Page 126 of Lovely Venom

By the weekend, she’s restless, and she exerts that energy into extra workouts and deep cleaning her house. Then Sunday arrives, and as I predicted, she returns in a huff after running errands.

“Did you pay my rent for an entire year?”

“Yes.” I don’t bother to glance up at her.

“You need to cancel that check,” she demands.

“No.”

“Cristian, you can’t just go around paying my bills.”

“It’s already done.”

A tense silence settles over the room as she waits for me to look at her, but I don’t. It’s obvious she wants this to be a bigger fight than it is, but she doesn’t know how to keep arguing about it. So in the end, she pads down the hall and slams her door.

I smile for the first time in a week.

24

CHANTEL

“You’ll never guess who came to see me this weekend.” Tiffany fluffs up her hair behind me, using my mirror as I touch up my makeup.

“I’m not interested in hearing about your conquests,” I tell her, the words snappier than I intend them.

I’ve been in a shit mood all week, and I don’t even know why. But being around Cristian, or more accurately—being ignored by him—feels like torture.

“Well, in that case I guess it’s good you don’t care,” Tiffany claps back. “Since it was your not-boyfriend.”

I freeze with the lipstick halfway to my mouth, and she smirks.

“Thought you didn’t care,” she says in a syrupy sweet voice.

“I don’t.” The words scrape up my throat.

Nothing has ever felt like more of a lie. In fact, it feels like someone just punched all the air from my lungs.

Pressure throbs behind my eyes as her mouth curves into her signature I-just-got-fucked smile.

“I guess I must have really left an impression on him,” she says. “Anyway, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. All I can say is that he’s welcome to pay me a visit anytime.”

She saunters off, so content with herself I feel nauseous. My initial thought is that she must be lying because Cristian wouldn’t do that. Then I remember how stupid it is for me to believe otherwise.

This is the reason I don’t do relationships. In the end, people will always disappoint you.

Except this doesn’t feel like disappointment. It feels like the same stomach-churning, god-awful hurt I experienced the first time I learned what betrayal was.

It doesn’t make sense, because what Cristian and I have shouldn’t feel so significant. But maybe it would be easier to dismiss if I hadn’t felt such a connection with him under the veil of anonymity. We had something that was hard to define—something so real it scared me.

Now I can’t help wondering if it was a lie.

After crawling out of that pit of despair, I tell myself I should be glad it happened now. It’s one of many reasons why we never would have worked out.

Usually, I can default to numbness. It’s how I’ve survived. But as I finish getting ready to go on stage, I’m not numb.

I’m hollow.

Regardless, I carry on with the show, because what choice do I have?