The Monster (Boston Belles #3) - L.J. Shen Page 0,83
teach, but I would visit her to provide company, seeing as she had no one else in the States—she asked me to help her take her own life.”
There was a pause. Silence hung in the air. Reluctantly, I grabbed a fistful of her dress and pulled her in, shutting the door behind us. My penthouse was the only apartment on the floor, but I still didn’t want to take any chances of anyone listening to this. We left the groceries outside. Aisling twisted her fingers together, staring at her feet, determined to finish her confession.
“I said no. Of course, I said no! That was the right thing to say. My whole life I’d dreamed of becoming a doctor so I could help people survive, not kill them. But every time I left her apartment after watching her light dim, I felt guiltier for refusing her. It tore me to shreds. The idea that I was denying her something she wanted so badly. Something she truly desired. Helping her make the pain go away. And I began to wonder … wasn’t it patronizing of me to make the decision of her living in pain?”
“You were just a kid,” I said tersely, but she and I both knew it was bullshit. Life didn’t care about your age, bank account, or circumstances. Life just happened. I was thirteen when I assumed my role as Troy’s successor. I’d crushed skulls, put bullets in people’s heads, tortured, killed, manipulated, and kidnapped people. Because life happened to me, and to stay alive, I had to adapt.
“She begged and begged and begged. She was slipping away from me, I could feel it.” Aisling stood there, by my door, tears streaming down her face.
I made no move to console her. It wasn’t what she needed in that moment, even an emotionally stunted dirtbag like me could see it. She had to get this confession off her chest. “The woman I’d looked up to since I was four, the woman whom my parents had collected from Paris to shape me into a lady—she was witty, sassy, effortlessly elegant and chic, and a heavy smoker,” she said pointedly, eyeing me. “She’d become a shadow of her former self. I didn’t know what to do. Until, finally, Ms. Blanchet made the decision for me. We had a fight. She told me to stop coming. Not to visit her anymore. Said she wouldn’t answer if I visited. That was three days before I met you.”
Her throat bobbed with a swallow, and she raked her shaky fingers through her hair as she took a ragged breath.
“I didn’t listen. Maybe I should’ve, but I didn’t. I couldn’t not visit her. So I did. I knocked on the door, rang the bell. No one had answered. I went to a neighbor downstairs that I knew had her spare keys. An older gentleman she used to take tea with before she’d gotten too sick. He gave me the key. I opened her apartment. I found her in the bathtub…” she looked sideways then to the floor, closing her eyes “…she used whatever energy she had left to cut her wrists and bleed out. She was in a river of blood. That’s why she had this fight with me. That’s why she didn’t want me to come anymore. She made up her mind about taking her own life. And she did it in such a painful, lonely way.”
“Nix,” I said, my voice gravelly. Suddenly, I forgot about being sick. I forgot about existing in general. Her pain took over the room and everything else ceased to exist.
She shook her head, laughing bitterly.
“That’s why I was such a mess at the carnival. After I’d found her, I called my parents and 9-1-1. I gave a statement then drove home, put on something slutty, and started driving around until I saw the lights coming from the carnival.”
The carnival where I snatched her first kiss simply because she was too sweet not to take advantage of.
Where she saw me taking a life.
Aisling saw two dead people in less than twelve hours after living a too-sheltered life. It must have been a shock to the system.
“I saw what you did to that man that night…” her chin quivered “…and something weird happened inside me. I knew you would survive, wouldn’t let the guilt consume you. You looked young and healthy and intelligent. I trusted you slept well at night. Ate well. You were … oddly okay with taking lives.”