Angry God (All Saints High, #3)

by L.J. Shen

It’s like putting a little hat on a hamster. Cute, but useless.”

Sometimes, on bad nights, I was tempted to tell my parents what had happened to me. They were decent parents, even my dipshit self had to admit. But ultimately, it boiled down to this: no one could take my pain away. No one.

“What do you mean?” “You soften me.” “Why?” “Because I don’t want to fucking kill you! You’re too fun to fuck with. Now Get. The. Hell. Down.”

“Your mother, for lack of diplomatic wording, is a drug smuggler.”

“Maybe I’m asexual,” he said dispassionately.

I finished off by pissing all over said bed and laptop, in case he was bad at taking hints.

“Every painful goodbye starts with a wonderful hello.”

“Precisely.” I scoffed. “Why would I put myself in a vulnerable position?” She held my gaze, her voice turning serious. “Because I asked you to.”

“I am hell bound, and you are heaven sent. You’re the first girl I ever looked at and thought…I want to kiss her. I want to own her. I wanted you to look at me the way you look at your fantasy book—with a mixture of awe, anticipation, and warmth. I gave you a brownie, hoping you’d remember me sweetly, praying the sugar rush would spin a positive feel around that vacation. I remember how you looked at me when you saw me killing jellyfish. I never wanted you to look at me like that ever again.”

Harry Fairhurst was right about one prophecy, though. I was a bit of a Tutankhamun. At nineteen, I no longer had a beating heart. I wore a death mask everywhere I went, and I was thirsty for revenge.

“I figured it all out, son. I’m sorry. I’m so. Fucking. Sorry.” His voice broke midway, and he turned his face away, his jaw clenching like mine did. His throat bobbed.

My son was not a heartless prince, placid and beautiful and lifeless. He was misunderstood, wild, and alive. And he had a mother—a very angry one at that. One Harry Fairhurst should not have crossed.

“Any last words?” “I…” he started. “Kidding. I don’t give a fuck.”

I picked her up and took her home. My trophy. My girl. My heart. My everything.

The first time I saw you, you were reading a book, your back pressed against the fountain. It was an impactful moment in my life. Not because you were pretty (although you were very pretty, but also very young—I don’t think we liked each other the way we do today), but because I vividly remember being appalled by the cover. It was a fantasy book. As such, the cover was full of colors, silhouettes, and faces. The composition was all wrong. I remember looking at it and scowling. It offended me on a personal level. I think that was the moment I realized I wanted to create symmetric, beautiful things. The moment I found out I was going to be an artist, like my mom. Then I looked up and saw your face, and again, it wasn’t symmetric (I hope you don’t mind). Your eyes were huge, the rest of you small, which gave you an almost infant look. Your nose was sharp, your lips thin. Your blonde hair twisted in curls that were not perfect or carefully brushed. Yet, somehow, you were more

beautiful than any beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my entire life. I would later stumble across a line from Edgar Allan Poe that made sense of it all—he said there’s no superb beauty without some sort of strangeness in the proportions. That explained why I had to talk to you, even though it wasn’t in my nature to speak to someone when completely unprovoked. I approached you, casting a shadow over your face, blocking the sun. I remember the moment you looked up and stared at me, because once you held my gaze, I couldn’t look away. It wasn’t a good or exciting feeling. It was terrifying. I gave you a brownie because I needed to do something. But when it came down to eating my part of it, I couldn’t do it. I was too nervous to eat. From that day forward, I wouldn’t eat much in front of people in general. I always wondered where you were, if we’d meet again, and as crazy as it sounds, it always felt like we might. You never came. Until you did.

Until you showed up at my school senior year. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised when you didn’t move with Poppy and Edgar. I took it as a personal offense. Was I not good enough? Were you disgusted with me? By me? You were pure, beautiful, talented, and carefully tucked in your own rich world of art, books, and music. I was torn, miles away, in a rich beach town I hated, a kid who’d seen and felt way more than he should have. A part of me wanted our worlds to collide so I could burst yours and tear it to ...

You stirred me to savagery at a time when nothing could move me at all. You must understand, Len, that hate is nature’s most flawless drive. It is infinitely renewable, reusable, and fuels people far better than love. Think about the number of wars that s...

We were an unfinished business, personal and always walking the tightrope between love and hate. But we were always something, Len. We will always be something. You might move on and marry someone else, have his children and get your happily ever after, but you will never be completely done with me. And that’s the small chunk of mirth I allow myself. That’s my half of the brownie.

You are that girl. My safe place. My asymmetric happiness. My Edgar Allan Poe poem. You are my Smiths, and my favorite fantasy book, my brownie, and summer vacations in lush places. There will never be anyone else like you. And that’s exactly why you deserve someone better than me. Love, Vaughn

“I started working on this statue before we were together. I started it before we’d even kissed. Before Jason. Before Arabella. Before everything, there was you,” he whispered into my hair. “You came before art. Before life. Definitely before hate.”

“I’ve always loved you in my own fucked-up, destructive way.”

“You saw what I wanted you to see. I think I always had this idea that you should be my savior, but naturally, the stubborn ass that I am, I didn’t understand it. Now I do. I want you to save me today, and tomorrow, and in a month, and in a year, and in a decade. Save me. Give me your best and your worst and everything in between. I’ve always watched my dad loving my mom and thought he was stuck in a state of insanity. But he wasn’t. Turns out, love really can be that fucking intense.”