Page 14 of Darling Venom
“One, don’t talk to me publicly. Like, ever. Trust me, it’s for your own good. Two, this pact is from freshman to senior years. Once we turn eighteen, we no longer need to babysit one another.” He dropped an invisible microphone, signaling that he’d finished.
I knew he was doing this for me, for my reputation, my chances of surviving this school. It made me want to cry. I wanted to fight to be his friend—his real friend—but I didn’t want to push him too much, either.
“Agreed.”
Kellan got up. He offered me his hand. We shook on it, me from the shingles where I sat and him standing.
He pulled me up. I felt dizzy and disoriented. He tugged me deeper to the roof, away from the edge, then stuffed On the Road into his backpack, slinging it over one shoulder.
“You’re bleeding.” He jerked his chin toward my wrist. I looked down, not surprised to learn that I was. “You should probably get a tetanus shot for that.”
“I’m afraid of needles.” I realized how ironic my words were.
He did, too, because he filled the chilly night with hoarse laughter. “Your funeral.”
“Funny stuff.”
“Until next time, Charlotte Richards.”
He took a small, regal bow, turned around, and strolled away, leaving me to stand there, my blood dripping down my thigh.
Did I just save this guy’s life?
Or did he save mine?
age fifteen
I arrived on the roof famished.
Leah had been dodging my ass for days. She went straight from work to her evening classes to become an aesthetician and slept on the trains in-between.
I’d wanted to get something from the Dollar Tree on my way here, but I’d spent all my money on books this week.
Better to feed my soul than my body.
Five minutes past eleven, and I wondered what made me think he would show up. True to our pact, we hadn’t spoken to each other all year. I’d seen him every day at St. Paul, barring summer break.
He’d gotten a lip piercing. Dyed his hair platinum. And he was pretty much the star of fistfights around the hallways.
Kellan now wore kilts and ripped women’s pantyhose to school. I’d heard from Cressida and Kylie that he wrote short thrillers for online fanzines and took E and Oxy.
I pretended not to care.
I did care.
But I had my own social problems to worry about. Namely, how I’d turned from Charlotte Richards to Lots of Dicks (Lottie Dicks) overnight after I’d pointed out in Sex Ed that it’s unfair to expect women to have fewer sexual partners than men do.
Everyone had laughed.
Everyone other than Kellan.
His bloodshot eyes zoned in on his phone as he sat in the back row, pretending he wasn’t there. He was getting scarily good at not being in places that he was physically in.
My suicidal thoughts had gotten less frequent.
Or maybe just more manageable.
There were moments when life overwhelmed me, and it was hard to breathe. When the guilt became too much. When my classmates, my sister, life became too much.
