SWNOVELS Wrath of an Exile: Chapter 5
Phi
August 19
“Happy birthday, Andy!”
My younger sister’s rosy cheeks light up with a shy smile. Light streams in from the windows behind her, bathing her in sunshine as she stares at the seventeen flickering candles.
I hide a small smile, standing in the arched doorway as she places her palms on the polished mahogany table. Andromeda shuts her eyes, takes a second to make a wish, and blows them out in one go.
My family’s dining room shakes with applause and cheer. The crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling rattles from all the excitement as a line of people make their way to her side.
Uncle Silas drops a quiet kiss to the top of her head, his six-year-old son, Scout, in his arms, who is trying to reach for the cake. Aunt Briar hugs her so hard I think I hear a rib crack, unwilling to let go until her husband pulls her away. Everyone takes their turn, showering her with love and well-wishes.
“She hates all of this attention.”
The gentle, sweet voice of one of my aunts tickles my ears. A warmth spreads through my stomach as I glance to my side, seeing her walk in from the living room and join me in the doorway, her petite frame dressed in a black button-up dress with puffed shoulders.
“I give it twenty seconds before she disappears from her own party.”
Lyra Pierson has always been my very own Morticia Addams. I used to think she was a vampire; I searched their estate for days when I was seven, looking for coffins. Door after door, room after room, but I never found what I was looking for.
Until one day, I just asked her husband where it was.
“TP! TP!”
Shouting the nickname Dad told me to use, I burst into Uncle Thatcher’s office. He says it’s his favorite, and I think it’s funny ’cause it stands for toilet paper. I skid to a stop in front of the humongous wooden desk.
“Yes, mini version of Rook?” He looks up at me from the papers in his hands, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, looking annoyed as per usual.
“Where is the coffin Aunt Lyra sleeps in?” I blurt out, rocking back and forth on my heels, tired of searching their never-ending house.
He lets out a small laugh, something I don’t hear from him a lot. “You think we are vampires?”
“Not you. You’re not cool enough. You sell houses. But her, yes. You live in a haunted house, and she always wears black!”
He raises his eyebrow at me. “I see.”
“So? Where is it?” I’m practically bouncing on my heels, waiting for him to tell me.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but she isn’t a vampire.” Uncle Thatch sets his papers down, leaning forward and peering at me from his chair with a small grin. “And if she was, I’d be one too. Whatever your Aunt Lyra is, I am.”
Their love is a sickening breed. Just like my parents’.
That once-in-a-lifetime, fuck-the-world, we’re-destined-to-be-together love.
No amount of science will make me believe that doesn’t exist because I’ve seen it my entire life.
Deserving it is a different story.
“Sun and moon, the two of you. Even as babies, you adored the spotlight, and Andy hated it.” Lyra’s head shakes as she grins. Those wild, black curls streaked with gray sway with every movement.
Stifling a laugh, I lift my can of pop to my lips. It’s no secret that I was, and still am, a brazen attention whore.
I’m not sure when I noticed it. Maybe it was when I won first place for my magnetic levitation science project in elementary school. Or it might’ve been when my fifth-grade teacher, who’s hated Dad since they attended college together, cold-called me in class, and I’d answered his question with flying colors.
No matter when it started, it became a drug to me, the praise and admiration. Now, I put myself on display for all things rebellious. I took all my passions and hid them down deep, hoping to keep them there while simultaneously preventing anyone from looking deeper.
“When do you suppose the two of them will realize they are more than friends?”
I bring my attention back to Andy at her words, seeing Ezra Caldwell looming in the corner just behind her. There are fifteen people in this house, most of them in the dining room, yet his dark eyes are stuck on her.
They never move. Not once.
I feel like I need to physically reach up and hold my eyeballs to keep them from rolling.
“Preferably before he breaks her heart,” I grumble.
“Always so pessimistic, my firefly.” Lyra lifts a slender hand adorned with delicate rings and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
I give a toothless smile, shrugging. “Realist. They’re young. The divorce rate for high school sweethearts is, like, fifty-four percent. Heartbreak is inevitable.”
“You’re young too, ya know?” Nudging me with her hip, she playfully arches an eyebrow. “Enjoy it. This phase of your life is a gift. Be young, fall in love, and fall out of it. Your heart is a resilient thing. It can survive much more than you think.”
“Pass. Sounds like unnecessary suffering.”
“You’ll change your mind. You just haven’t met the right person yet.”
Yeah, can’t find the right person ’cause I fuck guys I hate.
The thought makes me want to shove my hand into a blender. Since hell froze over, these little annoying film reels of the water tower have popped into my brain. Rage boils in me, simmering in my bones, threatening to overflow.
I’m basically cockblocking my own happily ever after by chasing self-destruction to cover up what happened to me. There are a lot of things I regret, but screwing Jude Sinclair is by far the worst.
There had been countless reasons for me not to do it.
My dad warned me to stay away from the Sinclairs since I was a kid. Jude’s best friends with Oakley Wixx, whom I despise. I’d gotten him arrested. Oh, and his dad dated my mom back in the day. I mean, the list could go on for eons, and I could’ve picked any of them to avoid doing what I did.
But I didn’t. None of them came to mind the moment his mouth devoured mine. My brain shut off, took a goddamn vacation from rational thinking, and let my irresponsible vagina take the lead. I won’t lie, I’m not exactly known for picking the best dudes to hook up with, but Jude takes the cake.
No, he takes the whole bakery.
Absentmindedly, I bring my hand to the side of my neck, brushing my thumb over the hickeys covered in makeup. A heat rises in my stomach, that irritating ache filling me. It’s a nuisance I’ve been dealing with for a week. Yet it’s nothing in comparison to the guilt of not just letting it happen but enjoying it.
Every bite, every thrust, every raspy groan.
When the sweat dried, all I hated was myself, that he made me come harder than anyone ever had. A cold chill runs through me, and I jerk my hand from my throat. Fuck, I’m so stupid.
How could I be this stupid?
I clear my throat. “I’m gonna go grab a cupcake.”
Code for “I need a breather. Immediately.”
I take one step back before Lyra pulls me into a hug. Her gentle hand holds the back of my head before she whispers in my ear, “I love you, my firefly. Come see us soon. Thatcher misses your debates on the universe.”
The tears that sting the corners of my eyes are immediate. I miss those too. Miss them so much, but Uncle Thatch is a hawk with X-ray vision. He picks up on everything, and I can’t risk that.
I squeeze her extra tight, a thank-you in my bones. “I love you too, Aunt Lyra.”
I pull back from her embrace and give her a small smile. As much as I want to visit, I can’t. It’ll only make things more difficult. No matter how much my behavior hurts them, my secrets would hurt them more.
I quickly make my escape into the kitchen, deftly avoiding family members on my way. My eyes land on the black countertop, where a tray of cupcakes sits temptingly. I scoop one up and lean against the counter, taking a deep breath. The scent of vanilla fills my nostrils as I swipe my finger across the smooth icing and bring it to my mouth.
When I close my eyes, I realize the mistake immediately. All I see is Jude’s face hovering above mine, that stupid eyebrow piercing and tongue ring, his lips curved in a wicked grin. Every night I lie down, trying to sleep, but’s it’s just him. His tattooed hands, his mouth, the way he—
“Hey.”
I jump at the sound of Andy’s voice, dropping the cupcake on the floor.
“Shit,” I curse before scooping it up and walking it to the trash can.
Turning around, I see that she has climbed atop the kitchen island, sitting cross-legged with her colorful knitted sweater hanging off one shoulder.
“Thank you for my gift,” she says with a grin, fiddling with the laces of her black Converse.
I bite my tongue when I notice on the toe tip in black Sharpie are the words “star child” in Ezra’s scribbly handwriting.
Andy and Ez love each other.
I stopped questioning it a while ago. I didn’t have much of a choice after I heard him drunkenly serenade her in the back of my car with The Fray’s “Look After You.”
From the moment Andromeda was born, Ezra has quietly followed behind. It’s literally why we started call him The Shadow. Every misstep she makes, he is right there to catch her as she tumbles, putting her back on her feet so she can take off again.
I’m grateful for how protective he is. But I live in constant fear that the sweet heart he shields is the same one he might break.
Love just isn’t enough sometimes.
“What gift?” I arch an eyebrow, resting my elbows on the island.
Andromeda rolls her eyes, smirking. “If you wanted it to be a secret, you shouldn’t be so obvious. You’re the only LEGO nerd I know.”
So much for leaving it at her door this morning in the hopes it didn’t become a big deal.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it. It’s perfect. First thing I opened this morning, and I already had Ezra mount it on the wall for me. How long did it take you?”
“A few days.” I shrug.
It was a week. Over three thousand pieces, and as each individual LEGO came together, I thought about Andromeda. How this was perfect for her. The bands of blues, pinks, and oranges swirl together in a mesmerizing spiral, our Milky Way to display on her wall.
It’s beautiful and represents all she loves about the sky but shows nothing about the cruelty of our galaxy.
Andy gracefully hops off the counter, making a beeline for the tray of cupcakes. “My horoscope app said one of my do’s for today was to appreciate the stars. Thanks for proving it right.”
I like understanding why our universe works; she enjoys telling me why the stars’ position has me in a bad fucking mood. I like hard facts. She enjoys whimsical belief. Science is my favorite subject, and hers is philosophy.
We are so similar yet very different. Always have been.
I’d like to blame these differences on her naivety, the fact she hasn’t been hurt by the world, so she chooses to still have faith in it. But I can’t. Despite anything that might happen to Andy, good or bad, this is how she has always been. Full belief in the unknown, in the threads of fate and waves of destiny.
My eye roll is involuntary. “Whatever you say.”
“Your Jupiter in Capricorn always makes you so skeptical,” she mumbles with a mouthful of food, sucking icing off her thumb before continuing. “Loosen up, Phi. It’s just the stars.”
“You might’ve passed algebra if you remembered equations like you do horoscopes.”
The freckles dance across the bridge of her nose as she laughs, flying me the bird. “Low blow.”
I walk over, leaning on the counter beside her. “I just don’t see the point in letting the stars decide who I am. I like things I can prove. Physics, logic, stuff that makes sense. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’ve just always preferred fact to belief.”
“Today, the sun is the same exact place in the sky that it was when I was born—that’s a fact. The Mayans used the sky as a calendar—fact. Babylonians believed that the position of planets and stars at birth influence someone’s destiny—fac—”
“Fact,” I interrupt with a smirk, nudging her with my hip. “You’re a smart-ass.”
“Yeah, but you love me.”
She has no idea just how much.
The sun has risen and set six thousand and five times since her birth. Even on my worst days.
Sometimes, I think she’s the only reason for each of them.
“Debatable,” I mutter, a smirk pulling at my lips.
“Jerk.”
Andy looks up at me, blue eyes sparkling, turquoise gems untouched by man, pure. The apples of her cheeks are dusted with a bright pink blush matching the shade of her dyed hair, and tiny golden stickers decorate her cheeks. From the depths of her bones, she is joy.
The Milky Way eats galaxies that get too close.
Sometimes, it stretches them like taffy, pulling out the streams of stars and gas. A few of them can withstand it, merely passing by, forever changing but intact. But other times, our galaxy’s hunger is insatiable.
It’s a cosmic feast for those who get too close. It will tear apart with no remorse or mercy, devouring stars from its prey until it blends with its own.
The truth is I’m the Milky Way, and she’s the astronomer who will never know all my secrets. Far enough to love me, not close enough to be ruined by me.
Andromeda is the beauty and wonder of our universe. I’m the destructive, cold reality.
I wrap my arm around her shoulder, pulling her into my side. That overwhelming desire to protect her at all costs fills my gut.
The pain of silence will forever be worth it because it keeps her safe. It keeps them all happy, unburdened.
I’ll go to the grave with this hurt because they are worth it. They are worth everything.
“Happy birthday, Andromeda.”