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“Bet you all the pennies in your cheap little purse that I can make you drip cum on my face in less than ten seconds—before I even use my tongue or cock.”
“I wasn’t concerned about your sex life because you were a patient,”
“I’m concerned about it because I want to fuck your brains out until you lose the ability to walk straight. Unfortunately for me.”
I realized, with depressing clarity, that she wasn’t the venom at all. She was the antidote. But the quantities were all off.
Suicide is a war of two fears—fear of death and fear of the thing that pushes you toward it. The stronger side always wins. And if you lose, the penalty is death.
Once a year, for a stolen hour, I let myself be the venom. The toxin. The thing that poisoned her. But with one momentary lapse in selfishness, I pushed her away. I’ve regretted it every day since.
For the first time, I saw Kellan. The thing that made him breathe and bleed. Me.
Kellan saw the way I turned away from him as he spoke and assumed I didn’t want to hear him. That I was there for the thrill and not for the company.
But not great enough.
Dad gave Mom the drugs that killed her. He found her dead first. He left, knowing I would be the next to discover her.
“I don’t know what is happening to me,”
“I’m so fucking obsessed with you, V.”
I felt lighter now. Like some of my responsibility for her state of aloneness no longer existed.
When you hate someone, a piece of them is lodged in your heart. If you don’t let the hate go, you live with that person inside you forever.”
“I love you, Tate. And I’ll say it over and over again until you no longer feel guilty when you hear it.”
A real apology isn’t given with the intention of healing yourself. That’s just a side effect.”
“You’re breathing, Charlie. You are breathing, and it is beautiful, and I am so grateful for that.”
I wondered when Tate’s kisses had gone from stealing my breaths to giving them back.
“We either lionize or villainize the people who most impact our lives. There isn’t an in between. A gray area that allows for complexity. For accountability without cancelation. For healing without rage. The gray holds the truth, but we only see black and white.”
Tears are the language of grief. And grief is the language of love.
This will be the only time I admit I love my brother.
I don’t hate you, Tate. I might even like you a little. See you in the next life. Maybe we’ll actually be brothers in that one.
You’re it, Charlie. You’re the thing that keeps me going.”
“I love you, Charlotte Richards. I can’t promise you I’ll always be okay, but I can promise you I’ll always love you and I’ll never be ashamed to say it. Over the past five years, I lost myself in grief. But then I found the most precious thing in the world—you.”
I smiled against his lips, realizing today’s first. Being told I love you by someone I loved back.
it’s time to build good memories on top of the bad ones. It doesn’t mean we’re forgetting Kellan. It means we’re honoring him.”
He took me to the place I experienced one of the most traumatic things in my life and turned it into the most beautiful.
And I know Kellan loved me, too. He did, because he gave me the most wonderful gift before he died. He gave me Venom.
