I make a special point not to glance down the darkly lit hallway or up the stairs to the cold walkway leading to the bedrooms. Walking to the back door, letting Peaches out, keeping my eyes planted firmly on the concrete steps. Avoiding the wood line like the plague.
That’s a slippery fucking slope.
The longer you stare, the more things seem to shift and move. My nerves cannot handle that matrix bullshit tonight. Hell fucking no. As soon as she’s done doing her business, I practically sprint back inside. Slamming the door so hard, the glass rattles in protest. I glance down to see Peaches’ brown judgmental puppy eyes sizing me up.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s been a long night.”
You need to check your phone. Let Ava know you’re home safe.
I groan as I jerk my phone from my bag. My heart seizing up in my chest as my hands start to shake all over again.
Unknown: You looked beautiful tonight. Sorry you had to see that. Some lessons are best learned the hard way baby.
A tear leaks down my face as I glance at the door, making sure it’s locked. I send a brief message to Ava telling her I’m home and need to talk to her tomorrow. I doubt she replies, she rarely does when she’s with someone. I wonder into the guest bedroom, hesitantly lingering outside the door before I jerk it open flipping on the light. All of my grandpa’s things clutter the room, memories of a man I owe my life to gathering dust. Too weak to shift through most of it, so it sits here like it has all these years.
I wipe roughly at my tears, fumbling past boxes making my way into the gun cabinet. The weight of his 1911 handgun is heavier than I remember it. I pop out the magazine making sure it’s loaded before I leave the room like it’s on fire. I don’t…want tofeelanything tonight. I can’t. I stop at an overstuffed kitchen drawer, jerking it open and frowning at the pill bottle inside.
I hate that I need this. I hate that I can’t live without it. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that has little to do with the pill.
I pop one in my mouth, sitting the gun down on the side table as I lower myself onto my couch. Too scared to walk upstairs to my own fucking bedroom. Peaches gets a drink of water as I force myself to breathe through my nose before she curls up on top of my feet. Her uncomfortable weight grounding me, each breath getting a little easier as the knot in my chest tightens. A mix that doesn’t make any sense to me, but I’m not interested in looking into it. Thank God for pharmaceuticals. The exhaustion hits me all at once as I jerk a cover over me, checking again that the gun is close by as if it would’ve gotten up and walked away. I don’t know when or how I fall asleep, but I do.
Chapter four
Losing Focus
Liam
Fuck, this is monotonous.
I stare around the boardroom, the sleek hospital white interior matched with the brutal sun shining in through the windowed walls burns through my retinas like bleach water.
Last time I let Brandon design anything.
Liam Age Twelve
I kick my legs out, pumping them until I go higher and higher on the swing. Until I catch air, making the chains jerk taunt on my descent. This isn’t just my normal determination to beat my height record or another weak attempt to fly all the way around the top.
This feels different.
There’s no tickle in my stomach as I feel myself go weightless in the swing. The wind blowing through my brown hair doesn’t feel as freeing as it should. I wrinkle my nose; my skin feels dry and tight from another one of grandmother’s bleaching treatments. It always burns and I suppose that’s annoying, but I stopped caring about pain a while ago. I stopped caring. Period. Do all kids feel this way? Not Brandon, at least I don’t think so.
I hate my copper hair; I hate the freckles that dot my face. I hate those things because she loved them and then she left. Left me alone with the people that hated them.
Lítla Liam.
Why can I still hear her voice after all these years? Why do my eyes fill with tears when I think of her? Why did she have to go? As I swing up again, I look down at the ground. Is this what she saw? Right before everything changed? Was she scared? Why does my heart hammer in my chest when I picture her that way…scared?
I pump my legs even harder, pushing myself until they burn. I watch the leaves break free from their place on the trees, tumbling to the ground as I release the cold chain of the swing set from my fingers.
Almost there.
I let myself pitch backwards, my heart starts to race harder as I free fall. It only lasts a second before my head hits the gravel with a sickening thud. Like the sound she made, but not nearly loud enough.
Damn.
“Liam!” I don’t look as I hear Brandon’s voice pitch up. I don’t think that I can. Why doesn’t this hurt? I can feel wetness seep onto the collar of my perfectly pressed polo shirt. Mother is going to freak if she sees it dirty. I’m not allowed to be dirty. I keep staring at the attic balcony of the manor, imagining it going up in flames. Imagining the windows imploding from the inside like they do in the movies.
“Dude, what the heck? You’re bleeding.” Brandon’s long shaggy black hair falls into his face. His dark eyes panicked.