Crescendo, Hush 2 by Becca Fitzpatrick

Author:Becca Fitzpatrick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-10-10T10:36:46.342662+00:00

CHAPTER

13

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON VEE DROPPED ME OFF near the front

door to Enzo’s. I was dressed in a yel ow printed sundress that

walked the line between flirty and professional and was far

more optimistic than anything I felt on the inside. I stopped in

front of the windows to shake out my hair, which had relaxed

into waves after being slept on al night, but the gesture felt

wooden. I forced a smile. It was the one I’d been practicing al

morning. It felt tight at the edges and brittle everywhere in

between. In the window, it looked false and hol ow. But for a

morning fol owing a night spent crying, it was the best I could

manage.

After walking home from Marcie’s last night, I’d curled into

bed, but I hadn’t slept. I’d spent the night tormented by self-

destructive thoughts. The longer I stayed awake, the more my

thoughts took a dizzying departure from reality. I wanted to

make a statement, and I was hurting enough not to care how

drastic it was. A thought came to me, the kind of thought I never

would have entertained in my life before. If I ended my life, the

archangels would see it. I wanted them to feel remorse. I

wanted them to doubt their archaic laws. I wanted them to be

held accountable for ripping my life apart, then ripping it away

completely.

My mind swirled and tottered with these kinds of thoughts al

night. My emotions shifted through heartbreaking loss, denial,

anger. At one point, I regretted not running away with Patch. Any

happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long,

simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could

never have him.

But as the sun began to crack across the sky this morning, I

came to a decision. I had to move on. It was either that, or slip

into a frozen depression. I forced myself through the motions of

showering and dressing, and went to school with fixed

determination that no one would see below skin-deep. A pins-

and-needles sensation enveloped my body, but I refused to

display a single outward sign of self-pity. I wasn’t going to let the

archangels win. I was going to pul myself back on my feet, get a

job, pay off my speeding ticket, finish summer school with the

top grade, and keep myself so occupied that only at night, when

I was alone with my thoughts and it couldn’t be helped, would I

think of Patch.

Inside Enzo’s, two semicircular balconies spread out to my

left and right, with a set of wide stairs leading down into the

main eating area and front counter. The balconies reminded me

of curved catwalks overlooking a pit. The tables on the balcony

were fil ed, but only a few stragglers drinking coffee and reading

the morning paper remained in the pit.

With the help of a deep breath, I took the stairs down and

approached the front counter.

“Excuse me, I heard you’re hiring baristas,” I told the woman

at the register. My voice sounded flat in my ears, but I didn’t

have the energy to try to correct it. The woman, a middle-aged

redhead with a name tag that read ROBERTA, looked up. “I’d

like to fil out an application.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.