped forward to brush a kiss over Lex’s smooth cheek. She met my gaze over her shoulder and grinned.

Possessive anger coiled around my chest like a boa constrictor.

“Night, Bryn,” Lex said, stepping forward to shut my door before making her way to the other side of the car.

I looked out the window to see Haley standing at the end of the walkway to Flo’s house, her hands tangled together, the orange light of the antique streetlamps casting her wet face with a ghoulish sheen. Shelifted one hand in farewell as Lex started the car and pulled away.

People gathered in the doorway behind her, watching as I left with Lex, and I knew that gossip about tonight would be all over campus by morning.

Were Luna and Lex…unlikely friends?

Or even unlikelier lovers.

Given that most people knew Pierce and I broke up, I knew there would be some whispers about the latter.

Panic chewed at the edges of my lingering intoxication, sobering me further. But beneath the acidic feeling was something else.

Something like relief.

Because the truth was, Lex and I weren’t lovers.

But I wanted to be with a desperation that usurped any previous level of desire I’d felt in my entire life.

Wanting her was one thing, but having her was another. It would change the entire scope of my life. My reputation as Acheron’s golden girl, my relationship with the only parent I’d ever had, and my own feelings about myself.

But as I sat in the car, feeling safe and cared for, feelingseenfor the first time in so long, I thought Lex was worth the risk.

“Yes yes yes I do like you. I am afraid to write the stronger word.”

––Virginia Woolf

Luna

We didn’t speakin the car. Only the gentle swell of music I recognized as the Vitamin String Quartet played through the space between us. I was too tired, too discombobulated to make sense of the emotions churning inside my empty, clutching belly, and I had the sense Lex was too incensed and preoccupied with trying to calm down.

She didn’t take me home, and I wondered if she avoided it because she knew I lived in my mother’s house.

Instead, we pulled up to her haunted home on Charity Lane, the enormous Victorian looming purple-black in the shadows. Lex stopped the car and got out so quickly, I was still staring after her when she opened the door for me and reached in to help me out.

I wanted to say something, but she didn’t let go of me when I gained my feet. Her fingers loosened to slide down my forearms over my hand, tangling our fingers together.

The feel of her hand in mine took my breath away. The rightness of it made my eyes burn with tears.

I loved it. Holding hands with a woman. This woman, particularly.

As it always did around Lex, my sense of self shifted a little closer to its true form.

She led me across the leaf-strewn path to the door, keeping hold of me even when she fiddled with the key to open the door. The light was on in the parlor, and I caught sight of the Gorgon sisters sitting around the round table playing Scrabble and drinking ginger tea that spiced the air with fragrance. They stared at us as we passed by, but Lex didn’t stop to acknowledge them.

I thought Effie might have shot me a sly wink, but it seemed too unlikely to be true.

We went up the dark stairwell, the steps creaking under our weight, to the attic. Large skylights cut into the roof had moonlight falling in silver fragments across the huge, steepled ceiling room.

Lex’s domain.

She left me then, moving around to light lamps and do something in what I assumed was the bathroom to the left of me.

I took the opportunity to snoop.