Page 3 of Oliver

Mom doesn’t know shit because Dixie didn’t tell her. Hell, Dixie was hardly ever home.

I don’t blame her, if I had anywhere to go half the time I would have been gone too. It’s just not the same. It hasn’t been in years. Now this…

It’s like a fucking tomb and I’m suffocating in the stale air.

Whatever. The police can bumble around their stupidity while I figure it out. It was always going to be me, anyway. Who else could understand my sister’s actions?

I’m hoping this is a short visit and when I peek out the door, confirming Mom is at the dining room table with the detective, of whom I don’t remember his name, I tiptoe down the hall.

The bathroom door is closed and with a shiver, I open it wide, basking in the light shining from the window.

Whenever I think about Dixie’s death, it’s the image of her laying in a dark room with her head detached from her body that gets me every time.

Focus, Penny. If I allow those thoughts through, I’ll be a blubbering mess in no time.

Dixie’s room is down the hall opposite Mom’s and when I reach the threshold, I slow, choking on a chuckle that ends in a sob.

She did it again even though Uncle Hank came by two days ago and they got in a rousing screaming match about it.

“Fucking looney tunes,” I whisper, running my fingers over the tin foil painstakingly covering the door and frame.

There’s no convincing Mom that Dixie’s soul isn’t in that room though. What I can’t figure out is why she would want to trap it inside, with tin foil no less.

Shaking my head, I give in to the burn and tear through the foil in a frenzy, uncaring of the mess I leave on the floor.

When I’m done, I exhale slowly to calm my racing heart before pushing the door open. While it felt good to take my emotions out on something, the rage bubbling below my skin remains.

I’ve been in here countless times since Dixie died. For weeks after, I slept here until Mom started rambling about her soul and I found myself speaking to Dixie in hushed tones whenever I was alone.

After that shit show, I went back to sleeping in my own room.

I've searched the mess in here for any clues that might lead me to her killer, and even though there can’t be anything more to glean, I still pick through what the cops left behind.

This after I squirreled away a few items before they came.

Why? Because I thought I was protecting my mom and my sister. Now I don’t fucking know.

I guess I didn’t want the world to see Dixie as anything but the sweet girl who shared her last cookie to make you smile. Dixie loved life and she loved people.

If anyone saw the shit she had in here, that’s what they would focus on, and Dixie would be nothing but an oddity to gossip over and proclaim guilty.

I’m not saying she wasn’t wrong in her actions, just that she shouldn’t be defined by only those things.

Like the pink notes addressed to Kenny, followed by notebooks full of doodles in which she apparently dreamt of a day when that asshole would leave his wife and she would be Mrs. Kenneth Goodlow.

Fuck me.

After scanning the room for the four thousandth time, I breathe in her scent, fading under the dust collecting in the corners. She used to wear perfume from the corner shop. It was cheap and had an alcohol after bite, but she loved that freesia scent.

At the thought, grief fills my lungs until I can’t breathe and with a choked sob, I grab a shirt from the floor and swipe at the dust, attempting to erase the evidence of her absence.

It’s no use, though, Dixie isn’t coming back.

She left me. Here. Basically alone to pick up the fucking pieces.

“Fuck,” I mutter, sagging to the bed.

Why Dixie? Why?

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