Page 105 of Reclaiming Adelaide

In the last five days since we’d been home, I’d divulged things to him I hadn’t told anyone. The truth bug was out, and I enjoyed the freedom it equated.

“Only because I hold you accountable.”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

My gaze turned down, and my heart staggered in my chest. The smile on my face re-opened the festering wound of grief as a constant reminder that I shouldn’t be joking around, smiling, or acting like life was okay. Because it wasn’t. Today we’d put my parents to rest, and I hadn’t even gotten dressed yet. I’d chosen to ignore it altogether and pretend as though it’d never happened.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But life didn’t work that way. It had its subtle ways of throwing baroque reminders at me, and so did Jake. He wouldn’t let me stuff it down until it consumed me.

“It’s okay to smile, Adelaide,” he said, as though he could sense my inner turmoil.

“No… it’s not.” I swallowed the stinging swarm in my throat. “We haven’t even put them in the ground yet.” I stared off beyond him toward the TV monitor that hosted several camera angles inside and outside of the house.

“Once you allow yourself to be happy, the healing process will begin. I promise.”

Jake’s promise of healing made it sound seamless, as though it were easy enough to hit the start button and begin. But how would someone know they’d started or not? Where was the measurement stick?

I turned to my computer screens with the Armenian-Swiss bank website taunting me.

We’d worked tirelessly for the past twenty-four hours to get into the account they’d used to pay Blackstone Tech. I’d hoped to have accomplished the task before the funeral, but that wasn’t looking so hot.

“What time is it?”

“We still have another hour and a half until we need to be at the service. So how about this, go get ready, and if there’s enough time left, you can try accessing the account before we leave. Sound good?”

I shook my head for the umpteenth time. “Sounds like a terrible plan.” If I stood from this chair and searched for a black dress or anything forlorn, I’d break down and never recover. Much like when Charity had to pick the bathroom lock and pull me out when Jake had left for ‘errands’ with Max.

“Adelaide, you will face this today. You’ll regret it later if you don’t.”

I rolled my lips, wishing I’d put my lip ring back in after the heat stroke incident. “And what if I can’t?” I whispered, my voice a pathetic broken mouse of a sound.

“I’ll be by your side the entire time.”

“How about we focus on getting ready first?Hmm?”

Jake stood from his chair and dragged me out of mine, voiding my choice in the matter.

Maybe that’s what I needed—someone to force me to confront my fear, and right now, that was seeing them in a coffin and accepting this was real.

I forced a shaky breath as he pulled me from my chair and out of the room with berating thoughts pounding me down.

I’d done this to them, and there were no do-overs. Norespawningand returning to home base. Life was a permanent mess; your choices were final, and the outcomes were devastating. I made the wrong move on the game board, and now I’d suffer for eternity because of it—and so would my parents.

All I wanted was to sit in the neon room with my computer screens in front of me, escaping the dimensions of my new reality, and find the men who destroyed my picture-perfect life.

But between the bouts of morning sickness, lack of sleep, and caffeine, I wasn’t getting to do much of it. Jake had to pick up the slack.

“I reallycan’tdo this.”

Sweat slicked my skin, leaving my palms a dewy mess and my brow beading with waves of hot and cold.

“You can.”

“And what if they are there?”

I’d thought this question through long and hard ever since he told me his friend had taken care of all the arrangements. What’s stopping them from wiping their hands clean of us and bombing the church like they did the school kids in Mexico?

---