Dark Intentions - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,34
same shows, we laugh at the same jokes. Still, there are parts of her that I don't understand, and of course there are parts of me that she doesn't either.
When my mom first got sick, I didn't hear from Allison for a while. I was angry, upset. I wished she would have at least texted, let alone sent me something.
I felt like I was forgotten, but then we talked about it and she apologized. She told me that she just had a hard time dealing with trauma like that.
She wanted to be there for me, but she couldn't deal with hospitals, and she didn't even want to talk to me about it.
I didn't understand.
There were months when we didn't talk, but after a while, I realized that it would be more important for me to have a friend on whatever terms and to have her in my life instead of judging her for not being there for me.
Some things are hard for some people, and I was willing to understand that.
But when Michael died, things changed.
Allison sent flowers. She wrote me a poignant card.
She cried with me at the funeral and she held my hand. She cried so much, and her tears were so heartfelt, and I felt like we were united by our grief.
I didn't realize that she would be that emotional, and my heart suddenly went out to her. She wasn't lying when she said that she couldn't deal with death.
She was telling me the truth.
I sit in the back and nurse my drink and watch the couples pair off and flirt and run their hands casually around each other's waists.
It’s not just couples either; some break up into threesomes and foursomes. It's a mixture of gowns and cocktail attire, but everyone's wearing a mask. The suits look expensive, the watches even more so, and the hair and the dresses are flawless.
After a few minutes and I get a jolt of liquid courage from my martini, I start to feel a little peppier.
The last time I came here, I sat front and center available to talk to anyone. But out here in the corner as a wallflower, it feels so much more safe.
I can observe, I can be here, but I'm not bound to participate.
It's true what Allison said. For anyone to talk to me, they'd have to break away from their group, walk all the way over here to the darkness, and have something to say.
No one has done that, and hopefully no one will, and, frankly, that's perfectly fine with me.
“Jacqueline?” he says and shivers run down my spine.
20
Dante
It's a crisp April day. The air is just turning a little bit warm, but the darkness is still hanging around.
I love coming back to New York. The trees are naked, waiting for the green buds to sprout, but the streets are busy full of life.
I have an apartment here that waits for me as my home base. I arrived early and immediately traveled to Manhattan for work.
The meeting went well. The CEO was prepared. He gave a good presentation and all of his financials seemed to be in order.
The wine starts to flow as soon as I arrive. My brother and I work a lot of hours. We don't get to spend too much time together and when we do get a little bit of one-on-one without our mom or Marguerite, I revel in it. I don't have a problem with his wife, but with three people the dynamic is a little bit different.
My brother and I were never particularly close growing up. He was a lot more into video games. I was a lot more into the stock market and sports, but as we got older, we appreciated each other a little bit more.
I'm four years older than he is and when we were kids, it felt like a lifetime. I was graduating from high school when he was just entering, and I was already in ninth grade when he was just leaving elementary school.
But after college, we took a trip to South Africa together. We went on a safari, not to shoot any animals, but to look at them, and marvel at the wild. I was going through a photography phase, and I still have some of the photographs from that trip framed in my somewhat abandoned New York apartment.
"Thanks for meeting up with me," Lincoln says, giving me a smile.
“Of course. What has it been, a month since we saw each other like this?”
"Yeah,