Scorch by Damico Gina

Author:Damico, Gina [Damico, Gina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2012-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

13

The next day Lex sank back onto Driggs’s bed and glanced out the window at the falling snow, admiring its beauty, its purity, the way it erased everything with a total disregard for all the woes of the world. She would have admired its silence as well, if Driggs weren’t blowing out her eardrums with a blistering drum solo.

She yawned. She’d lain awake into the wee hours the night before, obsessing over Cordy and her guilt crusade, the neutralizer that she’d neglected to dig up, and Kloo’s weird memory lapse.

But she resolved to shove all that to the back burner of her brain, at least for the next few hours. The other Juniors, Corpp, and Pandora were coming over for a feast Uncle Mort had insisted upon hosting, despite the fact that he’d never done such a thing before and that the entire enterprise was sure to fail in a most spectacular manner. Lex couldn’t wait.

What was to happen after that was another story.

“WHAT’S WRONG?” Driggs yelled over a cymbal crash upon catching Lex’s troubled face. “Sorry. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Lex fiddled with his pillow, visions of Cordy’s stern face pounding through her head. “My parents are going to strangle me over the phone today, that’s all.”

Driggs gave her a sympathetic look. “They are not.”

“Of course they are,” she said. “I haven’t called in forever. Plus there’s the whole skipping-town-after-my-sister-got-killed thing. Probably won’t be thrilled about that either.”

“Cheer up, emo kid. Focus on the legendary deep-fried Turkeyzilla.”

At the mention of Pandora’s promised entrée, Lex cracked a smile. “What is it about turkey that makes people lose their minds?” she asked. “One year Mom lost her engagement ring while stuffing it and forced us to keep eating until we found the damn thing.” She smiled at the memory of her laughing parents taking a picture of their daughters covered in giblets. “And breaking the wishbone—remember that?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Driggs muttered.

The smile slid off Lex’s face as she remembered who she was talking to: the poster child for abysmal childhoods. “Crap. I’m sorry.”

He shot her a dry grin. “Relax, spaz. Lest you forget, I’m not a fragile little snowflake.”

“I’m still sorry. Holidays sucked, I take it?”

He shrugged. “I got a bike for Christmas once.”

“That’s cool.”

“I think it had been stolen.”

“Ah.”

He twirled a drumstick. “My parents didn’t have any money. Or seemingly any desire to see their kid happy. So I spent most Thanksgivings eating greasy KFC and most Christmases outside in the snow, building the presents I wished I had gotten.”

Lex stared at him. “That is the saddest thing I have ever heard.”

“And yet I get no six-figure book deals. Where’s the justice in this world?”

Lex laughed and grabbed his hand. She traced her finger across his palm and wrist, up his arm, and across the chest that she knew was dotted with scars. Her focus jumped back and forth between his mismatched eyes. Now wasn’t really the time to ask—but really, would there ever be a good time?

“What happened to them?” she said.

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