Page 141 of Sweet Venom

I really,reallyshouldn’t have.

Going to the game was already out of my comfort zone, but then again, I was the one who asked her if she still had that extra ticket and if I could join.

Not sure why I did it in the first place.

Well, I do. I wanted to see Jude play. Against my better judgment, I’ve been getting curious about him lately and wanted to learn more about his past and what made him who he is.

And hockey is a big part of who he is.

I could tell the sport held a special place in his life. Not only because of the violence but because when I watched him, it felt like it was the only time he could be free and be himself.

That knowledge made my chest hurt.

According to Dahlia, Jude—and Kane and Preston—had a very tough upbringing and have huge legacies to uphold, so they can’t be themselves.

They couldn’t even when they were young.

In reality, my chest shouldn’t hurt for Jude. Even if he’s the best fuck I’ve ever had, even if he often tells me thesethings that make me reconsider everything I took for granted about intimacy.

It doesn’t change the fact that he was my stalker and the man who was bent on killing me.

But I seem to completely gloss over those tiny facts whenever I’m with him.

It’s wrong and strange that I feel safe around him and that I leave him little notes in my journal because he religiously reads them.

The breach of privacy should be appalling, but for someone like me who struggles to communicate my needs, it’s been a blessing.

Still, despite everything that’s been going on, I shouldn’t have come to the game or been kind of…mesmerized by him. His power, his control, the way he commands the ice. Even his bursts of violence didn’t frighten me.

Not sure when I stopped being scared of Jude, but it just kind of happened, and now, I’m more in awe of his brute strength, even if I’m still slightly apprehensive.

The game and my confusing feelings aside, I should’ve gone home, not let Dahlia convince me to come to the club.

“It’ll be so much fun!” she said. “If you’re uncomfortable, you can leave at any time. No pressure, Vi.”

So here I am, dressed in a denim jacket over a sleeveless black dress that reaches my knees, but I still find myself tugging it down, self-conscious that it’ll be blown up by the wind and reveal things that shouldn’t be exposed.

One of my foster parents called me a whore at eleven because my dress showed some of my thighs. Her husband looked at me creepily and even let his hand wander up my leg when she walked in, butIwas the whore who should cover up.

Ever since then, I haven’t been comfortable with dressesand have done everything in my power to dress in a way that doesn’t draw attention so that I’m not blamed for flaunting myself for the male gaze.

But, lately, I’ve been thinking about how that thought process is wrong. I’ve had a few online therapy sessions since I can afford it now, and I got a discount for a top therapist, Sloane Harriot, who’s helped me tremendously in such a short time.

She made me realize that I blame myself too much for other people’s actions.

I was eleven, literally a child, and shouldn’t have been blamed for adults’ actions when I did nothing wrong.

I was ten when Mama died, and I ran to the neighbors for help. The wife wasn’t around, but the man hugged me and started touching me weirdly, his hand roaming down to my ass and inside my jeans. He only stopped when his son unexpectedly showed up.

I was fully dressed, and that didn’t stop him.

So, it’s never really about what I wear like my foster mother said. It’s about the creeps in this world that I had the misfortune to meet.

It’s because I grew up in a broken home, watching Mama being shoved around and treated horribly that I thought women were supposed to let men do whatever they wanted. That if I fought, I’d only get hit or yelled at.

That time, after that man copped a feel and pretended to console me when his son showed up, I ran away, wandering around in the rain and wondering, what’s the point of life? I also ran away from that foster home about three years later with Dahlia. After I kneed our foster father in the balls because he snuck into my room and tried to rape me.

He punched me in the eye and it hurt, and I blamedmyself for being such ‘a whore’ like his wife called me. A little bitch, as Mama said again and again.