Unloved: A Novel (The Undone)

“I look ridiculous,” I say quietly, biting down on my lip as I turn slowly side to side in the mirror.

“Let me see.” Sadie’s voice chirps from the video call she’s currently on, though I’ve pointed the camera to the ceiling while I change.

Even at the height of Sadie’s party-girl phase, before Rhys Koteskiy’s appearance in her life, Sadie had always spent Halloween alone with her brothers. All holidays, really, despite my continual offers to accompany her, plan a party, or even to take her back home to California with me.

“Ta-dah,” I mutter, propping the phone up against the mirror and stepping back awkwardly for her to see the whole thing. On my phone screen, Liam flips Sadie’s Wookiee onesie hoodie up—the same costume she wears every year and will continue to don as long as Liam is Star Wars obsessed.

“Hot,” she says. Her intense gray eyes are hard not to shrink from for most people, but Sadie is my best friend. I only find comfort in the icy cold of her gaze.

“The game was good,” I prompt her, checking the red ribbons tied into my long pigtail braids. “Rhys played amazingly.”

She rolls her eyes, but I see the slight tinge of worry in her gaze. “He seemed okay?”

Sadie asks this particular question a lot, and though she won’t tell me everything, she’s confided that he took a really nasty hit on the ice last spring, and sometimes she gets anxious about him skating—specifically if she can’t be there to watch him.

I told her that it was cute how she fretted over him. She faked a grimace and pretended to throw up, but her smile was bright underneath it all.

“He was incredible. Bennett had a shutout.”

“Look at you,” Sadie coos. “Learning all the lingo.”

I giggle a little, relaxing as I balance on one leg to roll up the white stockings to my midthigh. Accompanied by the blue-checkered puff-sleeve dress I’ve owned for years and never figured out how to style, I look like the perfect blend of sweet and sexy.

For the first time in a long time, I feel hot, and I feel like me.

“You sure you’re good to go by yourself?” she asks. Sadie may be the queen of attitude and seeming not to care, but she cares a lot. I know if I told her that I wasn’t okay by myself, she’d call someone to get me or spend her birthday with me instead of her brothers. I’d never take that from her.

“Yeah, I’m gonna Uber. It’s only, like, a five-minute ride. By the way, happy birth—”

“Don’t say it,” she growls. “Or I’m hanging up on you.” Her eyes dart over both shoulders, before she hunkers down farther on her couch and pulls the phone closer. “So, you gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Freddy?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly, but stumble over the word slightly as an image of him flashes in my mind’s eye: heaving breath and whispering praise into my ear as I—

Heat shoots up the back of neck.

“We’re friends.” I clear my throat. “And I’m still his school-assigned tutor until the end of this semester. He’s just… he’s flirty.”

And touchy, I want to add—but I know the conclusions she’ll draw, the connotation behind the words. And it isn’t how I mean them.

Freddy is warmth and sunlight, shining and shimmering across ocean-blue water. The kind you want to bask in. His gaze is like heat on my skin. And he’s always reaching out to touch some part of me—physically affectionate in a way that has nothing to do with attraction.noveldrama

He’s the same way with his friends and teammates—a pat on the back or squeeze of a shoulder, tight hugs and body slams after goals, helmet to helmet as he cheers with them. His need for touch even platonically is easy to see, but it’s even easier to imagine him casually intimate with someone he did find attractive, maybe a girlfriend.

A hand on the thigh while driving, kneading circles into skin. Holding hands, always, fidgeting with her fingers on the tabletop as they chat. Or under the table, before slipping up my skirt and pressing into me, until I can’t hold back my—

“Ro?”

I shake my head, trying for the thousandth time to somehow remove the mental image of Matt Fredderic against his bedroom door, freshly bitten lips and shirt rucked up by me, before it destroys every brain cell I have left.

“Yeah?”

“Have fun tonight.” Sadie’s gaze is piercing, like her words are more threat than suggestion. “Or else.”

“Anything else, my ice queen?” I mockingly bow.

“Yeah.” She smiles. “You should use my lipstick. It’s on the bathroom counter.”

RO

I’m here!

I text Freddy as I walk up through the open door. The party is in full swing by the time I get there, stepping into the overcrowded thumping living room space, dancers plastered to each other and the walls on all sides.

It’s overwhelming for a second, and when I don’t see Freddy or get a text back, I start for the bathrooms, needing a quick breather.

The door is locked, marked with a sheet of paper that says “Chicks.” I lean against the wall where it’s a little quieter, looking out to the patio and bonfire going in the distance, a group of guys and girls laughing and chatting.

The sliding door opens a little roughly before two bodies stumble through. The girl is dressed as Poison Ivy with green tights and a green corset, vibrant red hair, and—

Paloma Blake.

Paloma Blake with red hair and reddened eyes storming into the house with someone massive on her heels. She enters the vacant bathroom with a crude sign that says “Dicks” and slams the door shut.

The other newcomer in my quiet hallway space doesn’t say anything, only leans against the opposite wall. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me because he’s wearing a Ghostface mask, a lazy choice, as shown by the simple jeans and half-buttoned nearly translucent button-down that’s soaking wet and sticking to his skin.

He undoes the remaining buttons and pulls it from his tan skin, and I almost swallow my tongue. Muscles on muscles, amber in the light from the single standing lamp that screams “boy dorm decor.”

The mask comes off next, and I realize it’s the guy who hit Tyler—Toren Kane.

After our run-in and hearing him announced at the home game, I looked him up. He’s as terrifying as I thought, somehow worse in person. And the Ghostface costume doesn’t help that image.

He’s covered in tattoos, and I can’t stop my eyes from scanning them slowly, realizing that I recognize quite a few.

Starry Night wrapped half around his torso. Bedroom in Arles on one bicep. A unique design that seems to mix Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait with the sunflower vase on one arm. Almond Blossom twining down the other, nearly reaching his fingertips. He’s covered in Van Gogh’s work.

And not just famous pieces, but more unknown ones—

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, but surrounded by blends of landscapes and pastorals I can only assume are based on the famed artist’s work. All done in grays and blacks, but still recognizable without the color.

He’s caught me staring now, and embarrassment stings my cheeks as I stutter, “Big fan of Van Gogh?”

My question has his entire body tensing before he eyes me a little strangely.

“Excuse me?”

My mouth goes dry, neck damp with sweat at the intensity of his eyes. Molten gold. Furious, a match waiting to be set alight.

“You—your tattoos. There’s, like, an entire collection of Van Gogh.”

His eyebrows shoot up.

Maybe no one has asked before. Maybe they’ve only recognized Starry Night and the sunflowers but didn’t bother to realize he’s made a shrine to the artwork on his skin.

“Yeah. I… like his work.”

His right hand raises to his bicep, fingertips dancing along the inked skin there absentmindedly. I narrow my gaze to where, between the perfect sleeve of Van Gogh paintings and sketches, there is a cluster of lilies. In fact, there are several bunches, scattered between different images all over his body.

“I didn’t know Van Gogh painted lilies.”

Whatever I’ve said shuts his entire body down, like pressing an off switch. Muted fury flutters across his face before he shudders, letting out a heavy breath and nods to me.

“If you click your heels three times, do you think you’ll end up in your dorm or Fredderic’s bed?” he says with a snarky smirk before grabbing his mask and sliding it back on, gripping his shirt in the other hand and storming out.