Page 261 of Darling Venom
“Maybe,” I said to shut him up.
I still had no intention of subjecting myself to that mental torture on top of my daily overdose.
He eyed the chip in front of me, opening and closing his mouth.
Finally, he spoke. “I’ve been seeing things clearer lately. The past, mostly.” He ran a palm along his jaw. “It’s long overdue.”
“See anything good?”
“Yeah.”
I stilled.
Held my breath.
Waited for him to continue.
“Some of it was good. But most of it…” He shook his head. “It’s too late. The shit we can’t change changes us. I’ve fought it as long as I could, but this is a cage I deserve to be in. A prison of my own making.”
I saw it for what it was.
The real reason he was sober.
He considered it punishment for his sins. Hearing this didn’t make me happy like I thought it would.
Fuck.
I finally realized what I was waiting for. It wasn’t to hate him more. Or to give him my permission to die.
It was much, much worse.
I wanted him to live. To forget about my feelings and exist without misery. To relieve me of the burden of dragging another life down with me.
Terry stood, gathered his coat over the crook of his elbow, and pushed his chair in. Civilized behavior. So unlike him.
It was hard to reconcile the man in front of me with the one who showed up on my front step, drunk and drugged, with a sullen Kellan in tow.
“Wait.” I latched onto the chip, turned it over in my hand so the two side faced up, and offered it to Terry.
He shook his head. “It’s yours. I’ll keep the next.”
The next.
He planned on staying sober.
And for the first time, I believed him.
“Don’t live,” I told him once his hand hit the handle to my front door, his back still to me, “to give me something to hate. Live for yourself.”
One of us needed to.
I stood in the empty elevator, fixed on the books stacked in my arms. Reagan had gifted me three hardcover copies of Darling Venom early, printing them herself with Helen’s permission.
One for me.
One for Terry.
One for Tate.
