Page 91 of Darling Venom
“He never mentioned it.”
And this was my cue to extract myself from the room. There was nowhere to go here but south if this conversation continued.
“I don’t know him very well, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to discuss his personal life.” I planted a palm on the door handle, slowly backing up. “Speaking of dysfunctional family dynamics, I have a domestic thriller I’m dying to get back to.”
Reagan dismissed me with a wave. I half-sprinted to my desk and sat, staring at the book resting against my keyboard. With its dark cover and tiny, typewritten font.
The Imperfections.
Holy shit.
An actual signed copy.
I flipped the front flap open, brushed my fingertips along Terry’s signature, and turned to the dedication page, reading it for the millionth time.
To my son, without whom there would be no words.
I had no doubt which son Terry was referring to.
And that made me sad for Tate.
But I knew what having this book meant. What Tate had said when he bailed on me at the party. What he’d told me the first day we’d met.
I don’t want anything to do with you after tomorrow
Looks like he got tired of waiting for his wish to be fulfilled. Now, one less thread connected me to him.
I didn’t have Tate’s number, so I wrote him a letter. A long one. Stuck it in an envelope. Scribbled the address on it. Pasted a navy Chien-Shiung Wu stamp on the upper right corner.
Then I slid it to the far edge of my desk to be shredded later.
Never to be read again.
I had a guilt complex.
Not one I’d been born with, but one that developed after The Night Of.
Now I couldn’t have things others didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was because I felt like I didn’t deserve them or if I thought I’d get struck down by lightning as the universe’s way of evening the balance.
Either way, I felt very uncomfortable in this moment, with Leah eyeballing my signed copy of The Imperfections every now and then. It sat on our kitchen island, awaiting the delivery of the shadow box I’d purchased online last week.
A rerun of The Nanny blared in the background. Neither of us paid attention to it. Leah held a beauty magazine in her hands, flipping the pages without reading them.
The question sat on the tip of her tongue. She didn’t need to verbalize it for me to hear it.
Where did you get it?
Leah didn’t love books like I did.
She just happened to love this one.
Because everyone with a functioning brain knew about The Imperfections. It was The Corrections meets Parasite. Satirical commentary about the decline of the nuclear family. It hit home every time I read it, reminding me of before.
Before the fire.
Before Kellan.
Before life pushed me onto that roof, ready to end it all.
