I contemplate that for a moment before admitting, “No, but I only see that now. Your friends were superficial and didn’t understand grief and trauma the same way you understood it. They would look at you like they didn’t know what to do with you when they thought you weren’t watching. I think you caught some of those stares, though. Is that why you don’t talk to them anymore?”
She cocks her head. “What makes you think I don’t?”
I arch a brow, my lips twitching. She’s incapable of understanding just how well I know her, how long and intently I’ve studied her.
“Because I know what loneliness looks like.”
She glances away, tightening her lips into a firm line, involuntarily confirming what I already knew to be true.
“I also know when you love, you love hard,” I continue, removing my stare from her again. “Sable’s an example of that. And I don’t think you ever truly felt that way about those girls. They were convenient distractions away from the misery that was your life. But I would bet the moment you moved to Colorado and they went off to their separate schools, you all would send those obligatory ‘I miss you’ texts in your group chat that slowly became less and less frequent until one day, you never spoke again. I would even bet you still have that group chat on your phone all these years later because it serves as a reminder of how unlovable you feel you are.”
“Jesus,” she grumbles beneath her breath. “Did you spendall your free time psychoanalyzing me?”
A cool gust of wind rips through our hair, sending a chill down my spine. But I’m not ready to go inside yet.
I huff out a soft laugh. “It took me a long time to understand you, Rev, which is why I hated you for so long. I couldn’t make sense of your pain, so I didn’t. Truthfully, it’s because I didn’twantto. That would’ve meant empathizing with you, and I refused to even consider something like that. So, I convinced myself you were happy, because you could never be more miserable than me. And that was enough for me to resent you.”
Her focus returns to me, though I keep my eyes downcast. Now that much, I am ashamed of. Though it’s more than that, too. I suppose I’m also a little afraid to look up and see something written over her face I wish I could unsee.
She’s quiet for several moments, thinking whatever the hell she’s thinking. Maybe I could guess, but this time, I don’t want to. It wouldn’t change anything for either of us, anyway. There’s a chance I’ve only scared her more, but if she hasn’t learned by now that I’ll chase her to the ends of the earth, then I’m happy to teach her, one step at a time.
“Do you want to know the truth?” she asks.
No.
I nod.
But please don’t hurt me.
“I was numb,” she says tonelessly. “My mom would go through pretty severe waves of depressive episodes. I’d come home to my mom rocking herself in my dad’s recliner every day. Most days, she was catatonic, and she’d refuse to eat. There were times she soiled herself, and I’d have to drag her out of the chair to clean it up. Thankfully, it was a leather chair, but yeah, it was rough. Other days, she’d let me spoon-feed her and walk her to the bathroom. Sometimes, she’d be staring at pictures of him and wailing at the top of her lungs, like she did when she lost my brother. Other times, she was so fucking angry at me.”
I frown. “Because of your brother?”
“Yes, but also because I drew the angel wings tattooed behind Lionel’s ear, and if it weren’t for that, you would’ve never seen it and convinced the jury to send him to prison. It was my fault the only person she had left was me, and I was the last person she wanted.”
I clench my jaw, desperately wanting to resurrect that woman just to strangle her all over again. There’s a lot Rev and I can relate to, butthat… that’s one thing I can’t. My mom loved me and was so fucking good to me—both of my parents were, even if I don’t remember much of my dad. Reverie may have gotten more time with her mom, but that only added to her suffering. I would take eight years with an incredible mother over eighteen with a resentful one.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I assert. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispers, convincing neither of us.
“She had postpartum psychosis, yeah?” I ask gently. She nods sharply. “Did she continue to have symptoms afterward, or did the psychosis settle after she received treatment?”
Rev heaves out a heavy breath. “According to her doctor, her psychosis didn’t return after that initial episode with me. She had PTSD and depression, of course, but nothing beyond that. She just… resented me—always had. When she wasn’t in a depressive episode, she never acted that way with anyone else.” She huffs out a bitter laugh. “She treated the grocery store clerk more like a child than she did me. Smiles and soft-spoken to everyone else, but the second she looked at me, it was like watching the light dim from her eyes until she looked away again.”
I shake my head, my resentment for Regina amplifying until all I taste is ash on my tongue. It’s one thing not to be of sound mind from the hormones and grief and attempt to drown Rev. That was something far outside of her control. But it’s another to come out of that and, even with depression and PTSD, treat her child so hatefully. Regina was suffering, but it wasn’t an excuse for her to make Reverie suffer, too.
“I wish you had a mom like mine,” I say quietly. “That’s what you deserved, not the one you got. Or your father.”
She shrugs noncommittally, still not believing me. Someday, I’ll convince her.
I won’t stop until I do.
“That tattoo,” I say, having to force the words out past my gritted teeth. “I figured you drew it, and you said that’s what Lionel called you as a kid.”
She nods. “He said my mom tried to kill me because I was meant to be an angel. I didn’t understand what that truly meant back then, but it made me feel special. I drew him the angel wings and halo on his neck only a couple weeks before I saw Georgia. The night I walked in on him with her, he said Georgia was an angel, and if I told anyone, he’d makemy mom into one next and then do what Regina couldn’t and turn me into a real one, too. He got the tattoo of my drawing the following day. I still don’t know if it was meant to be a reminder to keep me in line or if he did it as some weird gesture to show he loved me enough to get my drawing tattooed. Either way, I stopped liking that nickname, but he never stopped calling me it.”
He’s fucking sick.
