Page 32 of Darling Venom
The cop replied.
A fellow officer joined her.
Their lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear them.
I looked past her.
I didn’t see him. He must’ve jumped from the other side. Where we used to sit every year.
I’m going to throw up.
“… so young, so sad. Still investigating.”
I could finally hear through the pounding in my head.
I wanted to scream. To rip my hair out.
I’d told him this was not a sure death, and he still took the chance.
He proved me wrong.
He won.
He lost.
He broke our contract.
I had, too, but only to save him.
I fell down on my knees.
My hands hit the concrete, and I felt something. I picked it up, squeezing it in my hand.
A penny.
He’d left me a gift.
His very own version of goodbye.
age twenty-two
“Charlotte, do me a favor.”
Reagan poked her head out of her glass office. She cradled her baby bump with pointy manicured fingers, her dress matching her flaming scarlet hair, courtesy of Manhattan’s finest hairdressers. Her hand always laid on her stomach.
I couldn’t blame her for being so protective. If I were a forty-two-year-old woman who’d spent the last decade trying to get pregnant and finally got my wish, I would live in a bubble until the babies popped.
I jerked my head up from the manuscript I’d selected from the slush pile a few minutes ago. I could use a distraction—any distraction—today.
A bright smile spread across my face. “Of course.”
Heart-shaped balloons and flowers filled the room, sent to my colleagues for Valentine’s Day. My cubicle sat closest to her office. The only one clean of any love declarations or romantic gestures.
I had my laptop, my pens and highlighters organized in two separate mugs, and my planner and Post-it notes stuck in neat, militant rows.
I was pretty sure whatever she was about to say had nothing to do with it being my birthday today. Nobody paid attention to my birthday. I’d learned to accept it, to a point where, when people mentioned it, I was taken aback.
“My ob-gyn is not picking up, and I need to see him later today. The line at the clinic is busy. He’s not answering his phone or email. It is so unlike him. Could you please drop in there and deliver my message personally? Thanks!”
