Page 62 of Filthy Beautiful
I’d met Elle a few times by now, and she was always nice to me. I was pretty sure she’d be okay with me crashing in her old bed as long as I wanted. But I still felt like an imposition. Too bad, because I really would’ve loved to move in and be adopted by the Delacroixs.
Who wouldn’t?
Angie’s family was just so… cool.
So unlike mine.
If I had to choose one word to describe my family, it would be… awkward. Like, pretty much the opposite of cool.
My parents’ pretend perfection and their denial of reality. The big secret we were supposed to be keeping about my brother’s reclusiveness. As if he was just this super successful music producer, a “retired” rock star whochoseto work around the clock because he was just that much of a genius.
Everything about the way we lived, the way we were supposed to behave all the time for the benefit of other peoples’ opinions… It was all awkward to me.
It never fit.
But maybeInever fit, with anything, anywhere.
I never fit at the stupidly expensive, pretentious school I went to for the last four years, and I probably wouldn’t fit at the university I was supposed to go to on the other side of the country. I definitely wouldn’t fit at law school.
I just wanted tofit.
Or… maybe I just wanted to feel what I felt, be whatever I was, and not bewrong.
The truth was, I felt wrong all the time.
But only because that’s how other people made me feel.
I didn’t mind feeling crazy or sad or any of the things I was supposed to pretend—according to my mom—that I didn’t feel. As long as Ifelt.
And Xander… he never made me feel wrong. Angry, hurt, frustrated, embarrassed… sure. All those things and more, I’d felt with Xander. But I never felt wrong.
I mean, I knew I wasn’t supposed to get hung up on him.
He was my brother’s best friend. He was too old for me.
Whatever.
He made me feel alive—like I was plugged into some power source I could never reach on my own.
How could I ignore that?
I wanted more of that feeling I only got when he was around.
Who wouldn’t?
But Iwasembarrassed about how my little “test” backfired. The one Shayla suggested. I’d put my boobs right in Xander’s face—literally—like she told me to.
Maybe, while I’d worked up the nerve to do it, I’d convinced myself that it would change something between us. That there would be this glorious moment, like clouds parting and a ray of sunshine beaming through—and he’d actually see me. Me, as the woman I was, instead of the little girl he used to know.
Instead, I got nervous. I lost my balance, clumsily bumped my boobs against his face, and humiliated myself.
He rejected me. No way to take his reaction as anything but rejection.
What the fuck are you doing?
That’s what he’d said—no, growled. Then he picked me up, set me abruptly aside as he got up, and walked into the poolhouse, slamming the door.
Clearly, he didn’t want me. I was right about that in the first place.
