Page 383 of As the Rain Falls
I’d forgotten that Lucia hadn’t eaten the night before.
That I hadn’t either.
I was ten and she was nine, and we were just kids, trying to take care of each other. I felt so clueless then. About never feeling hungry. I didn’t think that something was so blatantly wrong with me.
“Shit.”
“You’re not supposed to say this!”
She rolled her eyes. “Nathaniel does, why shouldn’t I?”
“Well, Nathaniel is ten fingers plus six fingers,” I snapped. “That’s a lot more than you have.”
I actually kind of liked Nathaniel back then.
Not real love, but more like that distant admiration young kids give to someone older. He felt so untouchable back then, stronger and smarter than me.
Funny how things turn out.
Looking back, it all makes sense. I can trace the thread all the way back to the beginning. Cassandra’s bedroom window faces Lucia’s. Maybe, along the way, she saw too much. She’d tangled herself in it without me knowing.
And if I go further back, a couple of years before that, Lucia used to complain about our neighbors, claiming they made too much noise.
My sister was something else.
She was always noticing things I didn’t. Always hurting a little deeper than she let on.
She’s always crying.
What are you even talking about?
Never mind.
We shared everything.
A childhood spent between nights eating cheap takeout and Happy Meals bought with our father’s black credit card. Lucia would spend her time dipping her fingers in my ketchup, and I hated that. I never liked to share my food, but there had been a reason for that, too. It was all her.
Lucia and I would argue about everything, from world politics we couldn’t understand to the right way to react in certain situations. She was assertive enough to tell me off even then. I loved her. I loved how astute Lucia was. How naturally it all came to her.
My favorite person to talk to was also the one living under the same roof as me. I was smart, but she was sharp. I was strong, but she was brave. Knowing her changed me and challenged me, and naturally losing her inevitably changed me too.
And still, I let her go.
I let five voicemails stand between us.
The truth of the matter, the thing I’ve been trying to avoid being honest about is—
I ignored her calls for one single reason: because I felt tired.
For one night, just a second, I got tired of being her brother. I wanted to let her handle something without needing to call for me. I wanted out for one single fucking night, but now I get a lifetime of this.
Thomas Leblanc opens the door to the interrogation room. He takes one good look at me, something passing between us. Recognition, maybe. Some kind of understanding.
He knows why I did this.
I do it too.
I did it for them.
