Page 23 of Darling Venom
Mark was on the rowing team. Big, burly, widely popular. He looked as if he’d stomped his way straight out of those one-dimensional teen shows where everyone talked like they were thirty.
Mark’s dad worked as a morning show presenter and shared a decade-long beef with mine. He’d invited Dad to his show to promote a new book ten years ago.
It flopped, as all the others did before The Imperfections, but that wasn’t the point. In fact, Dad got one line of promo out before they moved onto politics, and things escalated from there.
In a nutshell, James MacGowan was the most traditional, uptight person on planet Earth, and my father was just a few slip-ups shy of being a complete anarchist.
Nasty words were exchanged, followed by a headline about how paparazzi caught Terrence Marchetti sneaking into a hotel with James MacGowan’s wife—Mark’s mom.
My guess was Mark wanted to sleep with Charlotte for the same reason my dad had slept with Mrs. MacGowan.
Revenge.
But I knew where to pick my battles.
Charlotte wasn’t one of the girls who snuck after hours into my room and watched in wonder as I rubbed them off and ma
de them come. She was smart and well-read and hot in a reserved way.
Neither Mark nor I could have a chick like that.
If anything, Mark ruining her for me would save me the stupid hope she’d pumped into me in small doses every time she left me a book or a note.
All in all, a bulletproof plan.
Now I saw through all the holes in it. How much of an idiot I’d been to believe it would work.
The minute I stumbled down from the roof, I reminded myself that I didn’t, in fact, care. Charlotte had never been a part of my plan.
There was no plan.
There had been—offing myself—but now that was a bust, thanks to Dicks.
Even though I missed the last train home for another half hour, I walked in the opposite direction from the subway. I couldn’t chance bumping into her. Not after chickening out on our kiss.
I didn’t regret not kissing her. I felt irrational resentment toward her for fooling around with MacGowan. Any girl willing to touch the jerk ought to be a waste of time.
Yeah. Right.
Keep telling yourself that.
Manhattan was ugly and dirty and rich and a total mystery to me, just like Charlotte. I got why I was lucky to grow up here. This city was as complex as a person—full of contradictions.
I collapsed against a gray stone monument.
A ruined kiss with Charlotte Richards was not even in the top twenty worst things that happened to me this year.
To name a few:
Dad hit a writer’s block and fell behind on his deadline. Again. His publishing house is threatening to sue him. Also again.
I got fired from the fanzine I worked for because I punched an intern in the face for saying Dad plagiarized The Imperfections. Okay, maybe it was also ’cause I slept with the editor-in-chief’s girlfriend.
Tate no longer allowed me one-on-one visitations with Dad. Now he got to play bad cop all the way. He supervises us when we meet.
Mark and I graduated from fistfights to trying to kill each other. Last month, he tried to push me onto the rails while I waited for the train. No one was there. We fought it out, and I broke his rib.
I didn’t return home, aware it would drive Tate mad not to know where I was. Hannah was probably telling him to send me to military school right about now. She’d been trying to get me out of the picture.
