by Logan Fox
Our driver has the radio on; background noise, ineffectual at drowning out the mantra flowing through my mind.
Go-ing to the cha-pel and we’re
Go-nna get ma-a-a-ried.
It’s not the song on the radio, but it’s the one that keeps playing through my head.
Josiah tried to talk to me a few times, but I didn’t have the energy to figure out what he was trying to say. He’s given up, silent and unmoving on the seat beside me.
Going to the chapel and we’re…
No, not the chapel.
Bale Manor. My home. That’s where we’re going. The reason why itches at my mind, but I’ve blocked it out. Or the injection they gave me did.
The kids were looking at me funny when I left. Haley didn’t even bother saying goodbye. I guess she’s jealous that I’m getting out before her. I never thought she’d be such a bitch about it…then again, I never really knew her that well.
Go-ing to Josiah’s house and we’re
Go-nna get ma-a-a-ried.
I wish I could laugh. I wish I had the will to move. I wish I could close my eyes and never have to open them again.
Maybe this time I’ll run away…and stay gone forever.
Something tickles my cheek. Again. Again.
Movement.
Josiah’s knuckle grazes my cheek.
Tears.
I’m crying.
Fingers grasp my chin. He turns me to face him. He’s frowning hard, his curvy mouth suppressed into a thin line, but after studying me for a few seconds, his expression smooths into something unreadable.
“Why are you crying?” he asks.
I wish I had the energy to tell him. Instead, I just slump and let his hand support my head. A moment later, he slides his arm around my shoulder and carefully pulls me away from the window.
My head rests on his shoulder, his warmth and his smell rising up to envelop me as tightly as his arm. I can’t stop the tears any more than I can speak. They soak into his shirt, and the fabric begins itching against my cheek.
Go-ing back to hell and we’re
Go-nna kiss the de-e-evil…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Candy
I’m supposed to feel sad or something, but I don’t. I can’t. It wasn’t like Emma was my sister or anything—I only knew her for a few months. I’m not even sad when I picture her in my mind. And I already know that’s going to be a huge problem when I arrive back home.
The manor appears up ahead, and my stomach turns to stone. We’re sitting on opposite sides of the car again, Josiah and I, and neither of us has said a word.
Those tears I shed earlier? I think they’re all I had in my reservoir. Now I’m dry-eyed and probably about to be accused of being a heartless bitch.
I thought I’d be happy coming home. But there’s only uneasiness…and it’s growing stronger by the minute.
The driver pulls up to the intercom and buzzes. No one answers, but a second later, the gates swing open on well-oiled hinges.
Josiah shifts in his seat, but I force myself to stare straight ahead.
He hasn’t asked me about what happened back at Happy Mountain, and there’s been more than enough time for that. Which means he doesn’t care.
I don’t blame him.
My head’s a little foggy, but some memories start trickling back. The most vivid is a snapshot of Patrick trying to subdue me. Of that feeling where I’d imagined he’d been about to penetrate me.
I drop my eyes and rub my fingers over my lids. It doesn’t help with the stinging, but it gives me a few seconds to gather myself as the driver heads up our driveway.
When I look up, my muscles tense. Mom and Mr. Bale are standing on the side of the driveway. Mom’s wearing faded jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled into a ponytail. No makeup. No jewelry.
Mr. Bale’s wearing dark jeans, a casual jacket zipped up in front as if he’s getting cold.
Both have mouths set in lines. Both look like they haven’t been getting much sleep.
Then, finally, something happens. It’s as if a door deep inside me unlocks, and everything I’ve been keeping bottled up behind it spills out.
I let out a choking sob, kick open the door, and half fall, half scramble out of the car.
My arms are wide, but they’re only held open for one person.
Wayne scoops me up, holding me close as he lifts me from the ground. A moment later, another warm body presses against me. Mom’s crying, her hands shaking as she grips my shoulders.
I almost push her away from me, but I know that would make Mr. Bale angry.
“It’s okay,” he says, stroking my hair. “You’re home now, baby girl.”
Shoes crunch over gravel, and then go still. “I want to see her,” Josiah says.
Wayne squeezes me tighter, but my Mom steps away with a sniff and starts rummaging in her pocket as if she’s looking for a tissue.
“She’s at the morgue,” Wayne says.
“Then that’s where I’ll be.”
One last stroke, then Wayne gently moves me aside. He strides up to Josiah, and they stand looking at each other for a few seconds.
“If you want to go, fine, but let me take you,” Wayne says.
Something flickers across Josiah’s face, but I can’t tell what it is because it disappears a second later. “I can drive myself.”
Wayne steps forward. “You’re not the only one hurting, Josiah.”
Hot tears well up in my eyes. I try to blink them away, but that just sends them splashing down my cheeks. How can he be so calm—his face a stone carving? My mom comes up to me and slides her arms around my waist, giving me a squeeze.
“What happened?” I ask her quietly, making sure my voice won’t carry to Josiah and his father.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“No. Just that she’d drowned. Did it happen here?”
Mom nods, her face scrunching up as she dabs a wadded-up tissue to her nose. “She went in without us knowing.” She sniffs. “If we’d known…”
Those words flood my brain, but they’re not attached to emotions.
The guys are talking, but too low for me to make out what they’re saying. When Mom turns me to face the house, I go willingly. “Want some tea?” she asks.
I’d rather have a bottle of vodka to myself, but I nod to her anyway. I guess, for now, tea will have to do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Josiah
The fact that it’s a beautiful fall day—bright and crisp with the world practically oozing vitality—pisses me off. That I’m standing beside a massive six-foot-deep hole that’s obscenely large in comparison to the small coffin suspended above it; that’s not improving my mood either.
Diana keeps sobbing into a damp handkerchief. Dad stands beside her, one arm dangling over her shoulder, the other over Candy’s.
As if they cared for Emma, even the slightest.
Why not me?
Because I pushed him away when he tried, and I guess he’s tired of trying.
I should feel guilty, but I’m hollow inside, carved out by the thought that Emma died while I was away.
They’d been too busy fighting to watch her swim.
I’d been too far away to help. We could all have been there for her, but it hadn’t meant enough to us to stay together.
“Josiah, would you like to say a few words?”
I’d zoned out through the entire sermon. Now everyone’s looking at me expectantly. My gaze darts to my father. Did he plan this? Does it make him warm and fuzzy inside when his son is humiliated?
I shake my head, cross my arms over my chest. Everyone’s eyes slide away; their contempt weighs over me like a leaden sheet.
Father says stuff instead. Stupid, empty, faux-sentimental shit about how Emma was this bright light that’s been snuffed out too soon.
I don’t like the way he says that.
Snuffed out.
Like he imagines God’s hand came down a
nd pinched out her flame.
God had nothing to do with this. It’s all my father’s fault. He should have been there for her. He should have made time to watch her swim instead of picking fights with his new wife.
They start lowering the coffin. I slide past someone—one of Emma’s teachers, perhaps?—and catch hold of my dad’s suit sleeve.
His fake sad smile makes my stomach churn.
“You honestly couldn’t spare a few minutes?”
Dad frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“She asked you.” My voice starts rising. “She asked you to watch her swim, but you were too fucking busy.” Diana’s between my father and me, but she steps forward and slips away. Yeah, best not get in the middle of this. Candy, on the other hand, huddles closer to my father’s side. He absently strokes her hair, his frown deepening.
“Keep your voice down,” he murmurs, breaking eye contact to glance around.
The fuck does it matter if someone overhears? “Why, Dad? Don’t you want people to know the real reason she’s dead?”
Anger prickles at my fingertips. It’s getting harder to breathe, as if my lungs are slowly filling with lava.
“Josiah.” My father releases Candy and takes hold of my shoulders. He walks, pushing me back, herding me away from Emma’s graveside. “If you want to talk, we can do it at home. This is Emma’s time now, not yours.”
My disbelieving laugh draws more than a few eyes. “You think I’m doing this for attention?” I stab a finger into my father’s chest. “She asked you to watch her swim, but you were too busy.”
A dangerous gleam flickers in my father’s eyes. “Be quiet.”
“You killed her!” I yell, shoving at my father’s chest.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for him to move back a step, then grab me and haul me to the car by my ear. Some stern words. You’re grounded. Shit like that.
It’s been years since I’ve dared to get physical with him. Years of football practice and gym workouts, and me slowly growing, and growing, and growing.
He lets out a cry of surprise. Flies backward. He catches Candy in the face with the back of his hand as he’s flailing to catch his balance.
She yelps in pain.
He grabs the sleeve of her dress—she being the closest stationary thing.
She lands on the grass beside him, a rip down the shoulder of her dress, blue eyes wide with shock.
The sound he makes when he hits the floor is something I’ve never heard him make before.
Pain.
Shock.
Not a trace of anger.
Blood drains from my face, and my flesh tingles with dread.
There were a few gasps from the crowd of mourners who’d gathered to pay their respects to my dead sister. Now there’s just this awful, penetrating silence. Even the guys lowering the coffin have stopped, staring over at me with part shock, part disgust on their faces.
My father pushes up from the ground with a groan, and then gets his knees up, dangling his hands from them.
“Wayne, your back!” Diana appears out of nowhere, falling to her knees beside my father.
His back?
I glare at Diana, then my father, then Candy when she sits up and tries to push her dress back up her shoulder.
Why is everyone looking at me like that? I just shoved him, for fuck’s sake.
“I’m okay. Just…could you get one of the guys to help me up, please?”
I let out a bark of a laugh, shaking my head. When in the fuck did he become an Oscar award-winning actor? My father used to play state football. Fuck, he even won second-place at a jiu-jitsu tournament back in the day. Now he’s sitting there on the ground like I’ve gone and broken his fucking hip or something?
The guys who’d been lowering the coffin hurry over, and with a groan that sounds like something out a fucking Hitchcock movie, they get my dad to his feet.
Someone’s laughing, which is only right, because this is some kind of joke.
Candy stares at me like she’s never seen me before. She shakes her head and mouths, “no.”
I step back, bumping into someone behind me. They move, but I turn and head for the car.
That laughter follows me, and it takes me a few steps before I recognize the sound.
Well, fuck. I guess Dad’s slapstick performance only resonated with one person.
Me.
Chapter Thirty
Candy
There’s a shuffle behind me, and I turn and smile up at Wayne as he comes through the sliding doors and heads toward me. I had no idea what to do with myself after the funeral, so I came to sit on the patio and watch the sunlight dancing on the pool’s surface.
Is it morbid of me, staring at the place where Emma died?
“How are you feeling?” I ask, my mouth turning down at the corners as Josiah’s father shuffles awkwardly over to the patio set.
He lowers himself with a grimace onto the sofa beside me and lets out a long sigh. “I’d feel much better soon as these damn painkillers kick in.”
I stretch out my hand, but retract it before I can touch him. “I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Nothing you did,” he says. There’s a line between his brows that’s been there ever since Josiah shoved him to the ground at the funeral.
Which I’m guessing has nothing to do with the pain he’s experiencing.
“I can’t believe he did that,” I say quietly, shaking my head as I turn to face the water again. “I mean, I get he’s upset, but—”
“He didn’t know.”
“Not to shove you?” I say through a bitter laugh. When I face Wayne, there’s a shadow in his eyes that makes me swallow and huddle in on myself a little. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“He doesn’t know about my injury. We don’t…it’s not something we discuss, us boys.”
“Oh.” My hands grip each other in my lap. Why wouldn’t Josiah’s father have told him about his slipped disk? For one, it would have prevented what had just happened at the funeral.
Or would it?
I’ve never seen such open rage on Josiah’s face before. Granted, I’ve only known him a few months, but still…it’s as if that was a first for everyone in the family.
He really loved Emma, that much I know, something I’d never really thought about until today. They had some kind of connection, something that went deeper than just brother and sister. It was like it was them against the world.
What I wouldn’t give to know that feeling. I’ve never had camaraderie with anyone like that—not even with my own mother.
“I heard there was trouble at your new school,” Wayne says.
I stiffen at the tone in his voice. “Trouble?”
“Candace, we sent you to that place for a reason.”
I bite the inside of my lip so hard that a bit of skin peels off into my mouth. What the hell am I supposed to say? “It wasn’t my fault,” falls out of my mouth.
“No?” Wayne faces me, but I keep my eyes trained on the pool. “How so?” The derision in his voice makes me want to disappear into the couch.
“I didn’t know I was being medicated.”
Wayne laughs. “That’s your excuse?”
I spin to face him. The movement makes the bruise on my jaw ache a little. “It’s not an excuse. If I hadn’t been doped up on—”
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, girl.” Wayne sits forward on his seat, laces his hands together, and keeps them gripped between his knees as he tilts his head to one side. “What you did is inexcusable. We’d been considering bringing you back home with Josiah, but now?”
My heart flutters like a bird with a broken wing. “I’m coming home?”
Wayne’s lips part, eyes narrowing as if he can’t believe the gall of me. “Not after this. You’re obviously a very, very sick girl.” He winces as he pushes himself up off the seat. Towering over me, he grabs hold of my chin and forces me to look up at him. “I’m start
ing to think my boy was telling the truth about you.”
My eyes start to brim, and I blink furiously to hold back those tears. Shame burns hot and bright through me, but even that can’t evaporate the tears. “He wasn’t. He lied, Mr. Bale. About everything. Please, you have to—”
Wayne snatches away his hand. For a moment, he grits his teeth. But when he looks at me again, his face is a calm mask.
Josiah gets that from his father. This strange ability to switch off whatever’s going on inside his head. My gaze drops, and I hug myself hard.
“I don’t have to do anything. It’s you who has to do the work. Show me you’ve changed, and I’ll reconsider.”
Gone is the ‘we’ of before. But I know my mother would just follow his lead without hesitation. She’s got a good thing going here, and there’s no way she’d sacrifice that just so I could have an easier time of it.
“How?” I look up at him again, but he could be a stone statue for all the emotion on his face. Biting my cheek, I sit forward and grab the hand closest to me, the one dangling by his side.
He flinches at the touch, but he doesn’t pull away.
My heart thunders in my chest, my skin coming alive with nervous energy. I tighten my grip, and then slowly weave my fingers through his.
He doesn’t seem bothered by the intimate gesture. In fact, he hardly seems to notice at all. He’s staring down at me with a frown, like I’m a puzzle he doesn’t have the patience or the time to try and figure out.
Then he rips away his hand and wipes it on his thigh. “You make a change, Candy, and it’ll show.”
He strides away, gait smooth, and no longer hampered by his injury. It should have made me feel better, but it doesn’t. At least, if he’d been pissed off because he was in pain, then I’d stand a fighting chance. But now?
I don’t understand what he wants from me. I don’t know how to change, because I’ve always just been me.
I put my face in my hands and wait for the tears to finally come.
Ah, but they don’t.
Everything just stays inside like it always does, waiting for me to rip it out by force. I let my hands fall down, and one of them goes to my middle. I touch my ribs through my shirt, tracing their outline.
