Page 71 of Darling Venom
I dropped a copy of The Witching Hour on my toe, but I couldn’t even feel the pain. “Wanna bet?”
“Sure.”
“When I was thirteen, almost fourteen, I found my sister’s pack of cigarettes in her room. It was nighttime. My parents were asleep. My sister was out. She went to NYU and was at an off-campus party. She was riding a full scholarship, just like I did at St. Paul and in college. Leah was gorgeous and funny and crazy smart. Total catch. Her boyfriend Phil foamed at the mouth every time someone so much as spoke to her. He talked about marriage three months after they started dating. Anyway, she was so amazing—I mean, she is still so amazing—that all I really wanted to do was be like her. So…”
I took a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t know why it still felt like the first time every time I talked about it.
Over eight years had passed.
“You lit the cigarette,” Tate whispered.
He was absent of reaction, which was, perhaps, the best reaction he could give me.
I could feel his gaze on the top of my head. I swore my hair moved as his eyes dragged down from my crown to my face. I didn’t know why, but his eyes on me were reassuring. Like a blanket.
“Yeah.” I rocked my right leg back and forth, thinking, Leah, Leah, Leah. “To be honest, smoking turned out to be gross. I coughed a lot. I put the cigarette out after three puffs. At least, I thought I did. I threw it in her trash after I was done. Little did I know, that night Leah had finally done the cleanup my mom had been bugging her to do for weeks. She threw everything flammable in the trash, Tate. Dry nail polish. Half-empty hand sanitizer bottles. Nail varnish remover. I would’ve been better off throwing that half-lit cigarette into a bucket of gasoline.”
Tate took a deep breath but said nothing. I saw him watching my jumpy leg. I couldn’t bring myself to stop. He sat down in front of me, even though we had six more books he needed to hand me for a cleanup.
“I went back to my room and fell asleep. The next thing I remember is coughing and waking up to a temperature that didn’t make any sense for December. I looked around, and the crack under my bedroom door was lit in orange. Smoke crawled from the other side. It was unbearably hot. I couldn’t breathe. Mom and Dad’s room was farther down the hall, so if I was feeling like I was burning alive, they were…” I sucked in a breath.
My eyes remained pinned on my ankle boots.
I couldn’t meet his gaze.
Surprisingly, I didn’t cry. I’d been forced to recite what had happened that night so many times—to the police, insurance company, firefighters, relatives, curious neighbors—that I’d learned how to tell the story as if I hadn’t even been there. Like it was a Grimm Brothers tale.
But with Tate, it felt different.
I felt raw and exposed.
I was frightened of what he’d think about me once I finished.
It was bad enough that I’d committed to keeping all those other things from him. The kiss I’d shared with Kellan. The suicidal thoughts I’d known consumed his brother.
Here’s a life lesson I’d never wanted to learn. Our secrets are nothing but a string of memories we wish to forget.
Tate placed his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to continue.”
I clasped his hand in mine. It was warm, rough, calloused, male. Perfect.
“What about the babies?”
Tate rubbed at his eyebrow. “We have good nurses and a few more doctors who can deliver them if I lose my mind.”
I took a deep breath.
I needed to finish this story.
For him.
For me.
“Leah arrived minutes before the firefighters and the police got there. I think, in a sense, I knew the fire was my fault as soon as I woke up. When I jerked my door open, the handle was so hot it left an imprint on my palm. All I saw was fire on the other end of that hall, and I knew my parents were gone. Maybe it was just my imagination, or maybe it’s something I added to my memory in retrospect, but I swear I smelled raw, burning meat. You know, like at a barbecue shop. The smell of peeled, burnt skin and hair set on fire.”
Tate closed his eyes and pressed his lips in a hard line. “Charlie.”
My fingers curled into fists.
