Page 90 of The Initial Insult

“But they don’t mix well with drinking.” It’s his turn to finish my sentence. “Or with that other shit you do,” he adds.

“I do lots of shit,” I say. And it’s true. I’m a shitty person.

“So maybe cut it out,” Hugh says, an edge in his tone he’s not used with me before. One that cuts, sharp, like the smell of my urine, only just beginning to fade as a few cold, fat drops of rain start to fall.

“I don’t want to,” I tell him, taking him by the hand and leading him back toward Gretchen’s and the sounds of the party; shrill screeches as the rain starts to fall in earnest and the occasional yap of William Wilson, her seriously stressed-out poodle.

And Felicity Turnado doesn’t have to stop, doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. That’s the truth. There’s a deeper truth, though. The why of it. A truth that I keep to myself, bound deep and dark, surfacing out of my mind in the still moments before sleep, crawling up, climbing out, finding light, whispering to me in the night.

Because if I stop drinking and drop the pills, if I take better care of myself and let good people love me and give my own love to those who deserve it, I’ll have everything that Tress Montor doesn’t. And I don’t deserve that.

Because I’m the reason she has nothing.

Chapter 3

Cat

My cousins come in the night,

Feline paws pattering

in the cool.

Piling onto my back, we give,

each to the other,

Warmth and memories—

both carried in blood.

They settle on me, curl against my belly,

our soft clicks

And rough tongues, filling the night.

They wish for what I have,

Food—roof—clean coat—fresh water.

I want what they are.

Achingly thin. Slip under the fence

A young one rolls, sleep making her reckless.

Slides down my pelt,

Pooling near my mouth.

Another feline’s bones in my teeth would be bitter.

So instead I lick, a mat

Separates under my will, like the rabbits who crack open

when they wander too close.