Page 3 of Lock Me Out

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“Then why are you sitting here?” he asks while his fingers tap the wheel. “You don’t have to get out if you don’t want to.”

I can only shake my head at the way he misunderstands me. “I wish you could get out of the car with me and visit. That’s all.”

“You’re not really visiting anyone.” I wince at his reply, which makes his expression soften along with the tone of his voice. “You know what I mean. It’s just bodies in the ground.”

I know what he means, but he isn’t telling the whole story. Does he really think he can fool me? Like we don’t already know each other better than that? “Can I ask you something?” I murmur while my pulse picks up speed.

“Sure.”

It’s not easy to put into words in a way that won’t insult him. I almost wish I hadn’t said anything in the first place. All I can do is stare down at the two bouquets in my lap—one for Mom and one for Nix. Mom’s favorite flower was always roses, and since I don’t know if Nix had a favorite flower, I got roses for him too.I don’t think he would care very much either way. Stroking the silky petals, I ask, “Why didn’t you tell your mom Nix is dead?”

I hear the sharp intake of breath, but I’m too unnerved to look his way. He’ll be angry. Most things about Nix make him angry. He doesn’t like talking about his brother, especially since we so clearly disagree over the facts. “Because he’s not. So why would I tell her he is?”

I don’t know how to get through to him. I don’t even know if it’s possible. All I know for sure is he won’t accept the truth. It’s too much for him. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve wanted to run away from the truth in my life, so I understand. But that doesn’t make this any easier.

“Besides,” he continues, his left knee bouncing up and down with agitation, “she just woke up from a coma. I’m not going to drop all that on her at once. The man who put her in that coma is dead—she deserves to know that. She deserves to know she’s safe.”

“Of course.”

“But telling her everybody thinks Nix is gone? What if it made her relapse or something? I couldn’t do that.”

“You’re right. I get it.” I feel a little dumb for asking, because what he said makes total sense. We have to be careful with her in these early days. She’s been through so much. I wonder if it’s true what they say, if people in comas can actually hear and understand what’s happening around them. Maybe she could. Maybe she understands time has passed. Or maybe she feels like she just woke up from a nap. I guess we won’t know until she can speak again.

Embarrassment flashes through me as I leave the car, but it’s nothing compared to the weight of grief pressing down on me as I walk the gravel path toward the graves. We’re near the edge of the cemetery, and the trees ahead are so thick the late-day rays of sun can’t break through. But I turn away from that and toward the marble headstone bearing my mother’s name:Amanda Peters. I didn’t want the name “Alistair” etched in stone. I didn’t want her marriage to James following her into eternity, at least as long as this headstone remains intact.

“Hi, Mom.” Gently, I place the roses at the base of the headstone. Who takes them away once they’re wilted and dead? The groundskeepers, I guess. They must do it discreetly when no one is watching. It’s a tiny mercy.

There are a few scattered leaves and dandelions dotting the grass, which I gently pull away and toss aside as I murmur, “Guess what? Corinne’s awake. Can you believe it? I honestly didn’t think it was possible for someone to wake up after being in a coma for so long. The doctors think she’ll be able to recover, but it’s going to take a lot of time.”

Once the ground is clear, I settle on my knees, sitting back on my heels. For some reason, I feel like I should fold my hands, even though I’ve never been religious or anything like that. It just feels respectful somehow.

A warm breeze stirs a few red tendrils away from my face, and I close my eyes, letting it wash over me. The sun’s rays are warm on my skin, and the delicious scent of the flowers brings a faint smile to my lips. It’s getting a little easier every time I visit.

The first time, I kneeled in front of Mom’s grave and cried until there were no more tears left in my body. I cried until my eyes were swollen, and I could barely breathe. I was so exhausted thatI wanted to lie down on the mound of earth covering her casket and just sleep.

Every visit since then has been a little easier—no, that’s not quite right. A little less hard. I doubt it will ever be easy to visit this place and see Mom’s name on the headstone. All she ever wanted was something better. Did she always make the right decisions? Absolutely not. But life threw her more than a few curveballs, and that’s something I try to keep in mind whenever bitterness starts creeping in.

I’ll never forget how devastated she was the day of the explosion—only minutes before it happened, in fact—when she called me in hysterics, horrified, begging for my forgiveness. She told me she didn’t know until she found all those photos on James’s hard drive.

“I do forgive you,” I whisper, patting the ground in front of me. “I really do. Sometimes, when you don’t want to believe something, you make yourself blind to it. You pretend it doesn’t exist. That’s what Colt is doing right now.”

Sliding a look his way from the corner of my eye, I see him sitting behind the wheel of the car, staring straight ahead. He won’t even glance over here. He won’t even let himself look at Nix’s headstone. Maybe that would make it all too real for him, and he can’t let even a sliver of reality into his thoughts.

“I don’t know what to do for him,” I admit. It’s funny, but it’s so much easier to talk to her now. If only it had been this easy when she was alive. “He needs my support, and I want to give it to him, but to him, support means agreeing with this delusion or whatever it is. I can’t do that. I love him. I can’t just sit here and pretend there’s anything normal about this.”

Now that I’ve started talking, I can’t seem to stop. It’s almost like I’m catching up with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time.

“I got another one of those messages yesterday. I haven’t told Colt about it yet,” I whisper. Even though I know there’s no chance of him getting out of the car and hearing me, I still feel like I have to be careful. “Whoever is sending them keeps telling me they know what I did and threatening to go to the cops, but I don’t know why they would. Even if the explosion was deliberate, it’s not like I was there. Neither was Colt. We had nothing to do with it.”

Closing my eyes again, I can feel the heat from the explosive blast that rocked the ground under us and sent a fireball into the air. “I still believe James set the whole thing off. I wish you could tell me whether or not I’m right,” I confess in a rush of words and emotion. “I wish I knew for sure, either way. It just seems funny to me that he came home that day after you accessed all that information, and suddenly the house went up in flames. I mean, if I were a monster like him, and I had all that incriminating evidence stored on my cloud, what would stop me from doing whatever it took to protect myself?”

“He probably figured he would escape. Or maybe…” I pause, shivering now as the breeze feels colder. “Maybe he figured it was too late to save himself and didn’t want to face what would happen once the truth came out. I guess that makes more sense than anything else. Even though, really, none of it makes sense at all,” I conclude. If it did make sense, I’d have to worry about myself, because James Alistair was a demented monster whose mental processes are not something I want to understand.

Once I’m finished checking in with Mom, I visit Nix’s grave and perform the same ritual, placing the flowers in front of his headstone. His grave is cleaner than Mom’s, free of any weeds orleaves. I’m sure I’m not the only one who visits. It’s never easy to lose somebody, but it’s especially grim for people our age. You don’t expect to lose a classmate at nineteen, especially not in such tragic circumstances.

“Your mom woke up. Can you believe it?” Tears fill my eyes as I position the flowers and lower myself to one knee, my hand resting on top of the headstone. The dates etched there are heartbreaking. Nineteen years of life. That’s all he got. He had so much more to give the world. Without his dad poisoning him, he could’ve been something great. He could’ve been his own man, built his own life.

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