Page 37 of Touch of Hate

I was so sure he would show up here. That he would never abandon me, not when he cares about me like he does. Or maybe he never cared about me at all. Maybe that’s why he fought so hard for so long to get me to stop wanting him. He looked at his options and decided sparing my feelings was better than flat-out telling me he thought I was hideous.

Then why did he take the risk of coming to you on your birthday?

I hate questions like this because they bring me hope. I need to get rid of my hope. I need to get rid of him entirely until there’s nothing left to remind me of who I thought he was. What I thought we’d have together.

It’s ironic, then, the idea of going to Corium since there will be reminders of him everywhere I turn. That’s where he tried to kill my brother—if he and my father are to be believed.

Maybe this is as good a time as any to start believing it, too. I might finally begin hardening my heart once and for all. So when I walk the halls where I was once so happy and full of hope, my heart racing as I sneaked around our home and Corium with the promise of a few minutes with him, I won’t freeze up in misery. It won’t be so difficult to look back on how naive I was. How foolish.

Ren tried to kill Quinton.

Ren never cared about me.

If he had, he wouldn’t have pushed my brother down the stairs.

Ren is not coming for me, now or ever.

I have to keep telling myself these things. I have to get control of my life and my heart, or I’ll end up constantly leaving myself open to mistakes like the one I made at the party. So mixed up, I had myself believing Ren… I can’t even let myself think about it anymore. It’s too shameful.

I lift my chin, blinking back the tears filling my eyes before reaching for a handful of items still hanging in the closet. No, I am not going to shed another tear over him.

I’m going to start living my life for me, which means admitting the past two semesters spent living as a so-called normal person outside my family’s world has left me dissatisfied. There I was, figuring I wanted a normal life, but then again, what is normal? It’s entirely relative.

And for the Rossi family, a normal life means following in the family’s footsteps.

I am a Rossi, for better or worse.

I work fast, pushing everything else aside in favor of focusing on the task at hand. Though no matter how quickly I pack, Tessa’s warning rings in the back of my head. I can’t outrun it any more than I can outrun my pain.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Wherever I go, I’ll still have to fight against the memories, knowing I’ll never have him again.

10

SCARLET

It’s almost funny. I’ve been home not even three days, and once again, there’s a ‘big talk’ hanging over my head. Except this time, I’m not dreading an unhappy response, far from it.

If anything, I’m dreading having to put on a happy face. I know what’s coming, and I know everyone will expect me to fall in line with their smiles and praise and such.

I’ve been faking happiness since I got home.

In other words, I’m exhausted. Body and soul.

Yet somehow, I manage to sound normal when I tap my knuckles on the doorframe of my father’s study. He’s at his desk, as always, deep in the process of typing furiously on his keyboard. I might think he was angry if I didn’t know that’s the way he types all the time.

“Dad? Do you have a minute?”

His head snaps up, his expression troubled. I’m used to seeing him this way, caught in the middle of a thought, his mind a million miles away. I can’t begin to understand what it takes to run the sort of organization he does. I’ve heard it referred to as an empire—and while I don’t know the ins and outs per se, both because I’ve tried to keep myself out of it and because sexism is alive and well—I know it must be enormous, considering the hours he puts in.

In our world, the line between business and the rest of life is blurred, even nonexistent. There is no separating the two.

It’s a relief when, after a beat, his expression softens a little. “Of course, I have a minute for you. Five minutes, in fact.”

He doesn’t often try to be funny, so I have to show appreciation when he does. It’s hard to remember how much I was looking forward to getting out on my own and starting a so-called normal life at MIT when I walk through the familiar room my father uses as his study. There’s something to be said for the therapeutic comforts of home. Everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be, where it’s been all this time. Even when I wasn’t here, the world kept turning without me.

He leans back in his chair, lifting an eyebrow when I take a seat with my hands folded in my lap. “Do me one favor,” he murmurs before I begin. “Tell me you’re not throwing your life away on some useless boy from Boston.”

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