Release

by Aly Martinez

  My head snapped to the side as if he’d slapped me. And in a way, he had. Over and over and over again for twelve fucking years. But for once, I was starting to understand why.

  Ramsey was a caretaker. He’d done it for his mom when she’d been married to his abusive father. He’d done it for Nora when they were growing up. And he’d done it for me, on and off throughout our entire relationship.

  And when he’d left, I’d been alone. So tragically alone.

  But that wasn’t the way my life stayed forever. After Ramsey was arrested my dad stepped up and resumed his role in my life. Girls like Tiffany came out of the woodwork after they found out what Josh had done to me, leaving me with more friends than I knew what to do with. Then Nora moved in and we shared a room, which sometimes made me wish like hell I could have been alone again.

  Because being alone wasn’t my deepest darkest fear.

  It was his.

  “There was never a day when I didn’t want you to be mine, Sparrow. I just loved you enough to hope you wouldn’t have to be.”

  Have to be.

  Have to be.

  Like being his was a chore or an option.

  Nora had been right for all those years. Ramsey was still very much in love with me. Time had changed a lot of things, but that was not one of them. Convicted felon or not, he was a good man. With good intentions. And a good heart.

  Unfortunately, he was so damn stupid.

  “You’re right,” I whispered, crawling over to him.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “I am?”

  I swung a leg over his hips to straddle his lap and wrapped my hands around either side of his neck. “Yeah. My life would be easier without you.”

  His forehead wrinkled, and his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, Thea. I’m so damn sorry. I never should have left you that night.”

  I had no idea if he was referring to when he’d left me in the tent or when he’d left me to run over Josh with his car. It didn’t matter. Regret was nothing but a chain tethering you in the past.

  I rested my forehead on his and rubbed my thumbs over the stubble on his jaw. “So, when are we going to do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Ride a time machine into the past and make it so we never met at all.”

  He leaned away and curled his lip. “What?”

  I feigned confusion. “That’s what you’re proposing, right? We go back in time and when my mother dies, I go to my room and lock the door instead of going to the Wynns’ tree. You jump out, break your own damn leg. Boom. My life is all rainbows and unicorns.” I tilted my head to the side and tapped my lips. “No, wait. Josh would still be alive, and now, he’d be sitting next to me in fifth grade. I’m not sure that would have ended any differently. Okay, what about—”

  “Thea,” he warned.

  But he needed to hear how fantastically ridiculous it sounded when he tried to tell me I should let him go. And as far as I was concerned, that ludicrousness was up there with time machines and the ripple effect.

  “We go back to when Josh was born. I know what you’re thinking. We can’t exact revenge on a baby.” I dramatically lifted my finger in the air. “But! We can kidnap him and send him to the rainforest to be raised by wolves. I won’t have that scar on my leg from when he tripped me in kindergarten, but you could learn to love me without it, right?”

  Glowering, he shifted me off his lap and stood up. “Stop joking around.”

  “Who’s joking?”

  Even with his temper slipping, he extended a hand to help me up. “Maybe we should just send me to the rainforest instead.”

  I took his hand. “Oh, I know. What could—”

  “Jesus, woman. Enough.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I matched his glower with a death stare. “Sounds stupid, huh? Kinda like you telling me to just unfall in love with you, unkiss you, untouch you, undo my entire freaking life because it would be easier.” I swung my arms out to my sides, slapping them against my thighs when I dropped them. “It’s impossible, Ramsey. Easy or not, letting go of you is not an option.”

  He clenched his teeth. “You don’t have to undo anything, you just have to let go of the life we planned together because that is what’s impossible. I fucking wish I could give that to you. Trust me, I will be hanging on this cross every damn day, knowing you’re out there with someone else, but—”

  I stormed toward him. “Then get off the fucking cross! No one asked you to be there!”

  “I did,” Nora said, suddenly appearing at the mouth of the hallway.

  “No!” Ramsey shouted. “Nora, no.”

  Buckets of tears ran down her face, dripping off her chin. “Something good has to come from all of this. I’ve told you that a million times. And I genuinely think that thing is you and Thea finally getting the life you were meant to have.”

  Suffocating urgency blanketed the room.

  “Don’t do this,” Ramsey begged.

  She shook her head. “You’ll never stop pushing her away. You want her. You love her. And if you can’t have her, you will spend the rest of your life alone. I can’t let you do that, Ramsey.” When her eyes flicked to me, her heart-stopping devastation hit me like a sledgehammer.

  Twelve years, nine months, six days, eight hours, and forty-four minutes. That was how long it took for my life to explode all over again.

  Obliterating me in its wake.

  “I killed Josh, Thea.”

  Twelve years earlier…

  “What are you doing?” Nora whispered, sitting up in bed.

  Tucking my head, I snuck in through her window. I was trying to avoid my dad. He’d been a fucking dick when I’d snagged the condoms from his room. After seeing what Josh had done to Thea, knowing that I would have been there to stop it if my dad could have put the fucking tequila bottle down for once, I wanted to kill him that much more. But I did not have time to worry about the bastard who had raised me.

  “My window was locked,” I told her, stomping through her room to mine across the hall.

  She followed after me. “Are you okay?”

  The bite marks on Thea’s naked body flashed on the backs of my lids, causing a deadly combination of adrenaline and failure to burn my skin.

  “Not even close,” I muttered, snagging my keys off my dresser.

  “What happened? Are you still pissed at Dad?”

  “Fuck Dad,” I bit out, going right back through her room to the window.

  She caught my arm before I had the chance to leave. “What is going on with you? Where’s Thea?”

  In bed, asleep, broken and battered because I couldn’t take care of her.

  I yanked my arm away and climbed outside.

  “Ramsey,” she hissed, following me out, because crawling up my ass was Nora’s favorite pastime.

  I usually didn’t mind though. At least I knew she wasn’t catching the brunt of my father’s bullshit. But that night I did not have the time nor desire for an interrogation.

  I had to find Caskey and beat him senseless.

  I marched to my car and snatched the door open. It wasn’t locked. Nobody wanted to steal that piece of shit.

  My ass had barely hit the seat when my sister slid into the passenger side.

  “Get out,” I barked, stabbing my key at the ignition. My aim was shit thanks to the fire raging in my veins.

  “No. There’s something going on, and if you’re not going to tell me what, I’m going with you.”

  I finally got the key in place and gave it a twist. The engine sputtered, not catching, so I gave it another try. “You cannot come with me tonight, Nora.”

  “Too bad. Looks like I already am.” She grinned and buckled her seat belt.

  When Nora got her mind set on something, there was no changing it. I would have had to physically carry her out of that car in order to make her stay home. And even then, she would have woken up the whole damn neighborhood, including Thea, if I tried to force the issue.

 
“Suit yourself,” I said, snatching the car into reverse once it had finally rumbled to life.

  We hadn’t made it more than a few miles when I realized I had no fucking idea where I was going. Caskey lived in the mayor mansion downtown, surrounded by a tall iron fence. I could have been fucking Spiderman and I would not have been able to get to him.

  But it was a Saturday night; there was no way that asshole was at home already.

  Nora was only a freshman, but the school was small and she knew enough of my friends to stay in the know.

  “Where are the parties at tonight?” I growled.

  “Uh,” she drawled. “Since when are you up for partying? Oh my God, did Thea break up with you?”

  “No.” Though, after the shit that had gone down, she should have. I white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Just tell me where the hell everyone is hanging out tonight.”

  She motioned a hand over her basketball shorts and oversized T-shirt. “I’m hardly dressed for a party.”

  “Nora!” I boomed, my voice echoing around the car. “Tell me where.”

  “Jesus, cranky much?” she mumbled. “Fine. Avery Johnson invited all the seniors over for a field party, but I heard a lot of the juniors were planning to crash.”

  I slowed at the stop sign and hung a hard right onto the long dirt road that led to the Johnsons’ farm.

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on now or should I start guessing?”

  I shook my head. No fucking way was I telling her what Josh had done to my Sparrow. Thea didn’t want to call the cops or tell her dad. She and Nora were close, but I was reasonably sure she did not want my blabbermouth sister to know about it, either.

  Dirt flew up as I sped down the road, my car making a hell of a racket each time I hit one of the bumps in the uneven road.

  She braced one hand on the dash and the other on the handle above her hand. “Right. Yeah. This totally seems like nothing. We’re just out for a late-night drive, huh?”

  “Shut up,” I rumbled.

  We were still at least a mile away from the Johnsons’ driveway, but cars lined both sides of the road. Squinting and searching for Josh’s black pickup, I flipped on my brights, but they were useless against the dry cloud of dust.

  And then, out of nowhere, God delivered me both a miracle and a tragedy.

  “Watch out!” Nora screamed as a shadowy figure staggered down the center of the road.

  I stomped on the brakes, skidding to a stop inches away from him.

  Josh.

  Drunk as a fucking skunk.

  Alone on a dark road.

  After he’d put his hands on my Sparrow.

  I smiled from ear to ear. Come on. If there was ever a sign that this asshole needed to pay, that was it.

  “Stay in the car,” I ordered.

  “Oh, God, why? What are you doing?” Nora asked, panic clear in her voice as she suddenly read my intentions.

  I got out without replying.

  “Ramsey,” she hissed, rolling the window down.

  Ignoring her, I rounded the front of the car.

  Using his hand to block the headlights, Josh swayed on his feet and slurred, “What the hell, dude? You almost hit me.”

  There was no almost about it. I gave him no warning as I wrapped my hand in the front of his shirt and then buried my fist in his face. Blood exploded from his mouth. But all I saw was Thea, naked and cowering in a tent.

  “You motherfucker!” I roared, hitting him again. “You think it’s okay to fucking touch a girl.” My fist landed in his eye and he stumbled back, but I yanked him toward me again, my face vibrating as I roared in his face, “My girl!”

  He shoved at my shoulders. “Get the fuck off me. I didn’t do shit to Thea that she didn’t want.”

  He could have dumped a gallon of gas on me and flicked a match at my feet and it still would have enraged me less. My vision flashed red and rational thought left me.

  I hit him. And hit him. And when my hand was aching to the point I was positive it was broken, I hit him even harder. I held him by his throat, only his tiptoes scraping the dirt road as I walked him backward, unable to punch him hard enough to give myself any kind of satisfaction.

  Finally, when I couldn’t hit him anymore, I threw him to the ground and kicked him in the stomach. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

  He rolled to the side, coughing and spitting out blood.

  And then Josh Caskey sealed his own fate.

  He laughed, pushing up onto all fours. “If it’s any consolation, she wasn’t nearly as good as your sister.”

  It was a verbal knockout punch. A wave of nausea threatened to take me to my knees and I stumbled backward, barely able to stay on my feet.

  I couldn’t process anything.

  The crunch of tires on the dirt road.

  The roar of the engine.

  The headlights getting brighter.

  Everything moved in slow motion.

  By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late.

  For him.

  For her.

  For me.

  “No!” I screamed as Nora ran over Josh.

  Betrayal, the likes of a knife, plunged into my chest. My whole body jerked and the room tilted as though the Earth had suddenly fallen out of orbit.

  I flicked my gaze between Ramsey and Nora, the same desolation showing on both of their faces. “What are you talking about? That’s not possible. You weren’t even there.” Tears started to fill my eyes. “You told me you were at home asleep that night.”

  “Thea,” Ramsey rasped, attempting to pull me into a hug.

  Confused and becoming angrier by the second, I ducked out of his reach. “Don’t you touch me.” I swung my irate gaze back to Nora, not giving the first fuck that she was now trembling. “Explain.”

  Ramsey lifted his hands in surrender and stepped between me and his sister. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” I hissed while leaning around him to keep my gaze locked on my best friend.

  “I never meant for this to happen,” she croaked. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  With all patience exhausted, I yelled so loud that it shook the window. “What did you do!”

  She swallowed hard, her breath shuddering. It might have made me a horrible human being, but I didn’t feel a lick of guilt for forcing her to tell me how she had ruined my entire fucking life and then lied to me about it for half of hers.

  “He raped me when I was twelve,” she confessed.

  My stomach soured, and Ramsey let out a pained groan.

  She kept talking. “I thought I was cool because one of the ninth-grade boys wanted to hang out with me. He told me to keep it a secret because he was worried Ramsey would get pissed he wanted to date his little sister.” She laughed and it was wholly sad. “Date. That was all he had to say. I was so desperate for someone to love me and he was this hot older guy. I thought he was my knight in shining armor.”

  Screwing his eyes shut, Ramsey pinched the bridge of his nose. “Stop. Please.”

  “I can’t,” she breathed. “He convinced me to sneak out and meet him at the high school baseball field one night. It started out sweet, with him saying he wanted a picture of me to put in his wallet. It didn’t stay that way long.”

  “Jesus,” I breathed. Bile burned the back of my throat as memories I’d long since packed away came clawing to the surface.

  His heavy weight as he held me down.

  The pain of his teeth sinking into my flesh.

  The panic when I realized I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off.

  I slapped a hand over my mouth and tried not to gag.

  She moved around Ramsey, getting closer with every word spoken. I was still raging with betrayal, but I didn’t trust my legs enough to back away.

  “He told me he’d show everyone the pictures if I told. I had no idea what images he’d captured, but I knew how filthy I felt on the inside, and
I was mortified that someone might see that.” Her breath lodged in her throat. “If I’d told somebody, I could have stopped him right then. But I was too scared. I didn’t know there were other girls. I didn’t know, Thea, I swear. Or I would have said something.”

  It wasn’t her fault. At least not that part.

  “What did you do?” I whispered, wishing like hell that the time machine I’d mocked Ramsey for was real.

  “I was sitting in that car, watching Ramsey beat him up, and when I’d heard what he’d done to you, I broke. Shattered into a million pieces. But one of those pieces put the car in drive and stomped on the gas.” A sob tore from her throat. “You and Ramsey were the only real family I’d ever had. And two years after I’d let Josh get away with what he’d done to me, I learned I’d all but allowed him to do it to you too.”

  My entire being from my heart to my soul, past and present, ached.

  I hated that she’d had to survive Josh Caskey too.

  I hated that she’d had to suffer in silence for so many years.

  But most of all, I fucking hated that the woman I viewed as my sister and the man who I thought was my soul mate had lied to me over and over every goddamn day for almost thirteen fucking years while I’d drowned in an ocean of guilt.

  Ramsey hadn’t killed Josh for me.

  Ramsey hadn’t been forced to give up his entire life for me.

  I hadn’t fucking caused Ramsey to spend over twelve years behind bars.

  She had.

  And he’d chosen that when he’d taken that plea bargain, knowing good and damn well it should have been Nora.

  “Fuck you,” I spat. “Fuck both of you.”

  Nora looked surprised.

  Ramsey looked almost relieved.

  The constant sting of pain and anguish I’d lived with every minute of every day since Ramsey had been arrested surged through my veins, morphing into a sludge of deception. I was wearing pajama pants and one of Ramsey’s hoodies, but I wouldn’t have given a damn if I’d been naked.

  I needed to get the hell out of that house.

  Spinning on a toe, I stomped to the front door and snatched my keys off the hook. My wallet sat on top of the contents of my purse, which had been dumped out, all of my personal and private belongings scattered across the floor. And wasn’t that just so damn symbolic of my life. I picked it up and tucked it under my arm.