Page 128 of Tempting Venom
Obviously, I broke the promise, but listen,technically, I didn’t take the meds unsupervised. Technically, I hinted to Dr. Duret that I would need a crutch today. You know, to deal with a certain anniversary I loathe with everything in me.
“How about finding loved ones, Preston?” she blabbered. “Like Jude? Kane? Your father?”
Jude, nah. He’s dealing with his own shit, looking like the walking dead lately, and I’m not a kid.
Kane is unavailable and busy chasing Delaware in another state. Dude even missed a game, which is a real blasphemy that should be recorded in history books.
As for Dad, I’d rather choke on my own vomit than let him see me like this.
He already thinks I’m the most failing failure to have ever failed, and I’m not confirming his theories. Thank you very much.
He’s been calling me nonstop since this morning and has probably sent Lenin to drag my ass back, but they can’t find me here.
At the top of the cliff.
I’m parked so close to the edge, I can feel the wind rocking the car as I take a sip from the bottle of my beloved Jack Daniels.
Because Jude is right, I’m not completely numbed out—at least, not yet—and alcohol helps dull that grating noise scraping at the edges of my brain.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
On and on, it mimics the ruthless howl of the wind in the dark emptiness.
It’s like a song stuck in my head, but it’s harsh and wrong, and I can’t get rid of it no matter how much I douse my throat with alcohol.
I pull out a lighter from my pocket. It’s glittery black and has the initialsV.D.A.engraved in a silver color that shines under the soft light of the car.
Valérie D. Armstrong.
My entire childhood, I watched Mom use this lighter to smoke her dainty cigarettes. She said it was a gift from Dad before he threw her away.
“You were one bitter woman, Ma.” I scoff, my voice sounding like it’s coming from underwater. “Till the very end, you never admitted that you and Dad just didn’t work out.”
She was a French socialite who loved a luxurious lifestyle and fine wine. He was…well,Dad. Never smiled as much as her, never loved life as much as she did. Never sang spontaneously around the house.
Probably never loved money as much either. Power, yes. Money, no. It doesn’t matter to him, not really.
He was born in it; she wasn’t. I later found out that she fought her way to the top after escaping an abusive childhood in France that she never talked about.
Mom was beautiful, having bestowed me with her ethereal looks. After the divorce, she found countless men at her doorstep, all ready to gift her with her luxurious lifestyle.
But no matter what she had, it was never…enough.
Dad gave her a mansion for us to live in as well as a generous alimony. Mom said he didn’t give us even zero-point-five percent of his fortune and that he just didn’t love us enough, because he wanted to get rid of us and start a new family.
The men who came into her life after my dad never measured up to him in wealth or power, and although she got whatever she wanted from them, she wasn’t satisfied. I had to hear about it as she drowned herself in her favorite bottle of wine.
They weren’t rich enough. They weren’t generous enough. Just notenough.
Even if she’d gone back to Dad—whom she hatedbecause he was the only man who told her no—she would’ve been dissatisfied with him after a while.
It was the reason for their divorce in the first place. She kept pushing him for more, nagging and starting fights on the regular. She’d shout the house down in her drunken episodes, waking me up from sleep.
I used to watch from the corner of the stairs as their endless fights dragged on and on.
