Page 65 of Darling Venom
“Charlie!”
She didn’t stop, but I knew it was her. I’d already eaten a good portion of the distance between us—she was not a great runner—and she flinched when I shouted her name.
“Goddammit, Charlie. Stop.”
The rain pounded harder, weighing her down. The fact that I’d been the star of the track team through high school and college didn’t help her odds, either. She rounded the corner. I grabbed the hem of her sweater and jerked her to my chest, spinning her around.
I didn’t hug her to comfort her.
I trapped her in my arms because I didn’t want her to fling herself into the street and get run over in her effort to avoid me.
And I hugged her because I was tired of running. After Kellan. After normalcy.
Running out of time and happiness and hope.
Running away from myself.
I cupped the back of her head and brought her close to me.
Her sobs wreaked havoc through her body, her shoulders quaking with each cry that ripped through her mouth. Her hot tears mixed with the cold rain on my shoulder, and the clothes on our bodies stuck, gluing us together. Her coat still dangled from the edge of my fingers, kissing the ground.
We stood in the rain for I don’t know how long. I normally had a good grasp of time, but this was so far from the realm of my normal, it could’ve been a minute or an hour. She was falling apart in my arms, and I knew I was the bastard who’d made this happen.
She was right. I hadn’t asked her anything about herself, even though, in all probability, what had brought Charlie and Kellan together was the fact that they were both stuck in adolescent hell and only had one another for company.
“I just wanted him to be happy.” Her words bled into my chest. “I swear, I tried.”
I dug my fingers into her skull but didn’t say a word.
After Kellan had died, I’d tried to get over it. It wasn’t an intentional decision, to become this bitter and fucked-up. Support groups depressed me, and volunteering with troubled kids just reminded me how inept I’d been at raising my own brother.
Everywhere I went, empathy had the synthetic taste of fakeness. Like icing on a cake—too sweet, too colorful, too perfect.
Charlie was the only person I’d met since Kellan died who grieved ugly. With leg ticks and a dirty conscience and sloppy meltdowns. She was real, and vulnerable, and consumed by whatever had happened to her.
At some point, her quaking became full-on shaking. I knew she was freezing. I walked and cornered her until her back pressed against a building. A balcony above shielded us, so at least we weren’t whiplashed by the rain anymore.
“I’ll call you a cab.”
She snagged her coat from my hand, looking away from me. “Thank you.”
“I believe you when you say you weren’t together.”
Not really.
That made her head snap in my direction.
She didn’t look happy or relieved to hear that. “Whatever, Tate.”
I ordered a cab on my phone, then tucked the device into my back pocket. “What’s with the penny?”
“My sister used to throw a penny my way and say, ‘a penny for your thoughts’ whenever I was down. It kind of stuck with me. Every time I feel bad, I play with a penny. I got Kellan into it, too. I think he liked it. We had this rule where, whenever I threw him a penny, he had to confide in me. It was practical.”
I stared at her.
She was pretty when wet. Nose and cheeks peppered with freckles. Big full lips.
I wondered why Kellan hadn’t made a move on her. Sixteen-year-o
