42. Veronica
The smooth walls in this area match the walls in the rest of the building. Although the windows lining the outer walls give us a slight view of the lake we aren’t allowed to visit. It isn’t a better view than Leo’s office window provides, but it is still pretty. From here, I can see some trees have bloomed.
April had came and gone at an agonizingly slow pace, and now May is finally here. Buds sit on the edges of the branches, flowers beginning to grow and share their beauty with the rest of us.
Peeling my gaze away from the window, I stare at the lights. They are vibrant and hang from the ceiling—chandeliers, of course—because nothing says, “This isn’t a normal asylum; we are fancy” like chandeliers.
It’s not overbearingly bright, though; I’m thankful for that. I’m sitting in a cushioned chair, thanking Dr. Bennett for not choosing to put metal ones in here.
The square table I’m sitting at is made of dark antique wood, which I’m sure is on its last leg of being used.Around the room are tables of the same size, all shades of brown, made from different woods, but still emit the same feeling: homey.
That’s how he decorates the inside of the asylum, seeing that it is our home. I guess he might as well extend the decor in here.
To my left sits another table, longer and the lightest shade of wood in the room. On top are trays of treats and, at the end, a lemonade dispenser. I chuckle to myself.
If someone were blindfolded when they arrived at this place, walked inside, and were taken to this room where, then and only then, they could remove the blindfold, they wouldn’t suspect it to be an insane asylum.
They’d probably think it was a conference room at a hotel. Only smaller.
Staring down the food, my stomach churns. Eating is the last thought on my mind. I couldn’t eat this morning at breakfast, and I sure as hell can’t eat... I peek at the options on the trays.
Cookies. Store-bought, I’m sure, because the homey feeling only extends to the decor. Picking at the skin around my fingernails, I nervously swallow the lump in my throat.
Leo brought me here, telling me I’d only have to wait shortly before my sister arrived. Well, it feels like an eternity. She probably changed her mind and decided that coming here to see me was a mistake.
The quiet conversations around me between patients and visitors suddenly become too loud. Having enough of wasting my time here knowing she won’t show up, I scoot the chair back and stand.
When I turn around to leave, Leo opens the door and brings my sister in.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of her. She looks the same, yet different. Her short, dark brown hair that sat at the top of her shoulders has grown below her breasts. She only kept it short because that’s how he liked it.
What made her want to grow it? A change from the sickening reality that her boyfriend is dead? Her skin is tan, which is undoubtedly fake. She always hated how pale we were. She thought no boy wanted a ghost. I flick my eyes to Leo, who is standing behind her.
How wrong she is about that statement.
Leo stares at me, deep green eyes telling me to behave before leaving us. I return my gaze to my sister and find she is taking in the sight of me like I was to her. Dark eyes roll down my body, inspecting every inch of me as if she is looking for wounds.
“Should we sit?” I break the silence, causing her eyes to dart up to mine.
She agrees with a nod, stalking over to the other side of the table. As she sits, she gets comfortable before finally looking at me again. “You look… healthy.”
“Did you think they starved us in here?”
“I’m not sure what I expected of this place,” she tells me honestly. “It’s warm.”
“You can thank Dr. Bennett for that. It wasn’t always like this,” I state. “Some of the other girls who have been here way longer said the walls used to be pale white, and the lights would be so bright it would give them migraines. When Dr. Bennett took over, he changed all of it.”
She nods slowly, taking in the information. “Do you like it here?”
What kind of fucking question is that?“Beats prison.”
We fall silent, and neither of us is sure what to say. It’s been a little over two years since I’ve seen her. She watches me cautiously like I’m about to do something destructive at any moment. She speaks before I assure her I won’t be doing such a thing.
“Do you remember when we were little, and Mom put us both in ballet class?”
“Yeah...” I say hesitantly, thinking back to our childhood. They always forced me into the extracurriculars in which Stephanie took an interest. There was ballet, piano lessons—of course—and then karate. She had watched Karate Kid at a friend”s house when she was fourteen and begged our parents to allow her to take lessons.
They were weary at first because fighting wasn’t lady like but what Stephanie wants, she always gets. I was ecstatic about being involved in this particular activity. I got to be physical, which was, unfortunately, my downfall.
I was too physical with the other kids. I’d hit them too hard, kicking them in the legs to the point the other students would complain about their legs hurting too bad to continue.
I was twelve, almost a teen, meaning I had a lot of bottled-up anger. Karate would have been a great outlet for me, but my parents pulled me out, given all the complaints the instructor got from the parents.
After that, Stephanie”s curiosity for karate died once someone accidentally hit her in the face. When she chose to leave the karate days behind, our parents were ecstatic. They set both of us up with some lady who taught us how to crochet.
It was awful, which is probably why I hate craft days here.
“Ballet was something that I wanted to do,” she tells me as if I didn’t already know. “Mom forced you to go, too. You hated it there. You hated the structure, the other snobby girls.”
“Don’t forget the tutus,” I remind her. “Those made me feel like an idiot even at the ripe age of six. Plus, they itched.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “I tried to get you out of it.”
Her sentence takes me by surprise. “You what?”
“I told Mom how miserable you were. How much you hated being there and that you sat in the corner most of the time, defying the teacher.” She sighs, her eyes dropping to her lap. “I begged her to take you out of the classes, but she told me no. She said if I was doing the classes then so were you.”
Swallowing, I breathe out of my nose. Confused. “But you stayed in classes. You had recitals and everything.”
Her eyes meet mine. “I threatened to quit ballet if you had to stay. Mother had a fit at my tantrum, and when she could see I was being serious, she allowed you to never return to classes.”
“I thought it was because you didn’t want me around.”
She shakes her head. “I couldn’t let you be miserable at my expense, Veronica. Believe it or not, I wanted you to be happy.”
“Yet, you were mean and ignored me half the time.”
“When I became a teenager and got friends, yes, I’ll admit I wasn’t the nicest.”
“But your friends saw how much of a freak I was, and you had to play the part, right?” I lean forward in my seat, forearms resting on the surface of the table. “You couldn’t let them see you cared for me because, God forbid, you had a nice bone in your body.”
“I’m ashamed of the way I treated you. Even when we were younger, I wasn’t always the nicest.”
“Yeah, but when we were even younger, you were more nice than mean.”
“If I could turn back time, I would.” Her eyes are heavy on me. “I would treat you better. Be nicer to you, even if it meant losing my friends and pissing off our parents. Maybe if I did that, then...”
“I wouldn’t end up the way I did,” I finish the sentence for her.
She rolls her lips together, nodding. “I’m sorry I treated you poorly. I’m sorry I let our parents treat you like they did.”
My eyes bore into her, the tears lining the rims of her eyes. If she were to blink, one would roll down her cheek. Would she wipe it away or leave it there for the dramatics of it all? I hold her stare as I watch her gaze shift from the apology to waiting for me to say something. I know exactly what she wants me to say.
Too bad she will not get it.
“Those acting classes paid off.” Those were the words that left my mouth.
She blinks that lone tear falling, yet she lets it stay on her face. “What?”
“I’m not stupid, Steph. The fake apology? The fake sincerity in your voice?” I point to her face, where a single tear has now reached her chin. “The fake fucking tears? You were apologizing because you thought that if you did, if you told me how sorry you were for being such a bitch, I would feel bad—that I would turn around and apologize to you for what I did.”
“Veronica, I...”
I raise my hand to stop her. “I wish it was honest... the apology. Because I would have forgiven you, but you know what?” My hand slams down on the table, Steph flinching at the abrupt noise. “If I gave you my apology, you wouldn’t have accepted, would you?”
The fa?ade is gone; her face is now made of stone. “No. I wouldn’t have. Sure, I treated you like shit, but you killed my boyfriend. The only man I ever truly loved!”
“Do you know the only person I ever truly loved in my life, Steph? Hmm?” My hands grip the table’s edge, steadying myself from losing it. “It wasn’t mom or dad. It wasn’t some guy I met. It was you.”
I tighten my grip, knuckles glowing white, and for a split second, I’m afraid I’ll flip the whole table over.
“You were the only person in this damned world that I loved! You were my sister, and even though you were such a bitch to me, I still loved you. I still looked up to you!”
Real tears pool in her eyes. From my words or the volume of my voice, who knows?
“I’m not sorry for killing him because we both know you were so blinded by your love for him that you couldn’t see what he was doing to you!” She told the police that he never hurt her. Never laid a hand on her. She was lucky those bruises had faded to nothing by the time they talked to her. “I did it to save you! Because I loved you enough to remove you from a shitty situation. To save you from being killed by him someday!”
The tears stream down her face, but she stays silent.
“And what thanks do I get for being a good sister?” I stand up from the table, glaring down at her frozen body. Blood rushes back to my hands, warming my knuckles. “I got sent to the fucking nut house while you lived your prissy, privileged life. You only came for an apology, not to see how I was doing. What a waste of time for the both of us.”
Digging my heel into the floor, I spin and rip the door open.I can’t look at her for another second.
Storming out of the visitation room, I slam into a hard wall of muscle. I go to push them away, but their hands cuff my wrists. Angered, I raise my eyes to tell them off when I see it’s Leo. His eyes cautiously search mine, witnessing the heat build inside.
Tightening his jaw, he glances at the visitation room before leading me away from my sister. We weave around patients in the hall, which thankfully grows less and less the more we get away from where we were. Turning a corner, he walks us up to a door. He checks through the window and our surroundings before unlocking it and tugs me behind him.
My vision blurs with red, and I cannot distinguish what is around me. Suddenly, I feel his hand on my back, pushing me forward, and another door shutting. Locking.
“Veronica.” My head is in his hands, but I can’t see his face. “I need you to calm down and tell me what happened.”
Furiously, I shake my head, attempting to escape his grasp. The walls are closing in. It’s getting hard to breathe. This feeling is one I’ve had before when I was locked in confinement for the very first time.
A panic attack.
“I can”t... I can’t...” The words sputter out of me, unable to finish a sentence.
“What?” Leo brushes his thumb along my cheek. “Come on, Vee. Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, baby.”
The single word has me snapping my gaze on him, making him less blurry than before. “I can’t... breathe.”
Leo is letting go of my head, racing to a window, and pushing it open. Aren’t they secured? Coming back to me, he takes my hand and grabs his desk chair setting it before the open window. He sits me down, the fresh air spilling into my lungs. Inhaling in a deep breath, I gasp for oxygen.
Grabbing ahold of the air I seek and force it down my throat. My lungs, which felt empty only seconds ago, heave as the air finds its way back home. The breeze blows my hair back, strands removed from my face as nature”s hand tucks the hair behind my ears.
“That’s it, breathe.” His voice is smooth beside me. Calm. Like a siren on the shore calling out to me, saving me from drowning in the storm.
Shutting my eyes firmly, I inhale another breath. The warm air feels like relief in my body, and when I’m breathing steadily, I say, “I can’t believe you witnessed me having a panic attack.”
“It’s all right, Vee.”
“No, it’s not!” I fling open my eyes to stare at him. “It makes me look weak!”
“I don’t have to worry about that with me.”
“I can’t believe I let her get to me like that.” I stare out the window. The land stretches out far, trees scattered around the grass, and weeds sprout from the ground around the trunks.
“What happened?” he asks once again.
“She apologized for being mean to me all our lives.”
I can hear the confusion in his voice when he slowly says, “That’s a good thing.”
Shaking my head, I frown. “She only did it because she was expecting me to apologize for killing him. She didn’t mean any of it.”
“How do you know she didn”t?”
Prying my eyes from the scenery, I find his eyes. “You didn’t see her face when I called her out.”
He sighs, feeling bad that this is how it went—that it didn’t go the way he wanted it to.
“It’s fine,” I tell the thoughts in his mind. “I’m glad this happened. Now, I don’t have to sit here wondering if things would be fine between her and me. I know they never will be.”
“I’m sorry.” He keeps his voice low.
Looking to my left, ready to be done with the conversation, I finally see where I am.
His bedroom.
He snuck me in here during the day.
“Why did you bring me here and not your office?”
“I don’t know.” He stands, goes over to the small desk, and rests against it. “I guess the other night when we were in here, it felt safe.”
“A different reality,” I say lightly.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“I enjoy being in here with you.” I turn the conversation around into something light.
“I do, too.” He massages the back of his neck. “It feels like we aren’t who we are here.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I let out a small laugh. “Almost like play-pretend.”
He hums out his response, dropping his hand from the nape of his neck. He stays resting against the desk, eyes focusing on the bathroom.
“Do you think we could play-pretend more?” I keep my voice quiet.
He shifts his head in my direction. “What do you mean?”
Standing from the chair, having had enough fresh air for the moment, I go to stand in front of him. Dark eyes stare down at me, and if I gaze too long into them, I’ll get lost in the darkness. “Can we come here to play-pretend more?”
Inhaling a deep breath, he lets it go, then says, “It’s going to be harder than us being in my office. At least in there, we are permitted to be alone. You are permitted to be in there. In here?” He moves his eyes from mine to glance around the room.
“I’m not allowed.”
“It’s not only that,” he reiterates. “Sneaking you in here is risky enough. You can’t stay the night because they expect you to return to your room when the time comes.”
My head dips in understanding because I do. I understand completely.
“We can try to make something work,” he suggests, not clarifying what we would do to make it work exactly. “We have to get you out of here now, though. It’s during the day, and multiple people saw you storming off. If anyone tells Dr. Bennett, I’m sure he will look for you.”
“You’re right.”
Staring at each other, me not moving out of his way to let us leave. His eyes drop from my eyes to my mouth. Lifting his hand, Leo gently brushes the hair from my pale face, and I watch his stare coast over the freckles lining my nose and cheek.
“Breathtaking.” The compliment was only above a whisper, and the next thing I knew, he was dipping his head and capturing my lips with his.
The kiss is full of passion and heat. A perfect mixture, as he claims me to be his. Soft and sweet, he continues to move his mouth fluently with mine. It’s like we were made to do this. Our mouths were molded specifically for one another.
I don’t want to stop. I want to stay in this room for the rest of the day. I’m about to say screw it and wrap my arms around his neck. Pull him to the bed where we can get lost in the sheets but he is the one to end this magic. Resting his forehead against mine, we catch our breath, and I step back.
He closes the window and takes my hand. The door opens only for him to be seen. We hear voices at the end of the hall, but soon, the sounds grow quieter, and the coast is clear. It is empty when we enter the hall that leads to doctors” offices. How do we continue to get so lucky?
“Leo, there is something I need to tell you.” Scarlet comes to mind as we walk, and I need to let him know what happened between us before she tries to spin it around on me if she finds the courage to be in his presence again.
He freezes, tilting his head to the side to look at me. “Should I be worried?”
I shrug. “I might have overheard you and Scarlet talking the other day. I was on my way to the lobby for some alone time when I heard you talking.”
“Oh,” he hesitantly responds before he remembers the conversation. “I didn’t even kiss her back.”
I shake my head. “I’m not worried about that.” I was before I heard him practically yell at her. “She isn’t a good person. Anyway, I wanted to inform you that I may have threatened her, in case she tries to tell you anything different.”
“Veronica.” He sighs. “What did you threaten her with?”
I rise on my tiptoes, rocking back and forth with my hands clasped behind my back. “I may have told her if she were to approach you again after you told her to leave you alone, that I would put my hands on her.”
Leo runs his hand across his worried face. “Vee, you can’t go around threatening people. Did you forget you’re on probation?”
Bringing one hand to the front, I lift my pointer finger toward the ceiling. “Technically, I was told not to get into a physical altercation with anyone. No one said anything about using my words.”
“And if she doesn’t take your threat seriously?”
“Don’t worry.” I wave off his question. “I’d get sent to her ward anyway if it came to that point. She doesn’t want that, so she’ll listen to me.”
“You are something else.” His head shakes with a laugh.
I flash him a wink. “Thank you for calming me down.”
A tight smile overtakes his face. “It’s what I’m here for.”
“Right.” I nod once. “Well, I’ll let you go.”
“What will you be doing the rest of the day?”
“Eliza has been trying to get me to do a puzzle with her.” I roll my eyes, showing the annoyance I feel. “Maybe if I sit down and do one with her, she’ll leave me alone about it.”
“Thought you were trying to be friends with her.” He slyly grins.
“Friends and acquaintances are two separate things,” I express. “Being a friend of mine is a privilege.”
Leo’s eyes fall to the floor; then he glances up at me. “Are we friends then?”
A smirk tugs at my lips. “We are... something.”
“You really want to work on a puzzle with me?” Eliza stares at me with a surprised expression
“It’s the only thing I want to do today,” I state sarcastically.
She giggles. “If you insist.”
I drag the chair from under the table and slump into the seat. “Okay, what are we working on?”
“Hot air balloons,” she informs me, lifting her eyes to see the disgust on my face. “It’s honestly one of the easier ones.”
“This is easy? Most of the balloons are the same color!” Picking up two pieces that appear to be the same color, yellow, I attempt to piece them together, but they don’t fit. “See? This is stupid.”
Eliza laughs again. “You tried two pieces, Ronnie. Yes, the colors should match, but when you find two of the same color, you can’t expect them to fit magically.” She finds two orange pieces and inspects them. Is she looking to see if they are truly the same color? “Look at the shape, too. See if the missing ones will stick together.”
Since it’s so easy for her, the two orange parts form together with ease. “Says you. You’ve had practice.”
She sets the oranges aside and glares at me. “Have you never done a puzzle?”
Shaking my head, I chose a red bit and another, inspecting it the way she did. “I didn’t really have time for puzzles. Between being a disappointment to my parents and a menace? I was fully booked.”
“Sounds like a full-time job.”
“It was.” I let out a dramatic breath. “That and trying to impress my sister? I wasn’t focused on anything else.”
Eliza snaps another piece into place before saying, “I heard she visited.”
My eyes leave the red I’m struggling with, and I find that she isn’t even looking at me. “Was the news printed and plastered on every wall around the asylum?”
“No. People are saying you yelled at her and then ran off.”
I hum in response. Word travels fast in this place. I’m not sure why I’m surprised the others heard about it.
“Was it really that bad?” she questions.
Sighing, I pick up another red shape and attempt to place it into the other. “It wasn’t at first. Then she spewed off fake apologies, hoping to gain one from me.”
“What did you have to apologize for?” Her voice turns timid.
Staring up at her through my lashes, I cock my head to the side. “You haven’t heard?”
“Rumors.”
I’m intrigued. “What kind of rumors?”
“Well, there”s the one where you killed a man randomly on the street with a metal pipe you found for looking at you the wrong way. Or there was the rumor that you purposefully caused a car accident, targeting a woman who breathed in your direction.” Her eyes search for mine for a hint of truth. “Or that you stalked someone, kidnapped them, and kept them in your basement.”
My eyes go wide. “Wow. Whoever is coming up with these is creative.”
“So they”re not true?”
“No.” I let out a laugh. “The stalking part is true, but I didn’t kidnap him and hold him hostage in my basement.” She is silent, waiting for me to continue. I guess I’m about to really open up to Eliza. “I killed my sister”s boyfriend.”
“Yikes,” she responds, eyes going almost as wide as mine when I heard the rumors.
“He deserved it. He was mean to her and put his hands on her. Left bruises all over her body,” I explain. “Eventually, he was going to wind up killing her, so I got to him before he could get to her.”
“You saved her,” she states.
“Yes! No one believes me.” I exhale a breath of frustration. “The court, my sister. No one believed I did it for her.”
Although killing him was out of the goodness of my heart, if my parents weren’t as wealthy as they were, I would have ended up in this place earlier than I had with killing the others.
One man was a sleaze, and good riddance. However, the surrounding people didn’t see him the way I did. They didn’t feel his hands on me when I told him no. They didn’t walk in on him taking advantage of a girl at a party I didn’t want to attend.
I lured him out of the room, away from the girl, using my fake charm.
He was dumb and drunk enough to follow me into the woods. I took charge, which he seemed to be okay with at the moment. I shoved him against a tree, and when I bent to the side, him thinking I was going to get on my knees for him; I slid my favorite knife from my boot and slit his throat.
It happened in the blink of an eye. He was too infatuated with the situation to realize what was going on, and when he finally realized, it was too late.
It was after I swiped the blade across his neck that those eyes went wide with panic. I stepped back while his hand pressed to his throat to stop the bleeding.
Nothing was going to make it stop.
I punctured the jugular.
Satisfaction rolled through my body at the sight of him gasping for air. Fighting for his pathetic life.
It was the first time I ever took a life. Before, I would only hurt someone enough to gain that fulfillment I lacked. Looking back, I knew I stopped myself because I didn’t know what that felt like—having someone”s life in your hands and taking it in a matter of a second.
He wasn’t the last person I killed before I ended my future brother-in-law.
That man from the party was the only one I got caught with.
Until Stephanie”s boyfriend.
The others went under the radar because, after all, my parents could pay off the crime, and being the nice daughter I am, I didn’t want them to waste any more money on me.
“Ronnie?” A soft voice in the distance draws me back to the present. I had almost forgotten I was sitting at the table with Eliza until she came into focus. “You all right?”
“Hmm? Yeah.”
“You had this murderous look in your eyes,” she informs me hesitantly.
I hold back a smirk. “Just thinking about the past.”
With the red piece between my fingers and the hopefully-matching one in the other, I snap them together, and they fit. “Look! I did it!”
Eliza beams at me. “See? Puzzling isn’t so bad once you get the hang of it. The next one, you’ll be a pro.”
“Don’t push your luck, Eliza,” I warn with a taut laugh. “This is the first and last puzzle I’ll be doing.”
“If you say so.” She smiles and focuses on the work before her.