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“So do I. My point is made.” I started to move when she grabbed me by the arm and then crawled on top of me, straddling me completely. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll regret this.”

My heart sank. “Me? You’ll regret me?”

“No, I worded that wrong. What I’m saying is that I know you aren’t getting anything out of this, and while I can’t move on because it feels like betrayal, I can at least give you a wedding night, right? I can do this for us. And then we just live as really good roommates.”

“I take it back, you’re scarier than me, I don’t like this story at all.” I started to move away from her, lifting her body off me. “I’m not a pity fuck, Raven.”

Her face fell. “I didn’t mean?—”

“Come to me.” I sat up and rubbed my hands down my face. “Come to me when the ghost of him is gone, when nothing stands between us but skin, when we’re emotionally bankrupt and completely stripped of everything that makes us human,when it’s just us against the world. Come to me then. Not now, when it’s convenient, when I’m convenient. I may be a monster, I may be a De Lange, but one thing I have left is a tiny ounce of pride. Let me keep it, Raven. God, let me keep it.”

I left.

I grabbed a pillow and the bottle of whiskey and went to the balcony to cool off.

She didn’t see how weak I was.

Or that my hands shook.

Or that she’d hurt me in unimaginable ways. How could she know that my ex’s very last action was to tie me up and take advantage of me only to say I would have been no different than the same De Lange whores we used to sell on the market.

Just as tarnished.

A means to an end.

A body to use.

A soul that was lost long ago.

If Raven was lost in her grief, then I was lost in my inability to gain back what had been taken from me and the shame that went with it.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Choose not to feel.

And if you must, pick rage, it hurts so much less than love.

20

“The One where you hate who you’ve become and you choose it anyway.”

Raven

“He’s good with kids.”Serena was sitting next to me at my dad’s house. We were supposed to be opening wedding gifts then heading back to campus, but my dad decided it would be more fun to not just open gifts but also throw a random cornhole tournament.

Any excuse to play games without violence, though most of their tame games ended up with bets, bullets, and bruises.

I watched Ace grab Spiderman and spin him around, at this point since they were all in super hero costumes it was just easier to call them by their hero names.

“Oh shit, Thor’s throwing a fit.” Serena stood. “Thor, sit your ass down and give the hammer back to Batman. you know how pissed he gets when you take shit out of his hands!”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Boss Baby started screaming.

I frowned. “Since when is Boss Baby a hero?”

Serena slowly craned her neck in my direction. “I swear if you ask that around any of my children I will set you on fire and make S’mores.”