Page 110 of The Casualty of Us
“Ophelia! I swear to God!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I step around Talan at Lisette’s scream, leaving him looking torn and probably trying to figure out whether I’m joking or not. Prancing off to the beer pong table and pretending like my phone doesn’t exist until the wee hours of the morning when I crawl into bed. Curling up under the covers and watching the sun just start to break over the horizon in the distance. Not answering any of the calls or texts I can see waiting for me to read.
Lying to myself that I’m too drunk to know exactly what I just did.
Chapter Twenty-Five
OLLIE - AUGUST 2013
I stareat the kitchen counter, head in my hands, and try to make it tell me exactly when and where things got so messed up. Guess that’s pretty obvious, though. It was the second those assholes took my sister. Everything’s been fucked in one way or another since then. But even when I was pacing the floors of this home for days on end and praying to a god I didn’t believe in that she would make it back…I never felt her pull away from me. Not until recently. Not until Hayes.
It’s just made everything that’s been happening that much more difficult to fucking fix.
I can’t fix any of it if she won’t let me close enough to. Have barely been able to keep her from walking herself directly back into the sick fuck’s arms all summer, and every time I try to fix things…it just seems to make it worse.
Makes her slip away more.
It’s pretty much left any semblance of my lists shot to shit.
Her last words to me leaving a pit in my stomach that’s just grown every night since, because I think…I think I might’ve fucked up really bad somewhere.
“Oh, my little duckling.” The sighed nickname draws my gaze to where my mom’s leaning up against the doorway of thekitchen with a silk robe wrapped around her and a small frown on her face that instantly reminds me of O. “Why the long face?”
“You know why.” I drop my hands to the counter, clearing my throat to add stubbornly, “Your daughter is being unreasonable.”
“Yoursister,” she points out purposefully, walking over to sit on the stool next to mine before finishing quietly, “is working her way through quite a lot right now and not under ideal circumstances, which you know.”
“She—” My voice cracks, and I turn back to look down at the counter, embarrassed at how fucking much it hurts but in too much pain not to admit. “I asked her if she would be back for our birthday, and she wouldn’t answer.”
It’s too close now, only tomorrow left until it’s here.
I take a deep breath before looking back up at her and confessing, “I don’t know how to fix this, Mom.”
Because I need help.
I can’t exist without my sister. I know that hell personally, and I can’t go back to that ever again.
“Well.” She gives me a sad smile. “Have you thought maybe she doesn’t want you to fix it?”
I clench my jaw, gut stirring at the expectation of already not liking this, but still force out, “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She sighs, eyes drifting around the kitchen for a moment before coming back to me. “Your sister has everyone around her trying to fix things, Oliver.” I scowl at the truth of that, and she laughs softly. “Including herself probably, regardless of what we tell her.” Her hand lifts to my cheek. “So maybe she just needs you to be there for her? Hmm?”
“But I always fix it, that’s what I do.” My brows fall even farther with the undeniable truth. “I’ve always been able to fix things for her. Always. She’s—she’s my baby sister.” I swallowdown some of the anxiety that’s starting to thrum through me before repeating, “She’s my baby sister.”
I mean, she did give birth to us, but apparently it bears mentioning because from the small tilt of her lips and what almost looks like sympathy…she must not be getting it.
“Oh, my sweet boy.” Her eyes crinkle around the edges as she gives my cheek a soft pat before leaning back. “Want to know a secret?”
And her sudden playfulness has me nodding quickly. “Sure.”
“Your sister is brilliant and has her moments, to be sure,” she sighs deeply, expression turning as soft as her voice. “But out of the two of you, you were the one that made me consider having more kids.”
“Really?” I pull back in surprise, not only because O is nearly her clone but also because they’ve never mentioned wanting more kids. “Why didn’t you?”
“Really.” She nods seriously before giving a small shrug. “It just wasn’t in the cards.” Her lips tilt up as she mutters one of her favorite phrases. “You don’t move the mountain.”
My face screws up as I try to imagine what more of us would have been like. “Huh.” Weird.
