Page 269 of Darling Venom
The light switch was far, and I was too exhausted to cross my bedroom and flip it off. I was so sick of struggling to breathe, so I lay on my back.
Kellan’s words glared at me from their perch above, but Charlie’s words were the ones that haunted me.
It is a privilege to have parting gifts from someone you love after a sudden death. For there to be something to latch onto each time you miss him.
The fire left her with nothing of her parents.
As for the parents of the stillborn child I’d delivered this evening, they would never know the sound of his cries.
Never see him take his first steps.
Never feel the anxiety of sending him off on his first day of school.
Charlie was right.
Kellan’s words were a privilege.
I stared at the poster above me.
And this time, I read.
It’s time to talk about my brother.
I hate my brother in the way you hate milk growing up, knowing it’s good for you yet unable to stomach the taste.
In other words, I hate my brother for the wrong reasons.
That Asshole gave me hope. In a weird, fucked-up way, I thrived on his control-freak manner of handling me.
I’m no psychologist, but if I had to self-diagnose, I’d say I have a heavy dose of mommy issues that Big (and Overbearing) Brother Dearest managed to cook into something palatable and serve in the flowery dishware his Martha Stewart-wannabe fiancée bought from Williams Fucking Sonoma. With a heaping side of hope and the warm and fuzzies.
He was still That Asshole to me.
Always would be.
But in the same way you’d call your best friend a dipshit for doing dipshit things.
This will be the only time I admit I love my brother. So, savor it, folks. It’s all you’re gonna get.
Now that we got that out of the way, here’s why I hate That Asshole…
The passage ended there.
With an ellipsis.
Three tiny dots that might as well be a taunt.
I shifted on my side, coming face-to-face with Darling Venom. On my nightstand. Exactly where Charlie had set it.
The pages teased me, shielded by the thick cover. I wanted to open it, devour it, discover everything else Kellan had written about me.
The good.
The bad.
The ugly.
I wanted it all.
