Page 43 of Together We Rot

Beside me, Kevin wets his lips several times and wrings his hands in his lap. “I don’t think splitting up is a good idea. Anytime a group does that, they’re always—”

“This isn’t a goddamn horror movie, Kevin,” Lucas snaps. “For the last time, it doesn’t matter what they do in Hollywood.” He gestures to the wild amount of snow on the ground beyond the glass. “Does this look like California to you? No. All of this is real and there are real-life consequences to it all. People are dead, Kevin. Dead.”

I’m this close to punching him square in the jaw. “Dead like my mother?” His eyes bulge. “I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that, Wil.”

Too late. I give him my nastiest grin. “I guess the rumors about you were true all along.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The one about you being as shallow as you look. Always promoting causes you couldn’t care less about. Befriending charity cases. Leave out the sponsorships and the spotlight and at the end of the day, you don’t give a shit about anyone. Not Elwood or Ronnie or Kevin. No one but yourself.” I swing open the car door and grip Elwood’s wrist. “You’re right, Lucas, this isn’t Hollywood. You’re the only one acting.” Elwood scrambles beside me out of the car, and without Lucas’s dramatics, silence is our only answer.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WIL

Dad is the only soul in the building.

The emptiness hits harder than before. Mom’s absence is a deep stain in the fibers, impossible to strip without burning this place to the ground. Ezekiel has the right idea to demolish us. As it stands, we’re not a graveyard but a neglected shrine for a single, forgotten woman.

But I remember.

She exists everywhere in this rotting place. I trace nostalgic patterns on the wall, all the imprints she left behind. It was abnormally hot the year we spruced up these boring white walls; we ran through with splatters of paint and pitchers of lemonade. Mom and her spirals, me and my messy handprints. Most of my additions were covered over, but she left a couple littered throughout the halls. There’s one beside me now—I lift a hand, but my growing fingers eclipse it.

I rip my hand away and bury my heart in my pocket. I carry it every step to Dad’s room and anticipate the moment it will become too heavy to hold. Once I tell Dad the truth, it will burst and the dam I’ve built will break for good.

My hands rest on the knob, but I don’t linger there. I rip the Band-Aid right off and fling the door open.

Except Dad’s not sitting at the foot of the bed waiting for me to cry in his arms. No. He’s fast asleep on his bed, his floor littered like the one at Lucas’s party, a protective rune of crushed cans circling him. Snoring.

I can’t help it. I laugh. It’s a strange, hiccupy noise that erupts into a sob. Tears blur my vision and stain every word. “Of course he’s passed out.”

It’s funny how a loose fray can unravel everything. I’ve held myself together for so long, ignored the hole in me as best I could, but none of that matters now. It’s been poked and prodded and made new, my resolve undone, my fortress unmade.

Mom is dead.

It’s not a cruel whisper in the shadows of my mind anymore. It’s everywhere. There’s no drowning it out any longer. Mom is in the ground, six-feet-under, worms-and-beetles-and-bugs dead. She stuck her nose in the wrong place and had it lopped right off. Just like her daughter’s doing now. That same lethal curiosity, a stubborn soul that will see us in an early grave.

My pain has transformed—no stray tears slipping down my cheeks, but a face contorted and open and screaming and a hall that feels like a closing throat. My own throat is a clenched fist, too tight for any air to get through, only a silent, soul-splitting howl. Dad doesn’t even stir.

Dead. Dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

“Wil?” Elwood’s hand hovers above my shoulder. A day ago, I’d have swatted it away, but not now. I lean into the only warmth I can find. I should hate him, I should scream and rage and curse at him for his parents, for what they did—but I can’t.

I need him.

I always have.

He breaches the distance between us and I bury my sniveling face in his arms.

It’s a funeral hug. There’s nothing soft to it. I cling to him like he might vanish. Grief traps him in my arms and each sob racks through me harder than the last. Months of buried emotion pushes to the surface, and my breath stammers with each wave. He takes it all, his hand finding a home in my hair.

Only after the tears have dried and I pull away do I really see him. Lamplight flickers across his features and softens the depths of his hair. The winter woods might have soaked into his roots, but the light casts the darkness back out. I catch whispers of gold and auburn mingled in with all the brown.

It takes me too long to realize I’m staring. Too long to realize he’s staring right back.

I nip whatever delirious emotion this is right in the bud. My eyes stray back to my father, and in my desperation, I catch something I’d glossed over.

“What is that?” I already know the answer by the time I ask. It’s not the best-looking present, but it’s more work than I thought Dad was capable of. I take the gift still in his hand and dig my finger into the wrapping paper. He doesn’t even stir as I open it.

---