Page 8 of Risking it All

How could I make anyone understand? The words for what happened—they didn’t exist, no matter how I wished them into being. I couldn’t tell anyone even the smallest of details—like how on that February night frost still covered some of my windshield, how it had begun to snow, how the three guys involved were caucasian, how they wore ski masks to cover their faces, and how one had a tattoo that I saw every time I closed my eyes.

Anytime I considered talking about February, my throat closed, this hollowness would form in my stomach, and if I did open my mouth to try to talk, I would experience this awful sensation akin to falling from the top of a rollercoaster without being strapped in, and not in a thrilling way. In the way that made me feel like I needed to vomit.

Disappointed in myself for worrying them, I lowered my head then jumped when a hand settled gently on my shoulder. My heart sprinted, but I sagged with relief when Ariel sat beside me on the stairs. She had an apologetic expression as she mouthed, "Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I mouthed back. I inclined my head to the kitchen, and she nodded, well aware of my Saturday morning spying activities. Because she was leaving for Europe this evening, she’d stayed the night with me so we could squeeze in time together.

“Is it possible her brain responded like yours and doesn’t remember the incident?” Dad prodded Mom. Mom had experienced something traumatic when she was my age, too. It made sense Dad would think the same thing could havehappened to me. He had asked some version of that question many times with the hope that I didn’t remember every gruesome detail. Unfortunately for all of us, I remembered each and every single deplorable second.

No doubt Dad sat beside Mom, as close as their chairs would allow. Holding her hand, caressing her back, moving aside the curls that had fallen into her face. Mom and Dad loved each other. More than any parents in the world. It wasn’t just love; it was a connection that I wasn’t sure existed for any other humans in the universe.

“She remembers,” Mom murmured, then continued to Isaiah and Rachel. “The last two months, she went to therapy twice a week to see if she’d connect better with different therapists, but none of them clicked how I hoped. While she will go to the therapy sessions that I set up for her and she is attending the group therapy, she still doesn’t talk and she still refuses to try art therapy with me or with anyone else. She also refuses to return to where the incident happened, and while she did try hypnotherapy, her brain won’t let her go under.”

“She’s made improvements, Echo,” said Rachel, Ariel’s mom. “It’s only been four months. She spent the first month of that in the hospital. One of those weeks in a medically induced coma. So, really, she’s only had three months to process. Appreciate what she has done in that time frame. She didn’t just finish her junior year online, but she caught herself up on months’ worth of work to do it. She does spend time with Ariel and the family, she’s shined at physical therapy, and she has never fought you on going to emotional therapy. If she wanted, she could dig her heels in and refuse to attend, but she doesn’t. She wants the help, but she’s processing. I can’t even imagine what’s going on inside her.”

“But I bet you can, Echo,” Isaiah gently added. “If you look back, you needed a lot of patience after what you went through, and it took a ton of time for you to heal.”

Silence from the kitchen, and anxiety released uncomfortable needle pricks on my arms. I hated that Isaiah had brought up Mom’s past in an effort to defend me.

Like everybody else in the kitchen, though, he was trying to help. Me.

“I know,” Mom admitted. “But I never wanted this for her. I never wanted anything like this for any of my children.” Her voice broke and my throat burned with the tears that, since February, had never found their way to my eyes. All my emotions gathered into excruciating knots that wedged themselves into all the uncomfortable crevices.

“I hate that Macie’s in pain and that there’s nothing I can do to fix her. And that’s what I want. I want to help my child. I want to take her pain. If I could carry it for her, I would. I would bleed for her every hour of every day if I knew she wouldn’t hurt. I would do anything for her to be happy again.” Mom’s pain overwhelmed me, and I jerked with the need to make her better. Ariel placed her hand over mine. She squeezed until I allowed her to thread our fingers together.

“Macie’s strong,” Rachel said. “Just like you and Noah. She’ll fight her way through this and come out better on the other side.”

“I wish we were already on the other side,” Mom responded. “I’ve fought this battle before, and maybe that’s why I’m so upset. I know the horribleness going on inside her. I know the isolation she’s experiencing. I know how she’s hurting, and I hate it.”

“You’ve gone quiet, Noah,” Isaiah hedged. I held my breath, unsure whether I wanted to hear any of this. While hurting Mom caused an ache in my chest, upsetting Dad crushed my heart.

When I was a kid, my dad was my absolute best friend, my hero even. But somewhere along the way, he and I grew distant. Butted heads at every turn. No matter what I did, we fought, and since February it was my relationship with Dad that had taken the worse beating. It killed my soul that my silence was destroying the shredded remains of our bond.

“Because I don’t have anything productive to say,” Dad responded with a steely edge.

“That’s why we’re here, brother,” Isaiah pushed. “Talk to us. Let it out. It’s better to say it to us than to bottle it up and accidentally drop it on Macie.”

A chair scratched against the tile floor and Dad’s booted feet paced the kitchen. Since February, I’d seen him pace many times when he didn’t know I was watching. In my hospital room when he thought I was asleep. In the garage when he didn’t know I was in the yard. In the kitchen in the middle of the night. The muscles in his arms flexing and unflexing. The look of pure anger on his face giving me chills.

I favored Dad with my dark brown hair and even darker brown eyes. But I had Mom’s freckles, something Dad used to tease me about on summer days. But I couldn’t remember the last time he had teased me, joked with me, or even laughed…

“What do want me to say?” Dad snapped. “That I want to find the bastards who shot my daughter so I can beat the shit out of them? Is that what you want me to admit? Because that’s what goes through my head from the moment I wake up till I go to bed. Those bastards are out there, and they hurtmydaughterand it’s eating me alive.”

“We’re trying to find them, you know this,” Isaiah said.

“But we’re getting nowhere,” Dad rebuffed.

“We’ll find them,” Isaiah answered. “I promise you, we’ll find them. And when we do, they’re going to wish they were never born.”

“Isaiah,” Rachel reprimanded.

“What?” he pushed back. “The police have done nothing. Macie is as much my daughter as Ariel is. I won’t lie and say I haven’t had the same thoughts as Noah.”

“The police haven’t done anything because Macie hasn’t talked to them,” Rachel retorted. “They have nothing to work from. When she’s ready to talk, they’ll do their job, and we’re going to let them. Neither you nor Noah are going to be any good to Macie if you get yourselves arrested.”

“At least then I wouldn’t feel like a failure as a father,” Dad snapped, and shock seized my lungs. “Day after day, I watch her walk around this house a ghost of herself and it kills me. I feel so damn powerless and useless. Maybe if I saw a spark of the old Macie…some hint that she will be okay. She loved her summer job at the amusement park and busted her ass all last year for the promotion, and now she won’t even talk about the supervisor position they offered her. Nor will she talk about returning at all. Besides family, Ariel included in that, Macie’s secluded herself. When she does leave the house, she looks so damn scared that it crushes me. It feels like she’s given up, and it’s my fault because I’ve failed to protect my daughter.”

“You couldn’t have stopped this from happening,” Isaiah said.

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