“What’s this?” Robert demanded, breaking into our bickering.
Adam slipped his arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Thea thought she might be ready to retire after the Games.”
Robert arched a brow. “Why? After that performance—”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” I muttered, “and I’d like to end on a high.” But when I looked around the complex, and peered out the window and saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and knew that in a couple of months we’d be heading around the globe for more competitions… I knew I wasn’t ready for it to end.
We homeschooled Freddie because we didn’t want him tainted by a place like Rosemore, which was one of the top schools in Boston, and with the twins being so young, it meant we could be on the move with no real issue. Maybe, in time, we’d find schools that fit our kids and our needs, but still, in the here? The now?
I loved my life, and I wasn’t about to change it.
Not if Adam didn’t mind.
“It makes you happy,” he said, like he was reading my thoughts. “And that makes me happy.”
The words had me biting my lip. “How did I get so lucky?”
“You mean, I’ve finally convinced you we’re not cursed?” he mock-whispered, his eyes alight with amusement.
I snorted, but rather than answer, I dove onto my tiptoes, curved my arms around his neck, and kissed him.
Little did I know, Freddie took a picture of us.
And of course, it went viral.
Afterword
Just a few things…
Cain, while a total psycho, actually falls under the category of someone with AntiSocial Personality Disorder. There is no saving him. No sparing him. He’s twisted, to the marrow, and he’s exactly where he belongs—in a jail cell. For a very, very, very long time.
In competitive swimming, no swim team can be tied to an institution, that’s why the Almanac Water Sports Team (entirely fictional) is separate to Rosemore’s own swim team. You can be on both, but they’re not attached.
Also, this was written, as you can probably tell, during the quarantine lockdown so the Olympics in Tokyo were postponed until the following year, 2021.
Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed TOXIC, it would be a virtual hug if you could leave a review.
And, furthermore, if TOXIC was your jam… turn the page. ;)
Yours,
Serena
Xoxo
THE VOWS WE BREAK
Andrea
“There’s always someone worse off than yourself,” the old lady at my side mutters.
I cut her a look, wonder what she’s talking about, and then see she’s watching TV. It’s been playing ever since I arrived, but I barely noticed it, more interested in my phone than the news that’s on repeat.
“Savio Martin, a Catholic priest serving as a missionary in Algeria, has been abducted by the so-called Algerian Christian Revolutionaries. Unlike the Trappist monks of the Tibhirine, who were beheaded by the Islamic Salvation Front to oppose the presence of foreign ministries in the country, the group’s intent behind the abduction is unclear.
“In a nation being torn apart by civil unrest—”
I flinch at the sight of the country that flickers on the screen, showing images that belong in a nightmare. Rubble from destroyed buildings is strewn like Lego blocks on the roads, women and children are crying, huddled in one another’s arms in search of succor and escape, and men are bruised, bloodied, and dazed from fighting.
Then, the priest himself, Father Savio Martin, comes into the shot. It’s a small photo of him, and for some weird reason, it’s black and white, but man, he’s cute.
I mean, he’s so cute that it’s a tragedy he’s a priest.
I blink at the TV screen, speculating if it’s wrong to drool over a holy man, and then I kick myself because of course, it is.
It shouldn’t take fourteen years of Sunday school to teach me that.
At my side, the older lady who smells faintly of minty Altoids, tuts and mumbles, “Such a shame.”
Her remark has me asking, “They won’t hurt him, will they?”
She glances at me. “Who knows? Heathens. The lot of them.”
I frown at her. “That isn’t very Christian.” Especially when she’s condemning people as ‘heathens’ who call themselves the ‘Algerian Christian Revolutionaries.’
She just sniffs, and that right there is why I refuse to practice anymore.
I used to be Catholic. I mean, technically I still am. My parents make us go to church every Sunday, and I still run chores for Father Gonzalez because Mom insists I do them, but the second I’m away at college?