He hugged back, sighing in relief, “Finally, someone in this family welcomes me back normally; I was about to lose all hope!”
“Shouldn’t have left in the first place. Who has a mid-life crisis in their early twenties?” Darcy muttered as headed back to his room.
Wyatt let go of me, turning to yell, “People who are prone to dying early!”
I tried to make my escape, walking forward without either of them when Wyatt walked over, putting his hands my shoulders.
“Are you gonna be my wing-woman, dear ol’ cousin?” He beamed.
“To what end? Bringing them or keeping them away?” Rolling my eyes, I tried to lift his hands off my shoulder but he kept them on me.
He brought his face close to mine and looked like a child on Christmas morning as he replied, “Both?”
“I’m going to need a whore swatter,” I muttered to myself, pushing him away for real this time and walking on my own.
“Helen, I’m shocked,” he gasped dramatically, “Just because a woman enjoys to get—”
“Not them,” I said, getting on the elevator turning back to him to say, “You.”
He just grinned, getting in the elevator beside me, fixing his tie and standing straighter when the doors closed.
“To the mouth of hell we go,” he whispered, all traces of humor gone from his voice.
He was only at the mouth, and here I was, swimming in the stomach of it.
“You look nice by the way,” he said quickly, before walking out when the doors opened and I couldn’t help but think again, Show me a strong woman and I’ll show you the scars on her soul that made her so.
EIGHT
“The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk,
mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars
and in the middle you see the blue center-light pop and everybody”
~ Jack Kerouac
DONATELLA
Just like that, after everything I’d done, I’d been regulated to the sidelines. I’d been pushed to the corner; watching my brother and Ivy, a woman who had only been in this family for a few weeks and barely had a backbone, become the center of attention and appreciation. Watching as all the people who were so polite and uptight with me, relax around Ethan. Yes, relax, after all he was a man, don or not, they could relate to him.
I could feel the rage rising within me.
The anger.
The flames.