Page 94 of Sinister Legacy
I’m seated on the sectional in the living room with the TV on.
“And she left you home alone?” Cassie asks, inhaling deeply. The crackle of her cigarette filters down the line.
I can picture her seated on her bed with the window open—despite the cold—while she smokes. When she’s done, she’ll flick the blunt out the window and spray her room with a cheap air freshener that reeks of peony in the hopes that her parents won’t find out.
“I couldn’t believe it either,” I reply, toying with the remote control in my lap. I’m not even watching the car chase on the TV screen. “She’s not coping at all with Allen’s disappearance.”
It’s strangely easy to lie and to call it adisappearance.
Well, it’s technically not a lie since I don’t know what happened to his bodyafterI killed him.
Cassie smokes in silence, her breaths trembling. She took the news of Liam’s disappearance worse than anyone.
In fact, the whole of Blackwoods is in a state of shock. The star quarterback—the town’s own golden boy—is missing.
“Are you okay?” I ask when the silence stretches on.
We’re still not there yet after our arguments lately, but she phoned me tonight, so we must be moving in the right direction.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? He was your boyfriend.”
I slide down further on the couch, my woolly, gray, sock-clad feet on the coffee table. “That doesn’t mean you’re not sad, too.”
“Are you, though? I haven’t seen you shed a single tear.”
Chewing on my lip, I continue toying with the remote. “Just because I don’t cry doesn’t mean I’m not sad.”
The sound of her window closing travels down the line.
“Besides,” I continue, “I think I’m numb.”
“Yeah?”
“I woke up to find Jasper’s severed head in my bed, and then, a few weeks later, I found Kit hacked to pieces in my backyard. And now Liam is missing, too. I think that maybe some part of me shut down.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassie replies regretfully, and the bed creaks as she shifts on the mattress. It’s followed by the hiss of the air freshener can. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through lately. I feel like such a bad friend.”
I switch the TV off, drop the remote control by my side, and rub my tired eyes. “I think we’ve all been caught up in the mess over the last month.”
“Maybe,” she agrees.
We fall silent as I stare at the TV screen. The living room is dark except for the single lamp sitting in the window behind me. Without the flickering of the screen, it’s barely enough light.
“It’ll be so weird at school on Monday.”
“I know,” I breathe out softly. “It won’t be the same with so many people gone.”
“Liam was the star of the show, you know? Our table will be so quiet without him.”
He was an asshole toward the end.
“Anyways,” she blows out a long breath. “I have to go now. Talk tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
She hangs up, and I dim the screen before tossing the phone beside me on the couch.
“I haven’t seen you shed a single tear.”
