Chapter Fifteen

VALERIAN'S LAST MEMORYof his mother was Verniece running her fingers through the stubborn curls of his hair as he fell asleep on her lap.

When he woke up, it was to see his mom pale, stiff, and completely unresponsive, foam bubbling from her mouth.

He had only been seven at that time, and despite everyone"s best efforts, Valerian had learned that his mother had a problem.

She couldn"t handle being alone with her thoughts, and so she killed herself

Just that.

Growing up, he had been unable to wrap his head around it. How could his mother kill herself for something so stupid?

But then he kept hearing people remark how he looked so much like Verniece.

You're so much like your mother, boy.

Valerian couldn't remember exactly when or how it started. It was just there one day, suddenly. An incessant buzzing that only his mind could hear instead of his ears, and it was when he started to wonder if he, too, might have the same problem.

Am I going to fucking off myself the moment I'm alone with my thoughts?

****

POPPY WAS STILL WIDE-awake at eleven in the evening. She had also been pacing back and forth for the past hour, her mind made restless by all the things she couldn't make sense of.

Valerian had tried so hard to convince Poppy to have herself checked and even spend the night at a nearby hospital. But the idea seemed so silly considering the accident earlier hadn't left a single scratch on her body.

A knock on the door had Poppy quickly jumping back into bed, and she tried not to look guilty as Valerian entered her room.

His steps slowed to a halt midway, and his gaze narrowed at her. "You got out of bed, didn't you?"

Since lying had never come naturally to her, all Poppy could do was smile weakly. "Oops?"

Frustration flashed over his features, and Poppy's guilt increased. "I'm sorry. I know you're worried I might have a concussion, but I'm honestly fine."

"Since someone here refused to have herself checked, we don't know that for sure, do we?" Valerian's form remained noticeably rigid with tension as he folded his length into the high-backed leather chair next to her bed. "I'm sorry I had to leave for a meeting."

"I don't mind," she assured him quickly.

"Have you had any headaches or nausea since I left?"

"Nope."

"You're sure?"

Poppy didn't know whether to feel cherished or amused with how Valerian was acting. "I'm fine. Seriously."

A strained silence emerged between them, and her heart ached when Valerian suddenly asked if he could explain what happened.

"Only if you want to..."

Valerian exhaled deeply, and Poppy had to curl her fingers into fists. She so badly wanted to reach out to him, but she didn't dare risk it this time. She no longer knew what was or wasn't safe to do.

"You might've noticed how I like to do things that involve a certain amount of...risk."

That was putting it mildly, Poppy thought. Those ‘things' Valerian spoke of weren't just risky. They were downright dangerous, like jumping off a plane in a parachute or diving from some unimaginably tall cliff. These ‘things' were what normal people did once in a lifetime. But for Valerian, these ‘things' were all part of his Mundane Monday routine.

"I don't do these things because I enjoy them."

The sudden hollowness of his voice made Poppy dig her nails deeper into her palms.

"I do it because they're what keeps me sane."

And before she could ask what he meant by this, Valerian began to paint a horrific picture of his last memory with his mother.

Oh God, help him.

This was why Heather had taken pains to assure Poppy that her bi-monthly appointments with Valerian were not what it seemed. And now it made so much heartbreaking sense, with how Valerian had seemed to shove her away as if she had suddenly turned into the Devil.

"Social Services eventually contacted my grandfather, and he took me in right after my mother's funeral. I had never seen him before that day. Never knew about Heather until that day. Or that my father, his son, had died in a car crash a few years back."

Poppy could only nod, with all of her effort focused on keeping her tears back. Valerian was an exceptionally proud man, and she didn't want him to risk thinking she was crying because she pitied him.

"The old man did his best to raise me right, but he could never reach the part of my mind where I kept hearing that fucking buzz. We'd have these shouting matches almost every day because he couldn't understand why I kept getting in trouble. I couldn't make myself tell him I was fucked up. The final straw was when I asked him for a loan to start my own company, and he didn't just say...no. Instead he called me a lunatic just like my dead mother, and...that was it. I walked out of our family home in San Antonio, and I haven't spoken to him since."

"I'm so, so sorry." Poppy didn't know what else to say.

"You don't have to be. Heather loaned me the money I needed, and I earned my first hundred mil that year. Heather always stayed in touch, and she was even upfront with Gramps when she accepted my offer to join Rossfield Inc."

"And your grandfather?"

"We're still not on speaking terms."

"But does he at least know about..."

"Heather's the only one who knows about my condition. No one else knows, not even Camelia. And if I have to be honest, I had no plans of telling you either. But after what happened today..."

"It was an accident, Valerian. And after what you've told me, I don't even want you to apologize for it."

"I almost killed you."

The ache in her heart intensified at the way self-contempt laced Valerian's every word. She could too easily picture in her mind a seven-year-old Valerian waking up to see his mother dead...and then finding out later on that she had killed herself for reasons he would've been too young to understand.

Valerian jerked in his seat when Poppy suddenly jumped out of her bed. "Poppy—"

And then she was suddenly kneeling between her knees and looking up at him with tear-stained eyes.

"I didn't die, Valerian. I don't even have a single scratch on me. But y-you? You've been hurting all these years, and I hurt, too, when I see you in pain like this. So please...please tell me honestly. Is there something I can do to make you feel better?"