Page 2 of The Bitterness of Venom

“Bullshit. You can always run to me. Anything that has to do with you, has to do with me.”

My breath catches in my throat as I look over to him, his dark hair hiding his honey eyes from me.

Desmond is beautiful with his dark chocolate hair that never seems tamed. Dark honey eyes holding something alittle off in them. As if he, too, has seen demons that he can’t get rid of. His nose is that of an aristocrat, a tad crooked from school fights and hockey injuries. And for a fifteen-year-old, his lean muscles and defined stomach is something the girls at school can’t stop whispering about. He has a single freckle above the right side of his lip. A beauty mark, I think they call it. Either way, he is dark temptation wrapped in several shades of black, just waiting to be unraveled.

The whole school thinks he’s beautiful, but where they see beauty, I see his soul.

“Can’t you see how much I care about you, Freckles?” He pushes my hair from my face.

“Why?” I search his face. Not understanding.

“Because I like you, Blaise.”

“That’s a horrible thing.”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “well, doesn’t change how I feel.” And then he kisses my busted lips. It’s an inexperienced kiss, a little awkward, but it still makes my toes curl and butterflies soar in my stomach. And we kiss until our eyes grow heavy, our lips chapped.

I sneakout early the next day, not wanting to face the regret he would feel. The shame it would cause me. I don’t run to my house. I don’t even want to go back, but I know logically I need to. But before I reach the chain-link fence by my house, a woman in a business suit stops me. “Blaise?”

I’m hesitant to answer because of what happened here last night, but I nod my head anyway. “I’m Stacey from child protective services. I need you to come with me.”

If I had known that’d be the last time I’d see Desmond, I would have never left his bed.

ONE

Present

I love romance.

I love to read it, watch it, and even fantasize about it. I think it started when I was little. All great Disney films were based on love.Cinderellabeing my personal favorite. It was like romance was crammed down my throat before I could even talk.

But the thing about romance is, it’s fake.

Imagine my surprise when I began dating and there wasno Prince Charming to sweep into my home and put a glass slipper on my foot after one night of dancing. No, it was more like unwanted dick pictures and‘this isn’t serious’excuses.

Romance is dead and I feel as if I have died with it.

I blow my bubble gum, making sure it pops extra loud so the sneering lady next to me on the train gets irritated. If she’s going to sit there and judge me for my pink hair and nose ring, I am going to prove her right by being a nuisance.

Anyway, love.

Fake. Dead. Overrated.

I wish I can tell the happy couple two seats over, too busy sucking each other’s face, that but I try to be positive, even if I feel anything but. Just because my view on love is warped, it doesn’t mean I should go around shitting on everyone else’s parade.

I feel the brakes of the train as it begins to slow down. I look out the window, smiling at the thought of my new adventure. Sure, the town isn’t huge, and it looks like something from a picture-perfect movie, but I didn’t work my ass off to get into the prestigious college of Hutton University for nothing.

I grab my suitcases from the overhead bin, pulling them behind me as I make my way out of the train station. The first thing I notice is a giant clock on the tallest building in this small town. A bell hangs from the top and I narrow my eyes at it. These things still exist? I mean, obviously they do because I’m looking at one, but are they even still in use? Isn’t that to call people to church and dismiss them? I tilt my head. That’s something I’ll need to look up.

I’m curious by nature.

Like a cat.

Small, curious, and violent.

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I head to the line of people getting on a local bus. It smells of exhaust and is theshade of an ugly green. Fine, it is actually a normal green, but I don’t particularly care for the color. But the bus is free, so there is that.

It’s the small things in life.

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