Youngblood by Sasha Laurens

Author:Sasha Laurens [Laurens, Sasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2022-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

All of Saturday was determined by the dance: the countdown to getting ready, and then the countdown from getting ready to the dance itself. When Kat asked if I wanted help with my makeup—“It’s cool if you don’t want to wear any, but you’d look really great with a little mascara and eyeliner”—I said yes. The delicate brush of her fingers against my cheek, her lips pursed in concentration, made my ribs feel too tight. Hopefully Kat chalked that up to Big Dance Excitement. Then I stepped into the bathroom to change.

I checked myself in the mirror. The suit was royal blue and I wore it over a white tuxedo shirt that I’d found in the boys’ department, the top button undone, no tie. I’d never worn a suit before, and I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to fit or feel. But Kontos had told me he thought this was the one, and miraculously it didn’t need altering. I copied what I’d seen people do in movies: I shrugged into the jacket, stretched my arms to shoot the sleeves, checked the buttons on the cuffs. To my surprise, I actually felt good.

When Kat saw me, and I saw the look on her face, I felt even better.

Kat was grinning, a sparkle in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in a while. That little voice in my head, almost too quiet to hear, reminded me, It doesn’t mean anything.

“You look fantastic,” Kat said.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really really.” Don’t be stupid, Taylor, the voice pleaded. “I wish I was wearing something like that.”

I went to my closet to choose a pair of sneakers. “But you’re so girly.”

“I’m not that girly,” she protested.

I pulled out a pair of unblemished white high-tops and sat on my bed to lace them. “Kath-er-ine, have you seen your closet?”

“Those are just clothes.” The frustration in Kat’s voice made me wonder if I was missing something. Uniform notwithstanding, Kat’s closet was so full of dresses and skirts, pleated and frilly and swishy, it could have belonged to Goth Barbie.

“They’re your clothes.”

“Only sort of. The Benefactor wanted me to have a wardrobe befitting a young female vampire.”

I looked up from my sneaker. So it wasn’t just tonight’s outfit.

Kat was worrying her red-varnished thumbnail against her lip. To some people, clothes might not seem like a big deal. Harcote’s dress guidelines were pretty traditional, and some girls liked wearing that stuff anyway. But it wasn’t just about looking nice. It was about making you be a certain way, about teaching you how to be a boy or a girl. Making sure that the way you looked expressed what they wanted it to, instead of anything about yourself.

Suddenly that sadness welled up in me. The sadness of having lost the chance to know Kat outside of this place. And sadness for her too, for everything she was putting herself through for this stupid school and its toxic people, for feeling like she didn’t have a choice but to dress herself up like a doll every day.

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.