Page 11 of The Oath We Give

“Yeah” is the only reply I give. What else is there for me to say?

My phone buzzes in my hand, and when I look down at the locked screen, it’s not a message from the group chat this time. It’s an email.

I silence my work email when I’m out of the office and with Dad at chemo—very responsible of me—so it’s my personal one that’s received a new message. I open it, expecting spam, but my brows pull together as I pull it up.

It’s an unknown sender with an encrypted video file attached and one line of text.

I’m not finished with you four. Time to come home, boys.

I silently hope it’s a virus trying to steal my bank information as I start to download it. The nurse walks back in, stealing my father’s curious eyes away from me while she unhooks him from the chemo pump.

Fine hairs on the back of my next stand up slowly, one by one, and the room feels a little too cold. My grip on the phone tightens as it continues to load, and it doesn’t matter how much I hope, I know this isn’t a random hacker.

Luck never runs on my side.

My father’s voice, mingled with the nurse’s, fades to the background, dripping further and further from my mind as my focus zeroes in on the video. I quickly make sure the volume is down before pressing Play.

A dark screen greets me, but it only remains that way for a few seconds. Soon, my screen is lit up, the person recording panning the camera upward. What plays out in front of me is a scene I’ve seen before.

A scene I’ve lived.

Rook, Alistair, and I stand in a circle around a budding fire. Rook builds the flames while Alistair and I grab the mutilated corpse of Conner Godfrey, tossing him effectively into the flames.

We’re all covered in blood, disposing of a body in the middle of the night in Lyra Abbott’s backyard. Our faces are clear—there would be no denying it or having lawyers get us off.

Every minute, on camera. On someone else’s phone—God fucking knows whose phone. People I don’t know, people who want something from us.

My jaw twitches, muscles straining painfully. Waves of emotions wash over me, too many of them to handle. All of them blend, roaring and tangling in rage.

“You alright, son?” I hear distantly.

Two years. That’s it?

Two years before this fucking town had to come back from the dead? It wasn’t happy with its pound of flesh? It wanted to eat us whole.

I nod, glancing up from my phone to look into his concerned eyes.

We stare at each other. I look at a face I’ve known my entire life. A man that has loved me without question, without fear, has supported me, and I don’t know how to speak to him.

Not truthfully. Not without lying.

Bitterness, overwhelming guilt, burns my insides, twisting my guts into miserable spirals. These emotions, this fucking burden that has followed me since the moment I was misdiagnosed, they are shackles, heavy and unbearable, dragging behind me with every step.

I want to tell him. Everything.

That I’m not schizophrenic; I’ve never been. I kept quiet to protect Rosemary. Words wouldn’t form after I was released from the ward because I never wanted him to hate himself for not believing me sooner, for taking me to that doctor.

There is so much I want to tell him, and his hourglass is running out of sand.

Is my father going to die without fully knowing his son?

Would there be a time when I could be honest with him? When words weren’t so scarce, and my voice was comfortable being heard?

Once again, I nod.

It’s always been better to remain quiet than risk speaking words no one believes.

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