Page 177 of Beautiful Venom
I wipe her tears again. “I’m here. Talk to me.”
“I…” Her voice breaks with a sniffle.
“What is it?”
She smiles through the tears and shakes her head. Dahlia always said I have high walls, but hers are equally high. She only recently started to act without putting her guard up around me.
But right now, I sense those walls building, growing thicker, and pushing me out.
She stands up and forces me to lower my hands.
Dahlia wipes her face with her sleeves. “It’s stupid, really. I just thought of Vi.”
I get up as well and watch her closely, but her face stays impassive, keeping her thoughts locked away.
She walks out to where she keeps her stuff, her shoulders hunched and her back crowded with tension.
I follow, my temper barely tucked away. “Out of the blue?”
“It’s not really out of the blue.” She opens her locker and starts throwing things into a tote bag. “I’ve known it for a long time, but I refused to face it. It’s been over three months since the attack. Every day she spends in a coma lowers her chances of ever waking up again. Her mental activity is diminishing, and the doctor basically told me to give up hope and stop getting excited whenever her fingers twitch. It’s involuntary. It’s reflexive. It means nothing. I should lower my expectations. Just now, I had the very scary but realistic thought that I might never…have a conversation with my sister again.”
I lean against the wall, my index finger twitching as tears gather in her eyes and she wipes them with the back of her hand.
This is the only time in my life I regret not having the ability to console others.
I doubt my and Jude’s method of kicking and hitting Preston while offering him food and meds is considered consolation for normal people.
“Sorry for being all gloomy on your victory night.” She smiles as she faces me. “I’ll make it up to you by being a cheerleader online.”
“That’s not important. Do you want to go see your sister?”
She shakes her head.
“How about food? I can cook you something. Maybe your favorite pasta?”
Another shake.
Fuck. Food is the only soft thing I know how to do correctly.
“Then what do you want, Dahlia? Unless you tell me, I don’t know.”
She grabs my sides beneath my jacket, her nails sinking into my T-shirt. When she looks up at me, her features soften and a shine flashes through. “I want to have fish.”
“Fish?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t think we’ll find any at this hour.”
“Not here. In Maine.”
“Maine?”
“Yup.”
“Maine is more than a six-hour drive.”
She sulks. “Is that a no?”
