Chapter 37 #2
The first one is like most of the entries that came before it. Lark is confused, angry, and really hard on herself. She talks about lying to those around her, even me, and not being sure if the things she’s worried about are even real.
I close my eyes.
I’m so sorry we were so similar.
The next entry is more of the same. So is the third, which includes a tirade about Scott being gross and flirty with her. Yeah, gross.
Then I feel like a hypocritical asshole for thinking so badly of my high school boyfriend flirting with my sister, when I’m married to, sleeping with, and completely in love with her former fiancé.
I reach for the fourth page. The first paragraph hooks me instantly.
Dear Boo,
I know how to fix everything with Bane! I know how to apologize for being such a massive, crazy cunt to him. I know how to prove to him how much I love him, and that I’ll be his forever.
I can tell he’s angry at me, even if he’s hiding it like usual. But tomorrow night, I’m going to turn it all around.
He’ll see how much I love him and always will.
I fold the first four pages up and tuck them into my pocket. Then, my hands shaking, I open the fifth and final page, hoping it will have the answers I want.
Dear Boo,
I did it! I proved to him—we proved to each other—that we’ll be together forever. That our love is never going to fade.
I almost thought he wouldn’t go for it. But when I told him my idea, he didn’t hesitate.
He said yes. Yes to US.
We did it in the back garden, behind the carriage house, using that cute little gas campfire dealie that Grandma got this past summer. It took FOREVER to heat the metal up. Like, seriously.
There's a tug at the back of my mind, but reaching for it is like trying to grab a handful of fog.
I thought I’d have to custom order the brand, but then I went to that restaurant supply warehouse down on the Bowery and found a pancake mold that was the PERFECT heart shape.
At first we were going to brand each other, but then at the last second I wondered, what if the first of us went, and it was so bad that the second chickened out?
Bane had told me he’d go second, and I know he’d keep his word. But my idea just seemed so…intimate.
So us.
The tug at the base of my skull yanks tighter, and the whining sound in my ears gets louder. I flinch, a spasm like a small lightning storm flickering through my head before I stab my eyes back down to the page gripped tightly in my shaking hands.
So I put my hand against his bare chest, over his heart. Once the pancake mold got hot enough, we both held the handle as we pressed the mold to our skin, half on his chest, half on my hand.
My throat closes up.
Boo, it hurt SO FUCKING MUCH.
My pulse thunders like a bass drum in my head.
Seriously, I thought I was going to pass out.
No.
No. No. No.
This isn’t fucking possible. It’s just not. It’s the de-escalation of my meds, that's all. I need to talk to Dr. Turov, because we're obviously doing it too quickly, and that's what's making me see things that aren’t real.
That can’t be real.
CANNOT.
But we did it, and I didn’t pass out, and now, it’s forever linking us—half a heart on his chest, half a heart on my hand.
I can’t.
Fucking.
brEATHE.
I stand abruptly, my pulse racing through my veins like a freight train and the whine in my ears turning into a fucking scream. Lightning storms clash, thunder, and explode through my head, my vision flickering as my body spasms and jerks.
No.
I know who I am.
I AM who I fucking am, always have been.
I’m Dove.
My name is Dove fucking Marchetti. I dance ballet. I paint. I’m a recovering addict. I’m married to my dead sister’s high school sweetheart.
Everything runs and swirls together until the whole world is inky black, suffocating me, obliterating the light.
Choking out the difference between truth and lies.
Up and down.
Black and white.
Reality and fiction.
My hands are shaking uncontrollably and my whole body feels numb as my eyes drop to the last line of the final diary entry.
Burn scars are forever. Like us.
My trembling, unbelieving gaze slides from the page to the hand holding it.
…The hand with the little shiny pink crescent shaped scar tissue across the back of it. The scar I got from the fire that night.
That night when Lark died and I lived.
Reality crumbles and falls around me, turning to ash, choking me until I almost drop to my knees.
Lark died.
I lived.
Lark died.
I FUCKING LIVED.
But then my blurred vision stabs into the back of my hand again.
The shiny pink scar, in the shape of a curved crescent.
I used to call it my moon.
But it’s not a moon at all.
It’s half a fucking heart.
And suddenly, something that’s been teasing and prodding and needling at the back of my head pierces through. I choke, gasping as it hits me full-force, and before I know what’s happening, I’m whirling and staggering half blind out of Melinda’s bedroom.
“Why do you never say my name?!”
Bane whirls when I find him standing in Lark’s room. His brow furrows when I scream it at him.
“What—
“WHY DO YOU NEVER SAY MY FUCKING NAME?!”
His jaw sets. “What are you talking about? I say your name all the—”
“You don’t!” I yell, shaking uncontrollably, shattering as my entire reality turns to dust in my mouth.
“You call me baby!!” I hurl at him. “Or little bird!!”
Bane’s face is grim as he looks at me, his eyes glinting like black steel.
“I say your—”
“Then say it!!” I roar. “FUCKING SAY IT!! SAY MY FUCKING NAME!!”
“YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR NAME IS!!” he roars back in a voice like thunder.
I choke as he eradicates the distance between us and grabs the front of my shirt in a fist, his eyes blazing.
He barely flinches when I reach up, grab his own shirt, and tear it open. Buttons scatter and bounce like shell casings across the ground. I barely even notice as my gaze lands like an accusation on the shiny pink crescent scar on his chest.
I slam my palm flat to his skin, and my scream shatters like frozen glass in my throat when I see it.
The branded heart across his chest and my hand.
And whatever was left of me crumbles.
I cry out, my head flashing like lightning and rattling like thunder. Flickers of scenes I don’t and do remember smash into my mind. Emotions flay into me like knives. Memories open my veins like razors.
We fall to our knees together, my hand still pressed to his chest as his hand slams on top of mine, keeping it tight against his skin as his wide, shattered black eyes lock with mine.
“You know your name,” he chokes in a broken, haunted voice.
Acid tears stream down my face as I look into his eyes, the last of me cracking in two.
“Bane! Bane—!”
“Your name is Lark Marchetti.”
The words scrape like daggers from his throat. His hands grab my face, holding it tightly as he presses his forehead to mine, tears rolling down our faces.
“Your name is Lark Marchetti, and I have loved you with every piece of me since the moment I met you.”