Page 67 of Serpentine Valentine

He knocked me with his hip and grinned. “Well, props to you. Takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there like that. I’m sorry they were such assholes. I know you’ve got other friends, but if you ever wanna grab a coffee or study together, I’m your man.”

“Thanks, Ricky,” I said as warmth moved through me. It was a nice reminder that not everyone was a judgmental prick. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

“Just be careful, yeah?” he said as we approached my apartment. “David, Beckett, and those guys…they hold a mean grudge, and I wouldn’t put it past them not to let this thing go.”

A shiver of fear wormed its way down my spine, but I nodded mutely instead of responding because on the steps of the house stood my mother.

And she was not pleased.

Ricky seemed to sense that, too, because he stopped on the sidewalk before the pathway and whispered, “You want me to hang around?”

I grinned at him, genuinely moved by his kindness. “No, but thank you. I’ll be texting you about that coffee, though.”

“Do it,” he urged, then patted my arm, shot one lingering look at my mother’s formidable expression, and sauntered back down the street.

I sucked in a deep breath to brace myself before starting up the walkway. I’d just faced down Flo and David, but my mother was an entirely different and terrifying beast.

“Come and be my girl. To feel your face and hear your footsteps, I’d give the world.”

—Sappho

Luna

“Luna Athena Pallas,”Mom seethed the instant I got close enough to hear her. “Get your butt in the house right now.”

I avoided eye contact as I moved passed her. Lex might have given me the courage to face common bullies, but the force of Mom’s anger was still enough to cow me.

The door slammed behind us, and before I could turn, Mom was grasping my hand and whirling me to face her. Her face was mottled red with rage, teeth bared like an animal about to tear my throat out.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from Lex Gorgon?”

Fuck.

I was swearing a lot today, but all of it felt warranted.

“Yes.” It surprised me that my voice didn’t break.

“And you disobeyed me?” she hissed, eyes flashing. “It was a simple request, Luna.”

“No, it wasn’t. I like Lex. I don’twant to stay away from her.”

“You goddamnwill,” she roared, slamming her hand against the hall wall so hard that a photo of us at my high school grad fell to the ground but didn’t break.

“Why?” I asked, letting her anger fuel me instead of crushing me the way it usually did.

I was twenty-one years old. I had a scholarship to Acheron and a trust fund left to me by my grandparents. I was a smart, capable woman and didn’t need my mother to make my decisions.

“Because I fucking well said so,” she shouted. “Lex Gorgon is a menace.”

“To you, maybe,” I countered. “I don’t know what she’s got on you, but she terrifies you, doesn’t she?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t want my only daughter associating with a girl known for her promiscuity and ill-kept rage.”

“Why would I be scared of her rage when I grew up with your temper?” I argued, gaining traction now, giving years of latent resentment a voice. “For my entire life, you have told me what to do, Mom. Is it so horrible if I want to make my own mind up about some things?”

“Not this,” she said, pointing at me like a witch with a ready hex. “You don’t think I tell you what to do for your own benefit? Think about where you’d be without my advice. Nowhere.”

“Maybe not here, but I would have been okay. Maybe I’d be at Cambridge or Oxford, maybe I wouldn’t be playing field hockey six days a week, and I’d spend that time working at a bookstore or library, taking a photography course even though ‘it’s a silly hobby.’”