Page 116 of Worse Than Wicked
A handful of Polaroids of Colt showing off tattoos inside the tattoo parlor or in the parking lot outside. I quickly flip past one of my brother smiling into the camera with a look on his face I never wanted to see, showing off a piercing I never needed to know he has.
There are several dozen candid shots that must have been taken on phones and printed out—photos of Colt and Dixie, one of Colt and Gloria dancing at prom, another of Colt and Harper with their arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, cheesing for the camera while Royal watches from the sidelines with a scowl on his face.
The photos span all five years that Colt spent in high school, even his freshman year, before the Dolces moved here. I could tell myself that they have a folder like this on all the Darlings, that he was stalking my brother to destroy him. But why is only Colt’s folder here, and why is it hidden? Why is Dixie marked out with a permanent marker in some of the photos? Why not just keep an encrypted folder on a computer, like Baron would do?
I sink onto the edge of his desk, my head spinning. My mind goes back to the deep, angry cuts he made over my brother’s name on the wall.
It didn’t say MABEL + DUKE. His name was written under Colt’s, before or after he carved away my brother’s name, as if he could remove him from the equation.
I was never even part of the equation.
I stood alone on the left: MABEL.
A foot away,
COLT
+ DUKE
I clench my fists, dropping my head, my breaths hitching as I try to fit it all into place, rearrange the pieces to form a picture I didn’t know existed. All along, I was trying to piece together the wrong puzzle.
What was real? What was my imagination, my desire—no, myneed—to be special?
To be loved by someone who was capable of real love.
Now I’ll never know. I’ll be forever left wondering if, in the end, Duke won the final round. Because here I am, questioning my entire world, my reality, just like I did the first time.
I’m not crazy.
Maybe it wasn’t about me at all. I picture Duke the first time he came to my house, trading barbs with my brother. I remember him wanting to go to my house later, saying it was to rub it in Colt’s face. Now I’m not sure if he meant it the way I thought at the time. Now I see a million moments I missed. And I picture moments I didn’t see at all—Duke sitting in the dark where I did so many times, not much more than a kid himself. I see him now as he must have been then, a fourteen-year-old boy filled with rage and confusion and guilt for feelings he couldn’t understand or change, feelings that would never be acceptable in his family. I picture him cutting his name into the wall the way I did, the way Colt did, because it was the only way he could express what he wanted, what he wasn’t allowed to want.
I’m still sitting there when the door opens, and my brother sticks his head in. “You okay?” he asks. “I think we’re going to take off in the morning. Get back on the road where we belong. Should I say goodbye now?”
I stuff the photos into the folder before he can see. But after a second, I motion him over, and I shove it into his hands. “Did you know about this?”
He swallows and looks down at it, but he doesn’t open it.
“Did you?” I press, my heart somehow breaking again, though it’s already in smithereens.
He opens the folder slowly, as if he’s reluctant to see what’s inside. His thumb skims over the first picture, and he stares down at it, not looking up to answer.
“Colt?” I whisper, my throat tight.
“Yes, I fucking knew.”
He slams the folder shut without looking at anything else and hurls it across the room. It crashes into the wall, and the pictures scatter, tumbling down across the floor.
“How?” I ask.
Colt rakes a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know about… That,” he says, gesturing to the mess before turning away, like he can’t bear to see more than he already has.
“How’d you know?” I press.
He paces in front of the door a moment, one hand over the bottom of his face, the other planted on his hip. At last, he turns to me, his eyes steely and unflinching. “We fucked.”
I nod slowly. “For how long?”
“What?” He blinks at me, then gives a quick shake of his head. “No. It was one time. Christ, Mabel. We fuckedonce.”
