Present
WATCHING HIM WATCH HER WAS like repeatedly stabbing myself in the gut with a dull, rusty blade. It was a harrowing reminder that he was never really mine. No matter how much I risked, regardless of all the wrongs I committed to make things right for us, his heart always belonged to her. I was nothing more than a pitiful whore for breaking the two of them apart.
If I hadn’t made such a big deal of getting Eden here to help him with his addiction, I would have raided his stash right there and then and shot up with something to numb my mind. Numb. I needed to be numb. How else was I supposed to sit here as he eye-fucked the one and only love of his life while scratching his skin raw?
No one had said a word since we all entered the house. My eyes sharpened on Lennox as I watched his every move. His eyes perused Eden’s body as if deciding whether she was really here or merely a drug-induced hallucination. Eden kept her eyes closed, her fingers rubbing her temples, stress and disgust written all over her face.
The awkward silence lasted far too long for my liking so I broke it when I couldn’t take him drooling over her for one more second. “Babe,” I purposely used the term of endearment with an exaggerated whine. “Why don’t you go upstairs and—”
“Yeah. Uh . . . Good idea,” he interrupted me, standing from his seat at the table and walking up the staircase. I was thankful for the disruption, not only to break the quiet, but because I had no idea how to vocalize what I knew Lennox needed to do to survive this situation.
Get high.
He read my mind—or did what came naturally—and disappeared to medicate himself as he occasionally liked to refer to it. My sister and I were left alone in the living room that harbored a variety of memories. Some good, but mostly bad, ugly, disturbing. I tried as hard as I might not to dwell on the past, but let’s face it, my present wasn’t any prettier.
Take my living arrangements, for example. I shared this shitty place with a junkie and a drunk. It wasn’t by choice; it was necessity that drove me here when I found myself stuck between begging my father for shelter or succumbing to life on the streets. Homelessness almost appealed more than dealing with William again, but I swallowed my pride for Lennox’s sake. Daddy balked at first, making me feel like the lowest of scum for needing him. But it turned out that offering to mind after the house, cook a few meals, and serve as his punching bag from time to time was a small price to pay for a rickety roof over our heads. Crawling back to my father—a man who hated my very existence—because my options were depleted was not part of my game plan. Then again, I never actually did have a game plan. Poaching a fallen hero from my own flesh and blood was not part of the plan. Falling in love with him was not part of the plan. Squandering my life on another waste of life was not part of the plan. None of anything I envisioned for myself when I was sitting pretty in Rittenhouse Square. What I wouldn’t give to go back and do it all differently.
“Say something, would you?” Eden’s voice cracked when she spoke, startling me out of my haze.
I huffed and reached for another cigarette. “What’s there to say?” It was a flippant, stupid remark. There were a million things to say, but I didn’t know where to start. I’m sorry, Eden. That’s where I should’ve begun.
“Why am I here? What do you expect me to do? Haul him off to rehab with my bare hands? I’m not exactly the right person for this job, Violet. There has to be someone else.”
That was the thing. There was no one else, but I was open to suggestions. My well of knowledge was bone fucking dry. “Like who?” I smarted.
She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her honey-swirled eyes narrowed and ready to make accusations. “Well, for starters, I see you’re living here with William.”
“Is that a joke?” I interrupted with an obnoxious laugh. I couldn’t help it if I tried, even though there wasn’t an ounce of levity in this situation. “You’ve obviously forgotten who he is.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I haven’t. But you sure have. Living under his roof again—this morbid, decrepit space—and playing happy family. How the hell did this happen, Violet? Why would you ever come back here?”
The true, snarky bitch that lived inside me would have answered with a wisecrack, but the desperate, washed up mess answered instead. “Because we had nowhere else to go.”
There was no pity, not even a splash of understanding in her tone. “What about all his money? His parents? You had to have options other than William and me!”
“It’s all gone, Eden. They’re gone, too. They don’t want anything to do with us. They haven’t since—” It was too much to bring up, too hard to relive. Not only for me, but especially for my sister.
“Nice,” she smarted. “A real fucking mess.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“No!” She was out of her seat now, coming closer, venom in her eyes. “Tell me what I don’t know! How did it get this bad? You love him, no? How could you let someone you love do this to himself?”
And there it was. She was right. As always, one million percent right versus my two million percent wrong. I was as much to blame for this mess as Lennox was for becoming a slave to his addiction. This was my fault, but I couldn’t admit that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So instead, I pointed that blame elsewhere so it would leave me the fuck alone and stop haunting me for one damn second. “You loved him too, remember? How could you let this happen? How could you leave? You walked out, left us for dead and went on with your life as if we didn’t exist. Did you ever think about that?”
I saw it coming and didn’t even try to deflect it. Her hand hit my face with an angry slap of skin on skin, and the burn that followed brought tears to the corners of my eyes. I cupped my cheek to quell the pain and blinked to stop the tears from shedding. But my stomach lurched, churning with disgust and reminding me that I could still feel. My innate emotions were not dead the way I imagined them to be long ago. No, they were alive and kicking, and these physical and internal reactions to my sister’s hatred was as crippling as admitting I was at fault for the mess my and Lennox’s lives had become.
Present
EVERYONE HAS THEIR BREAKING POINT. I passed mine years ago at the sight of my sister in the arms of my boyfriend, high off his mind, his lips dancing around her skin the way they used to dance around mine. That was my low. Unfortunately, many other lows followed, resulting in the loss of the two people I loved most in the world and then turning that love into pure hatred for what they did to me. Moving on and starting over when so much of who I was was no longer a part of me. Spending countless nights alone in a city that was foreign to me, crying myself to sleep and begging my mind to forget.
Yeah, I struggled through many lows, during both my childhood and adult years, but hearing my sister spew poison at me just to make herself feel better—I wouldn’t allow that to be another. I had to fight back.
I hated to admit it felt good when my palm connected with her cheek. The sound was gratifying, and the shock on her face even more rewarding. I held back from smirking, from enjoying how it felt to see her hurt. There was even a brief moment when I wished I could bottle up my retaliation mixed with her humiliation and wear it like a perfume of victory. But I wasn’t that broken. I was here, wasn’t I?
I summoned inner strength and swallowed the urge to say things that would break her for good. I had to set some ground rules if she expected me to stick around for this shit show; otherwise, I’d abort this mission without looking back. “I’ll only say this once and I expect you to listen so you don’t make the same mistake again.” I spoke through gritted teeth, my hands in fists at my sides. “If you say something like that again, I’m out. Done. I will not allow you to blame me for your mistakes and the mess you’ve made. I was a good sister. I tried to help you time and time again. And Lennox—” I stumbled to a stop. For some reason, saying his name this time pricked my heart and stung the back of my throat. I had loved him. How dare she dangle that in front of me as if it were in question. I gave him everything and he threw it away. They threw it away. “This is not my fault. You get it? You understand?”
Violet nodded, her hand still cupping the spot where I slapped her.
“Say it, then,” I demanded.
“I understand.”
It wasn’t enough. “No. Say it’s not my fault. I want to hear it from your mouth. I want you to know it so it never crosses your mind again.”
Defiance glistened in her glassy eyes, but it was quickly snuffed out by submission. Game over. “It’s not your fault, Eden. It never was.”