Page 15 of Poison Vows

3 promises that will make sure he and I will have a forever together!

Stunned, I read that last line again, but my thoughts are all a blur.

And then, there’s the last entry.

June 19

I want Emmett to pull me close and dance with me.

I hope one day he shows me his art that he keeps secret.

I want him to teach me something special, just between us.

I want him to hold my hand… always.

I want to be his first kiss and forever kiss.

I want him to hold me when it’s raining and read books with me by the fireplace.

I want him to give me flowers randomly, every day.

I want to go on walks with him and watch him cook for me while shirtless.

I want to experience the most magical things with him.

Because only he truly knows how to love me.

I really, really like him.

I’m going to tell him.

God, I pray that he loves me too…

A vigorously violent pain zaps across my chest and around my back, gripping tightly against the marrow of my bones.

I grip the diary, keeling over as pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life engulfs me in its flames.

For the first few lines, she’s detailing what she wants… but for the last one, she’s praying.

Praying for me to love her back.

In a daze, I grip the table, struggling to breathe.

“You read it all, right?” Spider’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the other side of a mountain. Slow, ancient, and cold. “Did you see it? Did you see the very concerning shift from major depression to sudden cheery optimism, hope, expectation, trust, and the complete devotion she has for you?”

An unbearable heaviness crushes down on top of me.

I stare down at the raw words cemented in ink and baptized by tears, and they sink into my bones.

“My sister clearly knows that your family cannot be trusted, and we should stay the fuck away, but she remains resolute in her trust in you!” Spider explodes. “Even when she couldn’t contact you or know anything about you and the other kids here, she still attached her optimism for life itself on you!”

The words are like a jaw-breaking punch.

“In the beginning, she wrote about her loneliness, which is my fault, but did you see how that quickly turned to that line where she confesses that she wants to die? Did you fucking see it?”

“Yes,” I croak after a few seconds of stilted silence.

“Ivy has struggled with seeing the value of her life for years. From knowing that she was abandoned as a baby, to witnessing Gramps dying the night he went to save her, to us leaving because your family attempted to kill her yet again… she thought her life is worthless and unwanted. But do you know what’s even more fucked up?” Spider’s voice is now low, broken. “I went to visit her a year ago to see how she was doing at the boarding school, and I happened to see that entry in her diary. I asked her if she really wanted to die. Guess what she said.”

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