The Girl Who Always Wins (Soulless 13)

She could definitely multitask.

When it grew late, she closed her laptop and stowed everything in her bag. She was already in my t-shirt and ready for bed. “Do you care if I wash off my makeup and brush my teeth before we get our freak on? Because after we’re finished, I do not want to move.”

“I’ll fuck you good either way.”

She leaned over the couch and kissed me, a smile on her face. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” She sauntered down the hallway and headed to my bedroom.

I drank the last of her wine and then put all my stuff away too so I could grab it on my way out the door. When I rounded the corner and headed down the hallway, I caught her staring at a picture on the wall.

I came to her side and followed her gaze.

It was a picture of my family.

My parents, my sister, and me.

It was my graduation from Cambridge. I was in my robe, decorated in my medals and honors, towering over all of them with my arms around them all.

She stared at it for a long time, her arms crossed over her chest. “Is that an old girlfriend?”

“My sister.”

She slowly turned to me, her eyebrows furrowed. “You said you didn’t have any siblings.”

“Because I don’t.”

The rest of her body pivoted toward me, solving the mystery instantly. “She passed away too?”

I gave a nod.

She sucked in a deep breath, her chest rising slowly, drawing it all in. Sorrow entered her gaze, the same sorrow I always carried, day in and day out. But she didn’t ask the question that was on her mind, didn’t broach the topic that I’d dismissed a long time ago. She turned her gaze back to the picture.

I knew it was time.

I had to tell her.

“My family took a trip to visit me here in Manhattan. I was wrapped up in work at the time, so instead of picking them up from the airport like I should have, they took the subway. May 2nd…three years ago.”

She turned back to me, her eyes shifting back and forth quickly, her mind working to solve the riddle I’d presented. It took her no time at all, and her entire expression changed, a flood of emotion hitting her so hard that her eyes immediately filled with tears. “No…”

I found someone who loved me so much that she felt my pain when I felt it, felt my sorrow, felt every crack in my heart like it was on hers too. She carried the burden with me even when I didn’t have to explain the depth of my trauma, the depth of my loss.

She moved into me, her arms wrapping around me, squeezing me tightly as she buried her face in my neck. She held on tightly, breathing hard, her tears sticking to my neck and rolling down to my chest.

My arms locked around her, and I felt my own eyes water.

Because it hurt me—every day.

They were all buried in the cemetery here, far away from home, because a mass murderer decided to take the lives of the best people I’d ever known. Within a second, my entire life was snuffed out like a burning candle in a breeze. I was the last survivor of my family, the last person to carry my surname, and I couldn’t even make my own family to fill that hole. My ex and I had signed the divorce papers a week before it happened, so the loneliness was indescribable.

“I’m…so…sorry.” Every word was diluted with tears, her voice cracking with each syllable.

My hand rubbed her back, and I closed my eyes, holding on to the lifeline that made all of this so much easier.

8

Daisy

“Everything okay?” Mom sat at the head of the table, watching me over her glass of wine, while Dad set the table and served dinner.

I wanted to shrug off the question, but I didn’t have the heart. “No.”

Dad stilled and looked at me. “What is it, sweetheart?” He set down the bowl then lowered himself into the chair across from me.

I gave a slight shake of my head, unsure how else to express myself. “Atlas told me what happened to his family… Did you know?”

Dad stilled like an animal that had been spotted, unsure if he should stay motionless or move. His answer emerged as a nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He asked me not to.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since before Father’s Day.”

“That was months ago.”

Mom reached her hand to mine and rested it on top, the compassion in her eyes as always.

“Why would he not want me to know?”

Dad rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his hands together. “You weren’t getting along at the time, and I think he just didn’t want your pity, or for you to start liking him for the wrong reason.”