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Dahlia knew everyone felt like this sometimes.
People were always feeling insecure about stupid things that didn’t matter. She’d spent enough time in high school with girls who worried because they were chubby or because they had acne or because they were green goblins with warts on their noses.
Yes, you’re right,Dahlia would think at them witheringly.No one with warts on their noses ever manages to have a happy life with a relationship and children and a rewarding career. You’re doomed.
See, with her, there was actually something wrong with her.
She couldkillpeople.
So.
That was a completely different thing.
She was unlovable.
She had always known.
She just wished she wouldn’t have let herself think otherwise, because it hurt so damned much right now to try to accept it.
IT WAS QUIET.
Niles knew he was going to have to start this conversation, but he didn’t know how.
Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Dahlia was in some kind of pit of self-hatred, and it wasn’t conducive to the kind of conversation he wanted to have, so he didn’t know what to do.
“Let’s do this another time,” he finally said aloud. They were seated on his deck at the picnic table next to the grill. They were eating food from Maria’s Tacqueria in town.
“What?” she said. “No, I can’t have it hanging over my head.”
He scratched his jaw. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, though. You’re dreading this. So, if you come into it with that kind of attitude, it’s going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it’ll be horrible. I don’t want it to be horrible.”
She sighed. “I think it has to be.”
“No, it really doesn’t.”
“Look.” She set down her taco, spilling lettuce out over the the foil to-go container. “I’ll say it all for you. You had no idea how intense it would be. Now, you’re afraid of me. You’re not sure if you want things to progress at the same speed they’ve been progressing and you think—”
“I’m not trying to break up with you.” He glared at her. “Why would you think that? After everything last night? I’m not afraid of you.”
“Aren’t you?”
He sighed. “Look, I think you have a formidable power, but it’s like my venom—”
“You control your venom.”
“Okay, to a degree, yeah, but it’s also instinctive. I don’t control the fangs coming out. They just do that. And everyone—no matter our species—has this balance within us between striking out at others and being passive. So, you’re unique, but you’re not different, if you know what I mean.”
She scoffed. “That’s insane. I’m different. I’m completely different. I’m nothing like you.”
“That’s not true. We have a lot in common.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Uh, have you ever thought about therapy?”
She gaped at him.
“I didn’t mean it like—”
