Page 50 of Psycho

So I went to the one person I hated going to, mostly because she was one-half of the reason I was as fucked up as I was. Mommy dearest. I’d like to say I loved her because she was my mother, but at the same time, it was impossible for me to say it because it just wasn’t true. When you were a Salvatore, you didn’t get to love your family. You didn’t get to be happy. You only had obligations.

My mother was a forty-five-year-old woman who looked like she was thirty. She had no wrinkles at all on her face or anywhere on her body, and she exercised regularly. She also had her hair done every two weeks, keeping the bleached blonde highlights in her dirty blonde hair always looking fresh. Today her hair was done up in an old-fashioned swirl, and she wore a dress that ended at her knees, along with a string of pearls around her neck and on her ears. The pattern on her dress was very autumny. I hated it.

I found her in the kitchen, humming along as she oversaw the ones cooking. When she turned and saw me, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her eyes were like mine, a vivid green, and they immediately went up to my hair.

Still kind of pink. I tried washing it out, but I thought whatever dye Ash used stained my hair or something. I didn’t know. Couldn’t say I didn’t deserve it, after what I did with Brooklyn, but still.

“I do wish you’d do something about that hair,” my mother spoke, reaching out to me to gingerly touch the pink strands above my head, as if she was afraid the pink would leap off me and settle on her head instead. “I could see about making you an appointment this weekend. I know it’s short notice, and they don’t normally handle men’s hair, but they have to make an exception for you—”

“My hair is fine,” I said. I didn’t come find her to talk about my hair. “I was wondering if you still have it.” I knew she did; I knew she got it back from the police after they’d closed the case as a suicide. You didn’t need evidence when there was no supposed crime.

That was the problem. I always thought there was a crime, and even though Ash hadn’t been here at the time, she must’ve thought there was a crime, too. Why else would she have Travis looking for her diary?

Her…her second diary, which meant Ash knew she had two. How did she…

“Have what?” my mother questioned.

“The note,” I croaked out, an uneasy feeling settling in my gut. If Ash knew Sabrina had more than one, it meant…fuck, I wasn’t sure what it meant. That she’d seen the other? That someone she knew had the other? I didn’t…I didn’t want to think about what it could mean.

My mother’s expression hardened. “Why would you want to look at that note again, Sawyer?”

Sabrina was their baby, their daughter, their youngest. I was the fuckup, and I could never be enough for them. Just add to the list of disappointments I’d given them. I stopped keeping track a long time ago.

“I just…I need to see it,” I said, unable to tell her the real reason. I suspected I’d missed something. My brain had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Everything I’d done…might’ve been for nothing. I could feel myself slowly losing it, and I hated it, but at the same time I couldn’t stop it.

My mother gave me a look that told me I was the greatest disappointment in her life. “It’s upstairs, in the attic, in a box with everything else the police took.” She shook her head slightly, her nose upturned as she added, “I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. You don’t have too much longer at Hillcrest. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to act like an adult.”

I was getting lectured, and all I asked about was the letter. I already knew I was a disappointment to my parents; a reminder was not needed.

Saying nothing else, I went to the stairs. Our house was three floors, with the walk-in attic being a fourth, or a third and a half. It was bigger than the house I rented across from campus, and it felt lonelier, even though there were other people here. My father was in his study, reading or whatever it was he did. I purposefully steered clear of him, because when he got upset, things tended to get broken.

My family looked perfect from the outside, but when you were in it, you saw its flaws. Its imperfections. We all had our problems. Mother had to drown her depression out with shopping and Botox and manicures. Sabrina had needed medication since she was a kid, being mostly manic with a side helping of depression every once in a while. Father was…well, I was more like him than I wanted to be. Alcohol was his vice, and he was an angry drunk.

Me? I didn’t think I was an angry drunk, mostly because I didn’t want to be like dear old daddy. When I got drunk or high I just made piss-poor mistakes that I was too out of it to regret.

Now? There were things I regretted now. Things I’d take back. Being stoned out of my mind the weekend Sabrina died was one of them. Another was everything involving Ash. Ash deserved better.

Each step that drew me closer to the attic made my chest feel heavy. My heart…it hurt, as much of a wussy thing that was to admit. I’d made other people hurt, and now I hurt too. But that was the thing about me—I always hurt. It’s why I drowned it out with other things. The booze. The drugs. At first it was teenage rebellion, but then as I grew up, I realized just how much my parents expected of me, and then it became something more. An escape. The only way out. The one way I could feel free.

And then I lost Sabrina, so those things helped me feel numb. I stuck to the booze, not wanting to go on another bender, because that bender was the reason I didn’t answer any of Sabrina’s calls or texts, but then Ash came strolling in, tossing that plan to hell.

I made it to the attic, walking up the wooden steps that curled upwards into it. The attic was a dark, unfinished space, holding a few windows that you could see our entire property from. It was mostly clear, because when you were rich, you could afford to toss anything old and buy new. There were some boxes though, mostly holiday decorations my parents made the housekeepers put up.

One box, though. One box was labeled S, and it looked much newer than the others.

S for Sabrina.

I’d never come up here after. Never wanted to. But now? Now I needed to. I needed to see that letter again, needed to know if I’d royally fucked my life up past the point of no return.

The floorboards creaked as I moved toward the box, and I fell to my knees before lifting the lid. On top were the clothes she’d worn. I didn’t know why my parents wanted them back, but they’d buried her in something much nicer. It was too morbid for me.

This whole thing was morbid, honestly.

Beneath the clothes, I found it. It sat in a bag, its paper wrinkled. The bag would help preserve it, and for whatever reason my parents couldn’t just get rid of it. I pulled on the plastic, bringing the note to the surface, moving to sit on my ass as it fell on my lap.

This was her suicide note. The last thing she’d written.

I carefully unzipped the bag and pulled it out. My eyes scanned it, and with every word, with every line I read, my heart started to beat fast. Faster and faster until it threatened to burst right out of my chest.

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