Page 57 of Darling Venom
I shouldn’t feel jealous.
I shouldn’t.
But I did.
I found a wrapped box and a note by the door when I got back to the apartment building. The note hung from the parcel, kissed by black fingerprints.
Unlike Tate, I couldn’t refrain from reading private things, especially when they were in plain sight.
I unlocked the door, carrying the box with me.
The note read:
Leah,
Can I take you out this weekend? There’s somewhere special I want to bring you.
Jonah.
Slipping the box under my arm, I made my way to Leah’s bedroom and knocked on her door. Light poured from the crack under it, so I knew she was still awake.
I always trod carefully when I approached her. Like I had the ability to make her burst into flames if I said or did the wrong thing.
“Leah.” I cleared my throat, hating how unnatural I felt around my own sister. “Open up.”
She answered after a moment, wrapped in her satin white house robe, her hair knotted in a towel. “What’s up?”
“Look.” I hovered just outside her room and handed her the box and note. She didn’t take it, her eyes bouncing from me to the box. “It’s from Jonah.”
“Yeah.” She huffed, playing tough. “I saw when I got home.”
“You did?” I faltered. “Why didn’t you bring it in?”
The expression on her face didn’t change. It remained blank and resilient and apathetic, like someone who had come to terms with her own existence but didn’t plan on actually doing any living.
She hadn’t taken it in because that would mean making a decision. I knew my sister. A part of Leah wanted to go out with him, but a bigger part worried that he’d done this because he pitied her.
Or because she’d become some elaborate joke to him.
Or maybe the most vicious blow of all—that he’d asked her as a friend.
“Leah…”
She shook her head. “Leave it, Charlotte. Okay?”
She shut
her door just as a text message came through my phone.
Jonah: I saw you take the gift. Well?
Me: :/
I tore the box open with my fingernails. He’d gifted Leah a beautiful teapot, complete with a set of two matching floral teacups.
A red label stamped the top corner of the box:
Cracked.
