Venus Love Trap

Chapter 1

Henry

“Have you ever missed someone and never wanted to see them again?”

My words escape in a beleaguered breath—not uncommon for an asthmatic. But emotion makes it worse, adding heaviness that steals room in my already tight lungs.

My business consultant, Marnie, and I are on the second-floor rooftop balcony of my late uncle’s curiosity museum, discussing plans for its renovation and reopening—a plan that she’s just proposed would include a carnivorous garden installed by the local expert on Venus flytraps, Dr. Richard Blake.

The mere mention of the Blake family or even carnivorous plants brings up thoughts about Venus Blake—thoughts I’d rather leave in the past.

I can’t believe it’s been ten years.

“Missed someone and never wanted to see them again?” Marnie’s head tilts thoughtfully. “Yes, my mother.”

My hand slips into my pocket for my inhaler while I nod, not surprised that she relates to such an off-the-wall comment. It’s only our third meeting, but Marnie’s one of those people who just gets it. I love people like her. Positive, uplifting, empathetic, insightful.

Even so, she’s the professional helping me reinvent the curiosity museum—not my therapist. I shouldn’t be talking about this. I feel exposed, like the time Ruby Mack pantsed me on the bus in elementary school, sending everyone into hysterics over my Batman underwear.

Yes, my bully in elementary school was a girl—I have no shame in admitting it.

That dark day ended my themed underwear phase. It’s been black boxer briefs since. Some traumas are forever.

Marnie shifts against the balcony overlooking the Cape Fear River, her red hair flying in the breeze, as she opens up about her mother.

“I needed her, and she wasn’t there, over and over.

It made me angry. I never wanted to see her again and swore that if she showed up, I wouldn’t give her another chance—very unlike me. ”

My bitterness isn’t like me, either. I’ve been told I’m the quintessential nice guy.

I teach over a hundred middle schoolers every day without complaint—I love getting to know my students and the challenge of bringing the past alive for them.

I arrive early, stay late, and my door is always open. I’m a habitual people-pleaser.

Case in point—I’m taking over my late uncle’s campy, failure of a curiosity museum, despite being a history teacher, finishing my master’s, and knowing nothing about running a business, because that’s what he wanted.

It’s what I want, too—I’d love for people to get excited about local history the way I do.

Like Uncle Jay did. My negativity over Venus feels unnatural, toxic even, like cigarette smoke invading my lungs and squeezing my already winded chest.

“After a while, though, that sharp pain became a dull ache, subsiding into hurt,” she says.

“I was hurt. But I still loved her—why else would it hurt so much? So, when she came back into my life, I could’ve been angry and told her she’d lost her chance.

But seeing her again, I didn’t want that. I wanted my mom back.”

“Did you get her?”

Her smile grows. “Better. I got the mom I always wanted. A little sister, too.”

“Happily-ever-afters aren’t real,” Venus said one rainy day after finishing The Princess Bride—one of many old movies in Mom’s collection.

We were ten, and I’d been slowly introducing her to movies and sitcoms. Her father didn’t allow TV in their house.

“When you’ve read every book, then we can discuss a television,” he used to tell her and her sister, Ivy.

“Love is a social construct designed for cohabitation and procreation. There’s no need to romanticize the survival of the species,” she continued. “But I enjoyed the shrieking eels and the poison game. Inconceivable.”

Her awkward, throaty laugh echoes faintly in my ears. I barely remember it now.

“I’m glad for you, Marnie,” I sigh. “But reconciliation isn’t always possible… or wanted.”

Nearby, her art consultant and sister-in-law, Marigold, busily sketches the rooftop space with a charcoal pencil on her worn notebook. Her artistic focus reminds me of Venus, too, as if I can’t stop seeing her everywhere now that Marnie brought up the Blake family.

“I get it,” Marnie says finally, “but hanging on to anger only hurts me. So, I let it go. The first step to a second chance is being open to it. It has to happen at the right time, too. Letting her back in came easier because I felt safe enough to do it.”

“Why is that?” I ask.

“I’d just fallen in love with my soulmate.

Anything feels possible when you’re with the right person…

and that’s especially true when you come through something together that feels impossible, like me and Grady did.

” Her blue eyes gloss with tears when she goes on.

“He crashed into me on my wedding day—the worst meet-cute ever! The wedding flopped. So did the groom, eventually. But that day turned out to be my luckiest. Grady saved my life, took care of me when no one else would, and showed me what love and family truly meant.” She glances over at Marigold with a gentle smile.

“It doesn’t matter what we had to go through to get to each other—I wouldn’t change a thing. ”

Marigold peeks up from her notebook with a rare grin as she eyes her sister-in-law, and I feel the love between them.

Marnie swipes under her eyes and abruptly asks, “Are you seeing anyone?”

“I don’t date.” The words sound almost snippy—another thing not like me. But Marnie’s too friendly and personable to deflect. I’m a helpless oyster, and her questions might as well be a knife, edging me open and twisting until I crack.

I don’t discuss Venus Blake if I can help it. Even among my oldest friends, she rarely comes up anymore—not that I have many old friends. It strikes me funny how so many friendships end up like expired trends, everything one minute, and nonexistent the next.

The same happened with Venus and me.

Even so, when I consider our twelve-year relationship, I can’t deny that she gave me the best parts of my childhood.

She taught me to explore, get dirty, ask questions, and stand up for myself.

I wouldn’t be myself without her. How do you regret someone who changed your life for the better?

Still, a bad ending wrecks twelve good years like they were flimsy under the sudden weight of it.

It bears down on me even now, especially since I never got answers.

Still, I tell my son, Olly, about our adventures from childhood, as if I can’t help but keep our history alive and hand those stories down for safekeeping. I didn’t set out to include Venus in his upbringing. One night, he asked me to tell him a story, and the only good ones I had included her.

Marnie laughs at my anti-dating declaration. “Yeah, that’s what my husband used to say, too. Tell me, why are you keeping yourself away from some lucky lady, huh? And don’t say Olly—he already spilled the beans that his mom dates. Why don’t you?”

“My soulmate doesn’t want me. I don’t want her, either. There’s no coming back from that. And settling for anything else is… unfair… to everyone involved.”

This I know firsthand. I tried so hard to fall in love with Olly’s mom, Carly.

I wanted us to be a family. But forcing myself to love her didn’t work.

Neither did living together. In the end, I made us both miserable by being disingenuous, and that wasn’t me either.

But I hope Marnie doesn’t press for more information.

I don’t want to explain to this sunny newlywed that happy endings don’t always happen.

“Sometimes, being alone is better.”

Marnie closes her gaping mouth at my declaration and shakes her head vigorously. “Having been alone, I don’t believe that… but I understand the inclination. Besides, how can she be your soulmate if she doesn’t want you?”

This prompts an easy smile as I remember all the reasons. “She just… is.”

Marnie’s blue eyes widen softly. “In that case… there’s always hope, Henry. Always.”

Her giddy grin is gone, replaced with a sternness that almost makes me believe her.

But what Venus did to me and the silence that followed confirms what I already know—there’s no hope for us.

I wonder now if there ever was. Giving my heart to a woman who didn’t believe in love was a reckless mistake that I won’t make again.

“I appreciate your optimism, Marnie, but no, there isn’t. I’m ready to put my hopes in this place, though.”

She snorts. “Nice redirect. Henry Greene, you might be a bigger project than this place!”

“That’s probably true, but fixing me isn’t part of our deal.”

“Well, no pressure about the garden. Dr. Blake will understand. It’s okay to back out.”

A deep sigh and the calming river views break through my tension. “Um, no. The carnivorous garden is a great idea. I’m being oversensitive.”

“Then, we’ll do it?”

“Sure. I’ve always liked Dr. Blake, and Venus wouldn’t care about a little garden like this. She’s too busy saving the world. Besides, she hated those plants, despite being named after them.”

“Geez, hating the plant you’re named after must be frustrating,” she says.

“She prefers to say she’s named after the Roman goddess.

I mean, she preferred. Who knows anymore?

” Not knowing tightens my chest, prompting another puff from my inhaler.

My lungs burn, but open, taking in the warm spring air.

“Enough about that. I’m starting to feel excited about my inheritance, finally.

The Weird But True Wilmington Museum will be incredible—a real tourist destination. ”

“And a local favorite,” she quips, finger raised. “The response on social media has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone’s excited to see this place turned around.”

“Given its rocky history, that surprises me.”

She laughs. “Well, your uncle had a flair for the unusual.”