Page 44 of Bitter Rival

He’s staring at the sunset, and I’m waiting for him to finish, but the knot in my stomach twists tighter and I’m barely breathing.

I have a bad feeling that I know where this story is headed.

“When I was fifteen, she overdosed on prescription painkillers,” he says finally.

I swallow hard and try to speak past the lump in my throat. “I’m?—”

He holds up his hand, cutting me off. “Don’t. Just don’t,” he says sharply. “You’ve already said those words and they’re useless anyway. They don’t change anything.”

He’s right. It’s true. But what other words are there other than I’m sorry?

I’m picturing a teenaged Beckett being shipped off to boarding school and coming home to find his mother in the depths of depression.

He must have felt so helpless. He couldn’t save her. Couldn’t make things better. But I know he would have tried. Because that’s who he was back then.

A natural caretaker who patched up my bruises and helped me take care of a bird with a broken wing.

When the bird died, he helped me bury it. And when I cried over that bird’s grave, he told me that the bird had soared up to heaven and was flying above the clouds now.

That boy deserved the world.

“Are you okay?” I ask. It’s a stupid question. Even worse than telling him I’m sorry. But I feel the urge to comfort him somehow. To let him know that he’s not alone. “Do you need a hug?”

He gives me a look that clearly conveys he’d rather get stung by a scorpion than be hugged by me. “It was a long time ago, Daisy.”

Even though it was a long time ago, there’s so much repressed sadness in him that I wonder if he ever took the time to grieve.

“But there you go,” he says. “Now you know the story and can’t claim ignorance. And no, I don’t need a fucking hug.”

“Not much of a hugger, huh?”

With a shake of his head and a loud sigh, he turns on his heel and strides away.

God. This guy. He’s so closed off. His walls are high. An entire fortress protecting him.

When was the last time he gave or received any affection? I think he could have used that hug.

When the door closes behind him, I sink down onto the top step and stare blankly at the arbor of mature oaks flanking the driveway.

The first time my mother and I drove up that lane, I thought this was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen.

“It’s a palace!” I shouted from the back seat.

My mom laughed. “And you’re going to be the princess of this palace one day soon.”

I was so excited my stomach was doing cartwheels. “I am?”

“Play your cards right, baby, and this will all be ours.”

When my mother rang the doorbell, she held my hand and told me to look sad. I thought it was a game, so I played along.

The door swung open, and Beckett’s mom stood on the threshold. I remember that her hair was dark like Beckett’s and that she was beautiful and kind, the benevolent witch to my mother’s wicked one.

She welcomed us with a smile and offered us a place to live, completely unaware that my mother was going to ruin her life.

I had no idea what was going on at the time. Astrid never confided in me. She preferred to keep me in the dark and paint the picture the way she wanted it to appear. She always left out the finer details. Namely, the role she played in destroying people’s lives.

So I didn’t fully comprehend the extent of the damage until just now when Beckett told me his mother died of an overdose.

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