Page 45 of Unraveled

Silence followed. Izzy didn’t move. I knew she was stunned and processing. I could feel her denial slowly shifting into guilt as she realized it was true. My sisterwas my tether, just like she’d claimed, but it had grown tattered and frayed, the bonds of the strands slowly unraveling like our connection.

She’d left me alone.

“Annie, I’m so sorry,” she eventually said, and I could hear and feel the remorse in her words, but a part of me had shut down. I was missing my opportunity to fix it. My mind screamed at me to not be a bitch. To let it go. To get my sister back now that she was here. But my mouth and my body wouldn’t listen.

I just rolled back to my side away from her and closed my eyes. Hating her. Hating this. Hatingmyselffor shutting down. I hated so much of myself nowadays. I closed my eyes, signaling I was done.

Izzy tried a few more times, but eventually, she sighed, getting up to go back to her bed.

Neither of us slept. The purple clock on the wall ticked through the verbal silence, the tension building. Both of us wanted to talk. She didn’t know what to say. I was too stubborn.

Right when I thought I couldn’t take the silence anymore, Izzy spoke. “I’m not going until we fix this. I may have dropped the ball this time. Apparently, I still am, but when you dropped the ball after Daddy died, I forgave you. Wewillbe okay again.”

She rolled away after that, and a tear finally fell free, dripping down onto my pillow.

At some point after that, I drifted into a restless sleep.

“Mom!” The scream wrenched from my throat as I dropped to my knees, the shards of glass cutting into my skin through my jeans as I grasped her hand, smearing the blood that coated her palm. Nothing. She couldn’t hear me.A strangled sound escaped from my throat, my hands now touching along her body. Looking for where to fix it. Where I could help.

Knicks covered her skin. Blood everywhere.

“Mom,” I sobbed, my vision blurring with tears, desperation swirling through me. I had to fix her. I couldn’t lose her. I’d already lost so much.

“Mom. Mom!” I tapped at her cheeks, too afraid to move her. Terrified of where the blood was coming from. She didn’t respond, and I pressed two fingers to her neck, relief bursting through me even as fear ricocheted through every inch of my body. She had a pulse, but it was so weak.

“Mom, please.” I searched over her again. “Answer me,” I sobbed, begging.

My phone started to ring, and I grabbed it, pulling it with shaky, blood-covered hands from my back pocket. Tucker’s name lit up the screen, but I couldn’t answer it, my finger just leaving swipes of blood in its wake. I scraped my hand and the phone across my stomach, wiping the blood onto my shirt.

“Tucker,” I sobbed.

“Sis, it’s me. What’s wrong?” Izzy’s voice came through instead.

“Mom,” I gasped. “Call 911.”

Ending the call as soon as I said it, I checked for Mom’s pulse again. It already felt weaker.

No. No, no, no.I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t lose anyone else. My eyes searched desperately again, finally spotting the red saturated near her back, staining its way up the side of her shirt. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I ran my bloody hand back through my hair, and then on pure instinct, I grabbedthe bottom of her shirt and pulled, ripping the material up her body.

My stomach rolled. Dizziness swam over my vision. I blinked, steadying myself from swaying, but no, the shard of glass sticking through her ribs was still there.

“Annie!” I heard Jet’s voice as the front door flung against the wall.

I looked up, desperate as he appeared in my kitchen, Stefano right behind him.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do!”

Stefano was already on the phone, dropping down by Mom’s side, and Jet stepped towards me, those blue eyes gentle, terrified, yet still my anchor in the swirling ocean I was drowning in.

“It’s my mom, babe. Please,” I begged as he gently pulled me away.

I woke up gasping for air, tears streaming hot down my cheeks, and shot up in bed. I couldn’t breathe, the images still there. Scrambling from the covers to stand, still gasping for breath, I took two steps before Izzy was bolting from her bed.

“Annie?!”

I held a hand out. I could do this. I’d done it before. I just needed to move. I needed past the images so I could breathe.

She stopped, watching me pace the wooden slats of our bedroom floor as my breathing slowly settled.

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