Page 67 of Anger Bang
ASTRID:WE LOVE YOU TOO!!!!!!!!!
NOLA:Ditto. You’ll call us tomorrow? Or do you want us to call you? Or is it text only because talking is too upsetting right now?
THEA:I’ll call you tomorrow. Night.
She put down her phone and yawned in the middle of drinking the last mouthful of the small-batch vodka that smelled of lilacs and tasted like she should probably be using it to strip paint. Seriously, after downing the small bottle over the course of the past few hours, she was surprised her eyebrows hadn’t been singed.
She could probably head back to her RV now, but damn her eyes were tired. And the ground was so smooth on this spot, and the grass wasn’t itchy against her skin. Even the Stinkingwater River was less smelly, and the sound of the water moving over the rocks was actually kind of nice.
Laying back, she promised herself that she’d head back in a minute. She just needed to rest her eyes for a bit, and then she’d deal with the mess of her life—and she’d do it the usual way. She’d go along to get along. She’d fawn, just as she had for years.
Her life would go back to what it was, and she’d like it. Because honest to God, anything was better than this pain cinching her chest.
As her eyelids drifted closed of their own volition and her breathing grew deeper, she promised herself that she’d find a way to make herself like the old Thea again.
She had to.
Chapter Thirty
The first thing Thea noticed was the constantthump-thump-thumpstarting in her head and reverberating through her body to the soles of her feet that were—
She wiggled toes. Yep, still in her shoes.
A dry-mouthed, achy-feeling sense of self-preservation kept her from opening her eyes as she got her bearings. She hadn’t made it to her bed last night. She must have fallen asleep in one of the chairs in her RV.
Giving her shoulders a tentative stretch, she realized that they rubbed not against the smooth leather of the RV seats but something hard, scratchy, and—she inhaled—piney-smelling.
Her eyes snapped open before she could finish the “what the fuck” going through her head.
At first, she was blasted with the bright morning light of the next day, but when she finally blinked out the overexposure, her gaze landed on a deer with her fawn eating grass by the river. They looked up and stared back at her, the doe with an amazing freeze that made her look like someone’s very detailed lawn statue and the fawn doing a close replication, but its attention flicked from Thea to another spot off to the side and back to Thea again. She didn’t blink; she wasn’t even sure that she breathed as she watched the deer in the early morning light. This was the kind of thing no one ever saw in Harbor City, and she was lost in the moment. “THHHHHEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
At the sound of someone yelling Thea’s name, the doe burst into action, sprinting toward the line of pine trees. The fawn stayed a few seconds later, watching Thea before following its mom into the woods.
Getting up gingerly, because the sky and the ground kept switching spots, Thea braced her hand against the tree and looked around the trunk. Jackie was standing at the top of a hill in what could only be described as full-on-Princess-Di-on-her-wedding-day cosplay. Her white dress had a voluminous skirt, and her sleeves were so full and puffy they were nearly chin height. Then, in a moment that seemed scripted for reality TV, a warm breeze swooped down from the mountains and sent Jackie’s skirt, long lace veil, and ginormous eighties-style hair flying gracefully in the wind. She would have looked like the picture-perfect (if dated) bride if it wasn’t for one thing—the look of absolute terror on her face.
But why—
And it hit Thea. Her stomach dropped down to her knees right as her toe knocked into the empty vodka bottle. She’d only meant to rest her eyes for a minute. Now her sister was pulling a runaway bride, except instead of looking for her freedom, she was searching for Thea.
The second she spotted Thea, she lifted her skirt and started into a sprint, running full speed right at her.
“Oh my God, Thea,” she said, wrapping her arms around her tight enough that her front ribs felt like they were going to touch her back ribs. “Everyone has been looking for you!” She pushed Thea back but held onto the tops of her shoulders and gave her a once-over. “Are you okay?”
Thea plucked the pine cone out of her rat’s nest of hair and tried her best to give her sister a reassuring smile, but any use of her facial muscles was still wonky at this point.
“My head feels like it got hit with a line drive,” Thea said, letting the prickly pine cone drop from her hand. “But other than that lovely little reminder not to try to drink an entire sample bottle of craft vodka in one night ever again, I’m fine.”
“You scared the shit out of me.” Jackie pulled her in for another hug. “When you went AWOL, we all dropped everything and started searching.”
A twig snapped behind her, and Thea caught sight of a camera behind one of the pine trees dotting the landscape. Everything came into focus at once, and Jackie’s full wedding getup made sense.
Take something real—like Thea dropping off the map for a few hours—and amp up the drama—she’s missing!—and give it can’t-look-away visual appeal—Jackie in all of her wedding glory. That was the reality TV formula for success. That little part of her that thought that maybe, just maybe, the concern she’d seen on her sister’s face was real fizzled, leaving her feeling more empty than she had been before. Which was a statement all its own.
Thea stepped back from the hug. “That must be great for the ratings.”
Jackie cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean?”
A huge part of Thea just wanted to slink back into her comfort zone, pretend she didn’t see what was really going on here. It would be easier. She could just fawn her way through this moment. Damn, it was tempting and the quick clip of her pulse had her skittering toward fawning, but she yanked herself to a mental stop. What she wanted wasn’t to just go along. She wanted everyone—but most especially her sister—to stop looking at her and seeing a doormat.
