Page 164 of Sweet Venom

Can you text me back to say that you’re okay? I promise I’ll stop bothering you. Preston says you’re living your best life, but I feel like he jokes about everything.

All right, then. I guess this is it.

She sent that last text three days ago.

Then she completely stopped contacting me. Not that I wanted her to, but the last text’s tone keeps bugging me.

What does ‘this is it’ mean? Does she think I’ll ever let her go?

Fuck that.

It doesn’t matter what I unveil about my past or the lies I painted for myself; Violet will certainly not stop being a part of my life.

I just need to stay away from her while I’m in this enraged murderous mood. I like to think I wouldn’t hurt her, but I’ve also never felt this fucking attached to a person before.

So goddamn gone that the past week felt like fucking torture.

It’s part of the reason why I’m slipping back into old habits with this game and embracing aimless fucking violence.

The moment I’m unleashed from the box, I go back tohitting people and picking fights, pumped by the crowd buzzing and the shouts and bangs that echo in the rink.

It’s like a hit of a potent drug. The only problem is that the high only lasts a few minutes.

Seconds, even.

And then I’m back to that fucking itch of wanting more and more.

Fuckingmore.

I end up committing another penalty, and the coach benches me while cursing and shouting.

We end up losing.

Despite Kane’s, Preston’s, and the rest of the team’s efforts to hold the fort, I fucked it up to a degree of epic proportions, and now everyone else has to suffer the same prickly mood I’m in.

Coach Slater pulls me aside to give me a piece of his mind and reminds me that my father won’t be pleased by what he calls ‘the worst game of your entire career.’

Fuckmy father.

If he wanted the perfect hockey season and all the bragging rights that come with it, maybe he shouldn’t have shown me the letter or the security footage.

He should’ve pulled a Julian and left me ignorant for the rest of my life. It would’ve been convenient for him, me, and the whole world.

But no, he had to make me doubt my relationship with my mom.

Julian said that all these years, Regis has really loathed that I’ve held her on a pedestal while he’s been labeled as Lucifer in my head.

So if I can never develop any affection for my father, then he’d rather taint any affection I had for my mother, too.

He’s always been the cruelest motherfucker.

Whenever I liked something or got attached to someone, he’d show me the hard way that people like us don’t get attached. Everything is a transaction, including interpersonal relationships.

He only approves of Kane and Preston because they’re part of our world and understand the meaning of the legacy we need to uphold.

After I listen to the coach blabbering about how I’m actually a superb player but let violence take over, and I should be more mindful of the team I dragged down with me tonight, I leave the arena, my phone in hand.

Me