Enraptured by the obscure haze in the back seat, cut off from the world in front by little more than a fragile screen, and the passing lights blurring by the weather-fogged windows, Cheryl could barely hold back the wounded breath that passed her lips; An almost guttural sound, rooted in the absurdity of her enduring heartbreak, of her inability to shake her parents’ disparagement of everything she wasn’t, when Jason was; A sigh of a storm, in the wake of her perennial struggle against her soul, her legacy, and every reminder of the countless almosts ripped away the moment civil war had broken loose in the heart of the Lodge family’s upstate townhouse.
“ Jayjay always liked you, ” Cheryl noted, offhandedly; a factoid easier to voice than the obligatory assent simmering low in her throat, like embers. “ But not like I did. ” A swallow. A shift against mottled black leather, to accommodate for the swift swipe of her thumb beneath her lash-line in anticipation of a single falling tear. “A truly unfortunate sample of the endless ammunition my nightwalker of a mother needed to loathe you, no doubt ——– even if you’re here now, blissfully free of your daddy dearest’s chokehold. ”
Rekindling her relationship with Cheryl left Veronica wondering where they would be today, had their parents had remained civil under the pretence of the elaborate hoax that Clifford Blossom and Hiram Lodge presented to the world; they lived in a world of duplicity, but there had been nothing fraudulent about their former friendship. Cheryl’s reassurance that perhaps there had been something more between them (Not like I did) is only but a painful reminder of how badly Veronica had screwed things up. Unfortunately, no one appreciates what they have until they lose it.
The distance between them draws to a close, as Veronica slides on the leather seat of her town car, close enough that their thighs touch, and she takes the initiative to take Cheryl’s cheeks between manicured hands, thumb tracing an invisible line over the Blossom heiress’ cheekbone. ❝ How long have you known? ❞ Though given the circumstances, she assumes the response is far more complicated than this. ❝ Cheryl, I had no idea. I was... An egomaniac. Self-absorbed and obsessed with turning into the poster child of a Park Avenue princess. If I had known sooner ---- ❞
Though she doesn’t know what she would’ve done; their parents certainly wouldn’t have allowed it and even if she had found the audacity within herself, to defy her father’s expectations like she was now, there was no guarantee Clifford and Penelope Blossom would’ve extended the same courtesy to Cheryl. Probably not. So, Veronica finds Cheryl’s eyes in the semi-lit back of her mother’s car, still cradling her face with a tenderness that would seem out of place for the person she used to be, but not anymore. ❝ The last thing I want is to get you in trouble. ❞