Page 139 of Raven

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RAVEN

I can’t get Sonny’s tears out of my memory. It’s the first time he’s openly cried.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Fucking sorry. Every sorry breaks my heart as I push the door open and step out of the medical center.

I’m trying to light a cigarette, but my hands shake too much. I flick and flick and flick the lighter angrily until it works.

Deep inhale.

Deep exhale.

The smoke curls into the air. Blood pumps in my head.

My heartbeat finally starts slowing down. My mind is a sinkhole, swallowing all of me as the images of Sonny in the hospital bed with that monstrous IV in his little hand won’t stop spinning in my head, conjuring the awful scenarios of what could’ve happened.

Fuuuuck!

“Rave?”

The voice sends my heartbeat spiking again.

What is she going to tell me? That I failed? That I almost lost the kid?

Wouldn’t be the first time. Yes, that’s me. I fuck things up.

“What, Maddy?” I snap, though I asked her to come outside because it was too suffocating to be in the building where our little guy lies on a fucking hospital bed. Because of us.

Maybe it’s the first time she doesn’t hide her emotions, because they are all over her face.

“Do you have anything to say?” she asks.

I take a deep puff on the cigarette. “I don’t know what you want to hear, Maddy. That I fucked up? That I am a monster? That I made a sleazy deal? That I was messing with your life? That somehow, we dragged a kid into it? That it got so messed up that he almost became collateral damage?”

She stands still. Doesn’t cross her arms across her chest. Doesn’t roll her eyes. She doesn’t even look angry. Not anymore. She’s deceptively calm.

“I’m sorry it went so far that it hurt the little guy,” I say, sucking on the cigarette. “He doesn’t understand that sometimes broken things can’t just be glued together. Some things just don’t work together.”

“Deals and demands certainly don’t,” she says softly.

Oh, here we fucking go.

“You know what?” I feel angry. And it’s about time I spilled everything I think about that deal she hates so much. “I don’t feel sorry about the deal I made with you back then. Not at all.”

Her gaze hardens. There it is.

“You want me to beg for forgiveness?” I taunt. “I won’t. There’s nothing to forgive. You tricked me just like I tricked you. You want an apology? I’ll tell you what. I am not sorry for blackmailing you. No. Not a tiny bit. Because you would've never accepted me otherwise. I'm sorry you feel that way but not sorry for what I did. I learned that almost anything in this world can be traded and bargained for.”

“Not feelings, Rave. Not trust.”

“Oh, that’s a big word, Maddy. You see, I realized that I shouldn’t have trusted you all along. You, on the other hand, you knew you could trust me with whatever that deal meant to you. Feelings were never in the bargain, Maddy. They came later, or before, I'm not even sure. I don’t remember how I felt before you. You took up the world around me, and I can’t imagine it without you anymore. All I feel these days is you. Everywhere. Even when I'm on the other side of the island. Even when I smash someone’s face at Carnage.”

She winces. Yeah, the truth hurts.

I take a deep breath and continue.

“Just the fact that you exist makes it a little easier to breathe, Maddy. Because we are breathing the same air. Because now and then I get a chance to see you. Even if it’s just a glance. For someone who is used to surviving on barely anything, such little things are a blessing. So here, you have it. No, I will not apologize for that deal. I don’t regret it even a bit.”

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