Chapter Fifteen

VALERIAN’S LAST MEMORY of his mom was Verniece working her fingers by way of the cussed curls of his hair as he fell asleep on her lap.

When he awoke, it was to see his mother pale, stiff, and utterly unresponsive, foam effervescent from her mouth.

He had solely been seven at the moment, and regardless of everybody’s finest efforts, Valerian had discovered that his mom had an issue.

She could not deal with being alone together with her ideas, and so she killed herself

Simply that.

Rising up, he had been unable to wrap his head round it. How might his mom kill herself for one thing so silly?

However then he saved listening to folks comment how he appeared a lot like Verniece.

You’re a lot like your mom, boy.

Valerian couldn’t keep in mind precisely when or the way it began. It was simply there someday, all of a sudden. An incessant buzzing that solely his thoughts might hear as an alternative of his ears, and it was when he began to surprise if he, too, might need the identical drawback.

Am I going to fucking off myself the second I’m alone with my ideas?

****

POPPY WAS STILL WIDE-awake at eleven within the night. She had additionally been pacing forwards and backwards for the previous hour, her thoughts made stressed by all of the issues she couldn’t make sense of.

Valerian had tried so onerous to persuade Poppy to have herself checked and even spend the evening at a close-by hospital. However the concept appeared so foolish contemplating the accident earlier hadn’t left a single scratch on her physique.

A knock on the door had Poppy shortly leaping again into mattress, and she or he tried to not look responsible as Valerian entered her room.

His steps slowed to a halt halfway, and his gaze narrowed at her. “You bought off the bed, didn’t you?”

Since mendacity had by no means come naturally to her, all Poppy might do was smile weakly. “Oops?”

Frustration flashed over his options, and Poppy’s guilt elevated. “I’m sorry. I do know you’re anxious I might need a concussion, however I’m actually tremendous.”

“Since somebody right here refused to have herself checked, we don’t know that for positive, will we?” Valerian’s type remained noticeably inflexible with stress as he folded his size into the high-backed leather-based chair subsequent to her mattress. “I’m sorry I needed to depart for a gathering.”

“I don’t thoughts,” she assured him shortly.

“Have you ever had any complications or nausea since I left?”

“Nope.”

“You’re positive?”

Poppy didn’t know whether or not to really feel cherished or amused with how Valerian was appearing. “I’m tremendous. Critically.”

A strained silence emerged between them, and her coronary heart ached when Valerian all of a sudden requested if he might clarify what occurred.

“Solely if you wish to…”

Valerian exhaled deeply, and Poppy needed to curl her fingers into fists. She so badly wished to succeed in out to him, however she didn’t dare threat it this time. She now not knew what was or wasn’t protected to do.

“You would possibly’ve observed how I love to do issues that contain a specific amount of…threat.”

That was placing it mildly, Poppy thought. These ‘issues’ Valerian spoke of weren’t simply dangerous. They have been downright harmful, like leaping off a airplane in a parachute or diving from some unimaginably tall cliff. These ‘issues’ have been what regular folks did as soon as in a lifetime. However for Valerian, these ‘issues’ have been all a part of his Mundane Monday routine.

“I don’t do these items as a result of I take pleasure in them.”

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