Page 16 of Twice as Twisted

I’ve done enough, like Harper said last night. I have no right to be here. I’m not her family. I’m not even her friend. If she never sees me again, she’ll be better off.

So I don’t wake her, even though I want to say goodbye. That I’m sorry. That she’s the only thing that kept me from following Baron for all those months, the reason I went home every night instead of dropping out of school and taking off. I’m better because of her, but she’s still better off without me. It’s not her job to fucking fix me.

So I set the booklet and the pen down beside her bed, and then I look around for something to write a note on. That’s when I notice the flowers and balloons that Harper must have ordered so she’d wake up and know she was loved. I didn’t think to bring anything but a pen that was so obviously an afterthought that even an eight-year-old will realize it. It’s such a lame gift there’s no reason to leave a note. It would be embarrassing to put my name on it, like I’m proud that I gave her a fucking pen. I scribble a quick note on the first page anyway, then pause. It’s not enough. But it’s all I can do.

I search my pockets for something else, some money so she can buy herself something better, but I don’t even have any cash on me. All I have is a beer. I stare at it a second, battling my own will, because right now all I want in the world is to open it and dump it down my throat. Instead, I set it on top of the book of illusions. I stare down at Olive, thinking I should kiss her head or something, but then I remember Colt saying I was a pedo.

Maybe he’s right, and that’s why I like her so much. It’s probably weird for a grown man to make friends with a little girl.

I leave the room without the forehead kiss, without a goodbye. If Harper came back and found me alone with her, she’d probably be pissed.

I jab at the elevator button five or six times, but it’s too slow, and every second that passes, it gets harder not to turn around and go back. I want that beer. I want to see her eyes open, to know she’s okay. I want to see her smile again, to crow that I must have finally agreed that koalas are the cutest animal and that’s why I got her one.

I turn and hurry to the stairwell, throwing my shoulder against the door, and rush down the steps so fast I nearly lose my footing and tumble down. I plunge through the doors into the outside world, charge through the lot to my car, and jump inside, slamming the door before the demons can catch up. Fumbling the keys into the ignition, I blink away the fog and gas it, roaring out of the lot.

Maybe she’ll like the book, even if the pen was lame. When we were kids, my uncle gave us a bunch of those Magic Eye books. Baron was always best at them, of course. He’d see the shape emerge from the pattern before anyone else. That’s how his mind works. But after a while, I got the hang of it too. That’s how life works, just like those books. If you look close enough, if you search long enough, you can find something beautiful in the chaos.

I wish I’d written that down for Olive instead of running out like a coward without even signing my name. But as usual, I fucked it up. I never see what’s important until it’s too late. I never see the value of what’s in front of me until I’ve crushed it, like I did Olive. Just like I didn’t see that Mabel was the prize until Baron had already claimed her. I didn’t see that the demon inside me was destroying her until she was too far gone to save. I didn’t see that it was doing the same to her brother until there was no way back, no way to earn his forgiveness.

Maybe there’s still time to make it right, though. Maybe it’s not too late with her, and we can find her and make it better. Maybe she can forgive me, even if he refuses. She was always better, the best of all of us. We can fix her, even if no one else can, because we know where she’s broken. We’re the ones who broke her, after all. We can put her back together even more perfect than she was before.

She needs us.

But we can’t help her from here. This town is going to be the death of us if we stay. We need to get out of here, before it sucks us down and never lets us go, like it does everyone else. It’s time to get out, and this time, it won’t be too late. This time, I won’t fuck up. This time, I won’t let the demon win.

five

Mabel Darling

It started the way so many love stories start.

Boy meets girl. Boy wants girl.

No one has ever looked at girl before.

Girl gives in.

Girl goes mad.

It’s an embarrassment to admit I fell for such a cliché.

I still remember the very first time he spoke to me, his first words, so unremarkably trite, as if he hadn’t already set in motion my unraveling before he ever laid eyes on me. As if he were just another high school boy, two years younger than me but a foot taller, his dark hair expensively cut, his shoulders already broader than most of the seniors. The way he ambled right up to me and leaned against the locker next to mine. He made it seem casual, an afterthought for the hot new guy to say hello to the daughter of one of the town’s founding families, as if he weren’t already two steps ahead, or twenty.

I’ve replayed it so many times, as if I could have changed any of it. As if he didn’t hold all the aces, not only the winner but the game maker. I’d already lost before he even spoke those first words, luring me to the family that would destroy me.

I close my eyes, and my white ceiling disappears, my soft bed, my orange cat.

I’m back there again, in the halls of Willow Heights, the old familiar nightmare recurring the way it does so often.

Back straight, eyes down, arms stiff. I hold my books against my chest, watching the Prada pumps in front of me.

One-two, one-two, one-two. Click click click. She steps right on a crack.

Crack!

I picture her ankle snapping, her body lurching to one side with a cry, crashing against the heavy wooden lockers. Her head hits a lock, splitting her temple. Blood and hair matted against her cheek, oozing into her eye. She’s rushed to the hospital, where she catches staph and loses her eye. It spreads to her spinal cord. They give her an epidural and crack her spine while they do it.

Step on a crack, break your back.

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