Page 163 of Toxic Temptation
The guilt hits fresh and sharp. “Waylen, I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t be sorry.” He reaches over and grabs my hand. “Just be here now. That’s all Mom wants. That’s all any of us want.”
I look at the house where I learned to ride a bike and had my first kiss and found out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Dad shingled that roof himself the summer our cat died. The summer Waylen fell in love with Daphne Prescott and carved their initials in the old buckeye tree, the tree where we buried our dog Scout right beneath their declaration of forever.
“I see him everywhere here,” I whisper. “At the hospital, he was Dr. Fairfax. He was larger than life. Untouchable. But here… Here, he was just Dad. Here, he was mortal.”
Waylen nods. “That’s the thing about loving someone. They become human. Breakable. And that’s terrifying when you’ve already lost too much.”
I close my eyes and think about Kovan’s blood on my hands. My whole world tilted when I thought about the simple concept that one day, he might die.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit.
Waylen doesn’t have to ask who I’m talking about. “Love him, you mean?”
“Love him and survive losing him.”
“Maybe that’s not your choice to make.”
I look at my brother—really look at him. Whendidhe get so wise? When did the boy who used to put gum in my hair become the thoughtful man giving me life advice?
“What if I’m not strong enough? Not strong enough for his world, the violence, the constant fear that every day might be the last.”
He bobs a shoulder. “What if you are?”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You sound like Dad.”
“Good. He was usually right about the important stuff.”
“Not about the liver.”
“Maybe even about the liver,” he suggests.
I want to argue, but I’m tired of fighting ghosts. Tired of running from the living because I’m afraid of losing them, too.
After a long, pensive quiet, Waylen asks, “Ready?”
Truthfully, I’m not. I’m nowhere near ready to walk into that house full of memories. I’m not ready to face Mom and pretend everything’s fine. I’m not ready to stop hiding from the people I love most.
But maybe that’s the point. Maybe you’re never ready for the things that matter.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Ready.”
I’m not, of course. There’s no such thing as “ready” for something like this. But as we walk toward the front door, I think maybe it’s time to stop running.
Maybe it’s time to be brave enough to stay.
57
VESPER
“Vesper’s fucking a gangster.”
Coffee explodes from my mouth, painting my mother’s pristine white blouse with brown droplets. My brother sits there cackling like a fucking hyena while I scramble for napkins, my face burning with mortification.
“I’m so, so, so sorry,” I gasp, thrusting a napkin toward Mom.
She dabs at the coffee spots with impossible calm. “For the coffee bath or the gangster fucking?”
