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“Hey,” she says, “it’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.”
I know she’s only trying to make me feel better, and I love her for that, but the truth is that everything isn’t going to be all right. Unless she has a time machine hidden somewhere that she can use to stop my mom from arranging my dad’s murder, things will never be okay again.
She releases me, and we go to my bed and sit on the edge, side by side.
Camile twists toward me. “I did try to warn you about them…”
I stiffen, my jaw locking rigid. “I don’t need to hear ‘I told you so’ right now, Camile.”
“No, I’m sorry. I know you don’t. I just wish you had listened, that’s all.”
“Why? Because I’m the weak, pathetic one who got her heart stomped all over? Maybe I’m not even upset about them. I knew what I was doing. Can’t I have been using them for sex as much as they were using me? It’s not like I was some inexperienced virgin when I got here.”
She has the decency to look down at her hands. “I just got the impression you were falling for them, that’s all. I mean, it’s completely understandable why you would. They have this…charisma…about them, and of course they’re hot.” One corner of her lips tweaks. “You’d have to be blind not to notice.”
How can I tell her it was more than that? They’d made me feel as though I finally belonged somewhere. They hadn’t known me for my condition. They’d acted as though I was the most beautiful, precious thing in the world…at least, they had toward the end.
Of course, there were two words I needed to take from that thought— ‘acted’ and ‘thing.’ I’d been a possession for them to play with—their little fuck doll—and the whole time all they’d been doing was playing for time until they could destroy me.
Well, congrats to them. They succeeded.
“I don’t give a fuck about the Devils,” I say. “They can all go to hell, where they belong.”
She pauses. “I heard Tino and Kirill went to see you at the hospital.”
“I didn’t want them to. I told them to get lost.”
“Word is that Dom didn’t want them to go, either, but they went against his wishes.”
My stomach flips, but I do my best to ignore it. “How big of them, finally standing up for themselves. If only they’d considered doing that a couple of days ago, instead of humiliating me in front of everyone.”
She takes my hand.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. None of this is your fault.”
I clamp my lips shut. That’s not strictly true. Getting involved with the Devils is my fault. I can’t blame that on anyone else—not even them. I knew what they were like and somehow thought I would be different.
“What are you going to do about your mom?” Camile asks.
I shake my head. “There’s nothing I can do, but I’ll never forgive her.”
Camile sighs. “We all have people in our families who might have acted in ways we don’t approve of, but it comes with the territory. We might not agree or understand their actions, but we need to learn to live with them.”
I yank my hand away. “What are you saying? That I just forgive her for what she did?”
“What other choice do you have? It’ll eat away at you otherwise. It’ll harm you more than it will her.”
I’m not so sure about that. I imagine my mom is torturing herself as much as I am. Then I shake the thought from my head. If I believed that to be true, then it would mean that she did love me and was trying to protect me. That’s not the narrative I want to follow. I’d prefer to believe she was trying to get with Nathaniel all along, and Dad simply stood in their way. Everything else was just an excuse.
“She can’t harm me more than she already has. I hate her.”
“You don’t hate her. You’re in shock, that’s all. It’ll fade.”
I can barely believe what she’s saying. “I didn’t grow up in this life, or at least, I didn’t know I did until recently. So I’m not just going to accept it’s okay to kill the people we’re supposed to love. I mean, seriously? I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it.”
She offers me a sympathetic smile. “It’s clear you’re upset, and I don’t want that.”
I bristle further. “Why? Because you’re worried it’ll give me another seizure? My condition isn’t your responsibility, Camile. Not yours or the Devils’, or even my mom’s. I mean, we hardly know each other. It’s not like we can even call ourselves real friends.”
