Page 210 of Darling Venom
And not a favorable one.
“I always thought it was old,” I added, rotating the middle finger, so it flipped me off and not the vagina.
“Christie shopped at designer thrift shops. She blew through her money pretty fast.” He tapped his nose, indicating he meant it literally. “Since she retired from modeling after Kel’s birth and I… Well, at that point, The Imperfections hadn’t released, and my advances topped out in the five-grand range.”
Christie Bowman, otherwise known as the greatest fashion icon in modern history, a former swimsuit model, and Kellan’s mom, cared for him throughout his childhood.
Until she overdosed.
In the most chilling passage of Darling Venom, Kellan describes finding his mother dead, covered in blood and white powder. Followed by the days that came after, which he spent alone.
His father, nowhere to be found.
His mother, dead.
His brother, someone he refused to lean on.
“I had no idea. I would’ve given it back if I’d known.”
“He knew you had it.”
“How do you figure?”
“Were you wearing a jacket that day?”
I tried to remember. “I don’t think so.”
“He left his jacket on purpose. He wanted you to have it,” Terry said it with conviction, and though it was pure conjecture, it made me feel fuzzy inside, replaced by a sharp jolt to the heart. He stacked the notes. “Do you think we can finish in time?”
We wanted to release on Valentine’s Day, preferably the next one, which marked the fifth anniversary of Kellan’s death. A super tight turnaround, but I’d slipped it into the contract, and Helen agreed, given the context.
I’d come here to tell Terry that I
’d officially sold the rights of Darling Venom to Helen and the Big Five company she worked for.
But I held back.
The pressure seemed to mount on his shoulders each time we spoke. I didn’t want him to topple over from the weight. At least until we finished this round of edits.
Instead, I slipped him a packet. “I know we can. These are the last two chapters. He didn’t write an epilogue. Told me he doesn’t believe in them.”
“He’s the opposite of me.”
“The Imperfections doesn’t have an epilogue,” I pointed out. “Maybe you’re more alike than you think.”
“Or maybe that’s why people liked it.”
As opposed to the other books.
He didn’t say it, but I saw the words in his eyes.
The sight triggered a distant memory of his backlist. The one full of stories readers hated. For all his pessimistic, woe-is-me, doom-upon-us-all Terry-ness, his other books finished with neat conclusions.
But The Imperfections didn’t get an ending wrapped in a red satin bow.
People liked that it stayed messy.
That life stayed messy.
