Page 42 of The Wrong Drive

“Yeah,” I say, feeling him tense beneath me. “I also read your brother’s journal.” He stops breathing at the mention of that, and I suddenly regret mentioning. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I was just… I just wanted to know who you are. I don’t know. It was absolutely heartbreaking—what you went through,” I feel myself rambling, terrified of the reaction that he’s going to have, desperate to stave off his explosion. I don’t have clothes on to go sprinting into the night. “Turner, I’m so sorry.”

He audibly swallows. “I haven’t read his journal. I, uh, couldn’t stomach that.”

“There’s not a lot in there,” I say quietly. “I… Um… I’m sorry that he left you when you were really going through it.”

“What?” Turner’s reaction takes me by surprise.

“That he left?” I offer it out there again.

“Mm,” is all he says, then kissing the top of my head. He falls into silence after that, but in ten or so minutes of me holding my breath, he falls asleep, his breaths deep and even. I lay against him, listening to him like that, until I finally catch myself drifting off into a haze of slumber as well. However, I still can’t shake that I’m missing a piece of his complicated puzzle…

And it leaves me with a bad,badfeeling in my gut.

Chapter 19

Turner

I don’t fall asleep holdingEmersyn. I just let her think I do. I can’t stop wondering about the journal upstairs. I didn’t go through his things after everything happened. I knew that my psyche couldn’t handle it, but…

She thinks he actually left.

She has no idea he’s buried in my backyard.

Swallowing hard, I unentangle myself from her, slipping out of the bed in total silence. I glance at the window. It’s almost sunup. I need to finish Em’s present, which is a second reason I have to brave Tommy’s room. I need a chain—and the only one I have is from my dog tags, which are in the box at the top of the closet upstairs. I only know that, because I saw it once, back when I was trying to cope instead of just descend into darkness.

I pad out of the room, carefully shutting the door. If something goes terribly wrong, she’ll be hopefully out of sight and out of mind—maybe. I stop at the pile of clothes in the hallway, and fish out the wooden pendent I made for her.

I then start the ascent to the second floor. I’ve done it hundreds of times since everything happened, but this time, it feels like I might be taking a walk to my doom.Maybe I should just leave the journal. I’ll just get the chain.

My new plan brings me little relief as I turn the knob and creep inside the room. I shut the door behind me, and kick on the light. “Just get the chain,” I tell myself. “Just the chain.” I make my way across the floors, ignoring the pictures, obituaries, and everything else.

My hands are trembling by the time I make it to the closet door, but it doesn’t cloud my mind. I take a deep breath, and open the door, ignoring Thomas’s things—which are still there, covered in a thick layer of dust. I should’ve done something with it all, but I couldn’t bring myself to. If Em would’ve opened the closet, maybe then she would’ve realized that Thomas is a different kind of gone.

I abandoned him, not the other way around.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, I reach up and grab the cardboard box, tucked in the back right corner. I pull it down, and set it on the floor, staring at the words scrawled in black sharpie marker.

Turner’s Keepsakes.

I pop my jaw, as I kneel beside it, carefully peeling back the tape—tape that Tommy put there. He was the one who collected all my shit, put it all together, and then made sure it didn’t get lost in transit. He did everything for me, and I killed him. I leave the tape hanging off the side and fold back the lid.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose as I flip it open. There on top is a folder, and I pull it out, dropping it on the floorboard beside me. It’s more than likely discharge information and whatever else they felt the need to send me home with. I lean over the box and start sifting through the contents, trying not to look too hard at the patches and pictures.

I used to love this life.The thought comes without warning, leaving a sick taste in my mouth. That was a long time ago, and I don’t know how I could say I loved it when it took my brotherand my sanity.But did it take my sanity? Or was I always destined to fuck up like this?

Pushing it away, I finally locate the dog tags at the bottom. I don’t look at them. I unclip the chain and slide it out, dropping the tags back into the box. Taking a deep breath, I take out the pendent and slide it through. I nearly scoff at how childish it looks. The woman is probably used to diamonds and gold, not fucking cedar and cheap silver.

I stand to my feet, surprised I’m not losing it, and walk over to Tommy’s desk, opening the top drawer and pulling out a blank piece of card stock. I grab a pen, and click it, hovering over the paper.What the hell do I say?I stare at it for a few moments longer, and then scribble something down, signing my name at the bottom.

Only then, when I’m all finished and the pendent with its chain is laying on the desk, do I start to think about the journal again. I open each drawer, and it takes until I make it to the bottom before I find the leather-bound book. My heart thrums in my ears as I pick it up, knowing I shouldn’t.

Don’t fucking do it.

But the warning to myself is useless. I flip the damn journal open, and it falls to the last entry on the day before Thomas died, and as I read his final words.

December 24, 2013…

I snap the book shut and toss it into the drawer, slamming it shut. “Permanently broken,” I say the words aloud. “You thought I was permanently broken.” I stare at the now-closed drawer, my ears beginning to ring, but it’s not the war that comes rushing back this time. It’s Christmas.

---