Page 26 of Sorrow

After ten minutes, I’m so cold I can’t feel my fingertips and almost every inch of my body is soaking wet. Half of the things in here are frozen solid and so heavy I can barely move them, so I break down and yell for my brother to come help me — but despite the pitying look he throws my waywhen I tell him what I’m doing, he doesn’t have any more luck than I did.

Wherever Rocky is, he isn’t here. Or if he is, he’s buried so deep under the rubble that it would take a miracle to find him.

Cursed girls don’t get miracles.

As my nose burns with the threat of tears, Boo pulls me into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, Sammy. I am. I’ll look again when they come to clean it all out, okay? I promise.”

It’s an empty promise, but one I appreciate nonetheless. He’ll have more important things to do that day, and what kind of grown man is going to ask a group of other grown men to find his equally grown sister’s pet rock?

It’s not going to happen.

“Thanks, Boo. Did you find anything?”

Stepping back, he gestures to a box behind us as he shakes his head. “Not really. A couple of jackets from the back closet that seem to be okay. I think the door being shut made a difference, but there wasn’t much else in there besides our birth certificates and shit. Those were in a fireproof safe.”

Two generations of life reduced to a couple of jackets, a box full of paperwork, and the singular photograph Hayes pulled out the night it happened. I think I’d cryagain if I didn’t feel so... hollow. Maybe numb is a better word, though that feels literal right now. The cold seeping into my bones rivals what I felt that night.

“Can we go?” I ask gently. “There’s nothing for us here.”

“Yeah. Take that box back to the cruiser and I’ll get the plywood put back up.”

It seems like such a stupid gesture since there’s nothing in here worth salvaging, let alone stealing, and that’s setting aside the gaping hole in the roof. If someone really wanted in, they’d get in.

I just wantout.

Skirting around him, I take one last look at the remains of my room, grab the box, and leave my house for the final time.

I just wish I wasn’t leaving a piece of myself behind in the ashes.

13

When Boo takes off for work, I’m almost too eager for my next lesson. My nerves are shot, my mind is a mess, and I’m desperate to feel something other than the sensation of wanting to crawl out of my own skin. If anyone can put me back in my body, it’s Hayes Sarro.

I find him on the couch watching some stupid action movie I couldn’t give a shit about. But the colors reflecting off his face from the TV make him look softer somehow, nothing like the cold, callused brother’s best friend I’ve come to know and mostly fear.

He looks... human.

For a while, I stand there in the shadows and just watch him. I watch the way hemoves, the way he fidgets. The tick in his jaw that doesn’t seem to be caused by the movie.

What’s he thinking about?

“Hayes?” I call softly, hoping not to startle him as I round the corner to the living room. “The sun went down.”

Brown eyes flick over to the window like he doesn’t have blackout curtains over them, and then back at me. “Yeah. Come here.”

He tosses the remote aside and pats his lap, giving me something to focus on as I cross the too-far distance. At least I don’t trip over my own feet as I kneel this time.

Meeting his eyes, I ask, “What’s tonight’s lesson?” And then, “Blow jobs again?”

“No, I tapped my lap, Sam. Not the ground. Come here.”

Shit. I should’ve known that. Maybe my mind is more of a mess than I thought. “I’m sorry,” I whisper quickly, ignoring the heat in my cheeks as I climb up into his lap.

This still feels too intimate, especially with him.

“That’s a good girl. You had a long day, didn’t you?” He tilts my face toward his with his fingers, and I swear when I meet his gaze he’s a completely different person. “You want me to help you let all of that go for a little while?”

It’s just like him to see right through me. He’s done it my whole life, but this is the first time he’s offered to make me feel better instead of trying to make me feel worse.

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