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“What do you mean Venom is still inside you?” Anne cried.
Eddie winced.
“He survived the explosion and made it back to me,” he tried to explain. “Honestly, it was a bit of a relief.”
Anne made a noise Eddie had only ever heard her make once before, when he’d told her he’d been offered a story that would take him into North Korea. (He hadn’t taken it.)
“Relief?” she demanded, disbelievingly. “You know that makes you sound crazy, right? Eddie, it’s killing you!”
We are not dying! Tell her I fixed us!
“He’s not a bad guy, Anne! He was inside you, too, you know what he’s like. And he fixed all that stuff. We’re fine! We just make sure to eat more tater tots and chocolate. Really, when you think about it, that’s a much better alternative. If I get this new job, we might even add in a weekly lobster night. It’s not that bad.”
“Venom is an alien living inside of you who occasionally takes over your body and devours your organs if you don’t feed him enough. What about that is ‘fine’?!”
She doesn’t understand. Why doesn’t she understand, Eddie?
“She’s just alarmed,” he tried to reassure, though he was really not qualified to be having multiple conversations at once. Then, to Anne, “I am feeding him enough. We talk and make sure he gets everything he needs so that I don’t have to turn into an option. We’ve got it under control.”
But Anne was already shaking her head.
“No,” she denied, looking every bit as angry as she had that day outside of her office. “That’s it. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What? Do what? Anne, what are you talking about?”
She nailed him with a hard glare.
“If you want to destroy yourself, then that’s on you. I won’t be a part of it. I really thought that maybe all of this would be a wake-up call, I thought you were getting your life back on track, Eddie, but apparently not.” She stood from the steps and turned toward the door of the townhome she and Eddie had bought together, the one she now shared with Dan. “I’m done, Eddie. Goodbye. Don’t come by again.”
He didn’t try to stop her as she opened the door and disappeared inside.
She didn’t mean that, Venom said. She wouldn’t leave us! Anne is ours!
“No,” Eddie told him, ducking his head and huddling further into his hoodie like that could sooth away the pain in his heart. “She’s not.”