“Better pics of us than…” I bite my lip, and my gaze instinctively goes in the direction I know the basketball hall is.
His eyes darken. “Yeah.” He looks down at the floor. “I don’t regret a lot of things, but I’d erase that if I could. All of it. Pandora’s always had it hard, even back in high school. I was so determined to get revenge on her that I forgot why I love her.”
Love.
I’m not sure I know what that word means. It gets thrown around a lot, and my mom has said she loves me, but beyond that? I never got attached to people or things. Use them once, discard them.
I kept Asch.
And I’m going to keep Pandora.
I can’t imagine a world where I don’t have her at my side, makingdumb jokes, egging me on, getting sexy and violent and leaving me completely breathless.
Is that love?
No fucking clue.
“She got worse after that,” I say. “The talk of… her heart being missing, or eyes in the walls. She didn’t do that before.”
“I think that might’ve always been there,” River says. “She didn’t talk about it or anything, but there’s always been something she’s hidden from everyone. I think it might’ve been that. But I don’t know for sure. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we made everything worse, and we have to fix it. Somehow.”
I grab my water bottle and sit down on the mat. After a few gulps of water, I say, “How do you fix her mind, River? She’s never going to accept that maybe she needs to be on meds or something.” I curl my nose in disgust. “Or therapy. Fuck. I wouldn’t do therapy. Would you?”
River shakes his head and joins me on the mat. “No.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “I probably need it, though. All of us, with everything going on, could probably use a shrink. But what would we tell them that wouldn’t make them go to the cops? A whole lot of nothing. Except…”
I wait for him to continue, but he stays silent.
“I heard some people talk about their problems with friends,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Or their parents. There was this show I saw, where the end was the family admitting they needed to actually tell each other their feelings. And the closest thing I remember my dad doing was to tell me how much of a disappointment I was, and that I needed todo better.”
“I think we all have daddy issues,” River mutters. “And mommy issues.” He’s quiet again, then he offers, “My mom finally left my dad. Or he killed her. I don’t know which. I just know she’s gone.”
I realize I don’t know anything about River’s family, outside of his dad working for the Pavones.
“Which version is better?” I ask.
He blinks at me. “She might’ve been a shitty mom, but I don’t want her dead or anything. I wish she’d have been able to leave while I was still there, but I guess she got tired of being his punching bag without me around.” He grimaces. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this shit.”
I shrug. I don’t really know what he wants me to say, but it’s not like I’m a stranger to having a shitty family life. “If you want to talk about it, I’ve heard Asch whine about his mom plenty.” I grin. “And he’s tried very hard to be nice whenever I was pissed about my dad.”
“This is probably the kind of shit I should save for my imaginary therapist,” River says dryly. “But yeah. All of this bullshit comes from somewhere, right?”
We sit silently for a while before I say, “You think Pandora wants kids?”
The question startles him into another moment of silence. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “You already met her parents at Thanksgiving—all four of them—but you probably don’t know that her mom almost died giving birth to her sister. Her papa has a reputation for being even more unhinged than Pandora, and you know about Ezio’s family now.” He licks his lips. “There are more rumors, but I don’t know what’s true.”
The entire family was chaotic.
But warm, too, in a way I’ve never experienced. Everybody joking around, eating food that Giulio Pavone had prepared. Vanessa Pavone hadn’t liked all the ribbing, but everybody else had laughed.
The Thanksgivings at my house are always as dry as the turkey.
“So, is that a yes, Pandora wants kids, or no?” I ask. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t decide if I’d be a good dad. It was part of the plan though. Get married and have kids to carry on the Bouchard legacy.”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea. She’s never said either way. I don’t know what kind of mother she’d be.”
“The fun, take-your-kids-to-gut-a-man kind?” I suggest with a snicker.
Of course, my dad had made me watch a man get beaten to death when I was still in elementary school.
