Page 80 of A Love Like Venom

After all that Grace has done for me and proven how loyal she is as a friend I listened to my broken heart and decided to trust her.

God knows I need someone in my life who I can confide in.

With her nurturing ways and heart on her sleeve I know that Gracie Mae will never do anything to harm me.

It feels good, cathartic even, to have someone to talk to when you have kept everything bottled up inside.

Since we grew up in the same shitty crime ridden town there is no one else who could possibly understand.

"I wish I could go back in time and chop his dick off," she murmurs more to herself than to me.

"Grace," I say her name in warning.

With wide eyes she looks at me innocently. "What? I didn't say anything but the truth. As for your sister if I ever see her the bitch better start running because I swear to god, I am going to kill her."

She says it so causally it has me gawking at her. Never in the time that I have known her have I heard her talk this way.

"You're serious, aren't you?" I ask more shocked than anything.

"Alice, we all grew up here it would be naive to think that this town hasn't affected us. We all have a darkness inside us we just only show it to who we are most comfortable with. And for Snake, that was you." She brings our conversation back on track with a dose of wise mentality.

I swallow before briefly looking away. "I know but that still doesn't answer my question."

"On why he would doubt you?"

"Yeah."

Humming thoughtfully, she then says, "You're majoring in psychology so you have to look at it without your emotions attached. Do you think you can do that?"

"I don't know if I can," I answer honestly.

Giving me a sympathetic smile, she replies, "I understand but you have to try. You have to try and see it from his point of view even if it hurts you doing so." I nod my head and then she continues, "Have you ever had someone call you something your entire life or believed deep down in your soul that you are?"

Absorbing her words like a sponge I take them in consideration.

My whole life I was told how worthless I was. How no one would ever be able to love me because I wasn't enough. I heard it from my mother since the day I was born. Then I heard it from my sister since the day she turned ten.

For awhile I did believe it.

That I wasn't enough. That I would never be deserving of love.

Then Reed Carter came along and showed me otherwise.

With him I felt cared for. Protected. Even loved.

When he chose Caitlin over me, I felt betrayed and hurt. The old feelings of not being enough resurfacing.

"Yeah, I have," I whisper.

"And was he the only person to make you feel differently?" She then asks me.

I nod my head, emotions clogging my throat. "He was." Reed Carter was the only person in my life who made the reality better than a dream.

"And surely when he chose Caitlin you had to have felt betrayed, hurt. The old feelings coming back," she tells me.

"I did but I never walked away from him," I argue.

"Because somewhere deep down inside you knew what everyone was telling you was a lie. But for him he always thought it was the truth. Being with you made him think that he was better, but it never took that feeling of being a monster away."

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