“Moved out?” Lyric asked. “You mean she was kicked out, right?”
“No, I mean moved out. You know that Dad doesn’t pay a single cent for that condo, right? She pays the rent, she pays for her own groceries, everything. She could’ve just up and left us at any time.” Lyric digested that information. It doesn’t change anything, though. Dad was still in the wrong then, and he’s in the wrong now.
“That’s the thing, though: she didn’t. Dad lives with us and would still prefer to sleep on his damned futon, cuddling a bottle of whiskey than actually be a parent! Mom chose to be in our lives even when—in fact, especially when—Dad couldn’t be bothered!” Lyric interjected. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand what you see in him. Is it a guy thing, being blindly loyal to your father? Or is it just a you-and-Dad thing?”
“Loyalty isn’t gender specific,” Rhythm replied testily, fingers clenching the steering wheel tightly. “You’d know that if you were actually around!”
“Okay, so I haven’t been spending a lot of time at home! Sue me! It doesn’t feel right without Mom there, and I got tired of pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t! Besides, how would you know anything about anything? You spend ninety percent of your time locked up in your room like Rapunzel in her tower, and when you’re not gaming or programming, you’re sleeping or eating! Being in the building isn’t the same thing as being involved! Even your girlfriend was virtual!”
“Don’t bring Steph into this!” Rhythm cut in. Lyric had to physically stop herself from rolling her eyes. For being the oldest sibling, he sure is acting like a toddler right now.
“For the love of—” She sighed. “Rhythm! Open your eyes! She’s already in it, and even though you two broke up, there’s no removing her right now. You wanna drive two hours to a stranger’s house, wake me up at 3 a.m., and then spend the whole ride back home bitching at me? Is that really what you want? Fine! Let’s talk! I’ll freely admit that I’ve been away a lot, but that doesn’t warrant you treating me like a criminal! Not to mention scheming behind my back! I mean, seriously, was coming to me really so hard for you?”
“You don’t get it! I’m the big brother. It’s my job to protect you and Cadence, but especially you!” He tsked, nearly snapping the turn signal lever by how hard he jerked it up. “You really have no idea,” Rhythm said after a tenuous silence. “You’ve been too busy fucking the senator’s kid to even give a rat’s ass about your own family!” Lyric had never seen Rhythm so angry before, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit (at least to herself) that it scared her. He scared her. Have I really been so oblivious to what’s been going on with him? With everyone? What don’t I know?
“Well, why don’t you fill me in, since I’m clearly the bad guy here!”
“Dad’s firm is going under, you know. We’re going to lose the house if something doesn’t change soon. But you’re too busy treating him like the villain to see just how badly he’s struggling! You’d rather focus on Mom and her issues than Dad, and it’s not fair to either of them or me!”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?” Rhythm shook his head in disbelief, but Lyric knew an opening when she saw one.
“It’d be a start,” Rhythm grumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Lyric stated. “If I promise to be more involved in everything, will that help?”
“Lyric, we are so beyond meaningless promises.” Meaningless? Also, he never calls me anything but Peanut or occassionly Leer. “Don’t you get it yet? You weren’t supposed to run away the night of the bash! We were supposed to reunite and perform just like old times!”
“You knew about that?”
“Of course I knew! It was my idea!”
“All this time, I thought you wanted to go into programming! You’ve shown about as much interest in music as Cadence and me since Mom’s diagnosis—I’m sorry for assuming that hadn’t changed!”
“Well, you should’ve known!”
“How? By osmosis? You have to see that you’re just as much in the wrong here as I am! You never communicated with me! You never even made an effort!”
“How was I supposed to do that when you spent all your time at the fucking studio?”
“Stop acting like the studio is the problem here! The real problem is that you are blaming me for situations I had no control over and could only have been aware of if I developed telepathy!”
“I’m not asking you to develop superpowers! If you’d even asked how things were going, showed an interest in someone outside of yourself, that’d be a major improvement! You know, this is why I—” He cut himself off and sighed gustily, unintentionally doing his best impression of the Big Bad Wolf. “I can’t even look at you right now,” he said, and Lyric clenched her jaw until it hurt.
“Finally, something we can agree on!” she spat, and they spent the rest of the ride back home furiously silent for different reasons.
The sun had just crested horizon when Rhythm put the car in park. Lyric slammed the passenger door so hard the whole car shook, and she made her way into the house after glaring witheringly at Rhythm.
Made it home, she texted Luca. I’ll explain everything later, promise. I’m sorry.
You don’t need to apologize, Luca sent back. Just keep me posted.
Will do.
“Okay, we’re home,” she said once they were both inside. “Let’s finish what you started.”
“What I started? I’m just cleaning up your mess!” Rhythm fired back. Lyric snorted and rolled her eyes.
“What’s going on in here?” Cadence stood in the threshold, yawning and rubbing her eye before crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought you weren’t coming home until later.”
“So did I, but your brother decided to wake me up at 3 a.m. and claim that we had to talk.”
“Rhythm? Is that true?” Cadence took on the role of the mediator like she was born for it, which, in a way, she was.
“Can it, Cadence. This has nothing to do with you. Go back to bed or something,” Rhythm said nastily, and Lyric had simply had enough at this point. She stalked over and slapped her brother across the face.
“Don’t talk to her like that!” she hissed. Rhythm said nothing, and Lyric stared at him like he was a stranger. For all intents and purposes, he is. “You’re not going back to school, are you?” Lyric said to Rhythm, who scoffed and stared at the ceiling as if it had an answer.
“Give the girl a prize. You can just go ahead and add that to my lengthy list of failures. Things you’d know about if you—”
“I swear to God, if you say ‘had been around more’ one more time, I can’t be held responsible for how I respond.”
“It’s true, though! Cadence, tell her!” Rhythm demanded.
“I thought this didn’t involve me. I’m just the observer,” Cadence told him, and he paled. Clearly, he expected her to be on his side in this whole mess. I’m not stupid enough to think that she’s on my side, but I’m relieved she doesn’t agree with him.
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did.” Lyric cut him off. “You meant it, just like you’ve meant everything else you’ve said to me today.
“Still, you not going back to school explains so much. Why you had so much stuff in your car the night you picked me up from the studio, why you’ve been isolating yourself more than usual . . . Are you projecting your anger at yourself on me?” Rhythm said nothing. “You are!” Lyric shook her head in disbelief. “You woke me up in the middle of the night, drove two hours to my boyfriend’s grandparents’ house to get me, and have been projecting the entire time! What the hell, Rhythm? Ever heard of therapy?!”
“Speaking of your boyfriend, there’s something I should probably show you. Meet me at my car in five minutes.” He’s not even giving me a choice in this, Lyric thought even as her big brother stomped out of the room and toward the stairs. She stared at Cadence, who did that big-sister thing and pulled her into a hug, kissing the crown of her head.
“W
hatever he has to show you, do yourself a favor and don’t make him madder than he already is,” she advised. “Start by getting your butt outside.” Lyric nodded and made her way to the stairs. Unbeknownst to her, Cadence pulled out her phone but didn’t press the call button until the door shut behind Lyric.
Luca’s phone rang right as he passed the “Welcome to Claymoor” sign. He didn’t recognize the number, but he answered it anyway. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing, and some sort of instinct had clicked into place and forced him to get into his car and drive back to town.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Luca? It’s Cadence. Y’ know, Lyric and Rhythm’s sister? She gave me your number in case of an emergency, and I think this counts. Lyric needs you over at Craft Me Happy. Don’t bother with questions, just go!”
“I’m already on my way,” he told her. “Something’s really wrong, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Cadence answered, confirming his fear. “I’ve never seen Rhythm like this.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
In all her life, Lyric had never felt unsafe while Rhythm was driving, even when he was a teenager and had just gotten his learner’s permit.
Which was why she knew something was extremely wrong when she got back into his car and he took off before she’d even buckled her seat belt. He didn’t check if she was secured, and Lyric was beyond ready to wake up from this nightmare—now.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lyric shrieked, her hand grabbing for the door hanger without thinking about it. He was definitely breaking several traffic laws as he drove into the town center, where he stopped as abruptly as he’d started gunning the engine, and Lyric immediately recognized where they were. “Why’d you bring me here?” Rhythm didn’t say anything, just cut the engine and got out of the car. Lyric followed him, but he continued to ignore her increasingly panicked questions. “Rhythm, slow down and talk to me!” He was a man on a mission, and nothing she said could stop him. She even grabbed at his arm, but he shook her grip off each time. “Ry, please!” Once again, her words fell on deaf ears, and all she could do was watch.
They came to the outside of the ceramic studio, where the recently repaired window became victim to Rhythm’s foot once he kicked it in. Pieces of glass fell to the floor below, and Rhythm slipped through the opening effortlessly. Lyric stared at the hole, the pieces fitting together against her better judgement. She slipped in after him and gasped once she saw the still-healing wound on his arm. Coincidence? she thought wildly, even as he indiscriminately started shoving ceramic structures to the floor.
“It doesn’t match anyone in either the local or national databases,” Luca’s grandfather had said. “So, either they don’t have a criminal record, or they’re really good at covering their tracks.”
“RHYTHM! STOP!” Lyric finally got over her shock, but her brother couldn’t hear her over the cacophony of his own destruction. “RHYTHM!” she shouted again, and he turned to her, but it might as well have been a stranger staring back at her. Sure, he wore Rhythm’s face, but he looked nothing like the sibling who had dived into a pool during a thunderstorm to save her.
With a grunt, he swung his arm out and launched Lyric into the nearby wall, and she hit it hard, her head bouncing like a dodgeball against a gym floor. Black dots swam in front of her vision lazily, and she tried unsuccessfully to shake them away. A buzzing filled her ears at the same time as the destruction, and she wanted to cover her ears, but her arms felt like they had hundred-pound dumbbells attached to them, so she just stared at her brother, the pain in her head making it difficult to focus.
“HEY!” An intimately familiar masculine voice came into the fray, and in a blur of movement, Luca had Rhythm in a headlock, which the latter struggled heavily against. They continued to tussle, but Luca ultimately forced Rhythm to succumb to the sleeper hold amongst the rubble. Once he was down for the count, Luca sprinted toward Lyric, kneeling beside her and saying words that she couldn’t hear over the white noise in her head. The last thing she remembered before passing out was the fear in his eyes.
When she came to, the first thing she saw was flashing red and blue lights, their brightness an assault on her eyes. She shied away and grimaced, moaning quietly. Her head ached like nothing she had ever felt before, and nothing made sense.
“Oh, Peanut!” Elena Meadows’s voice barely held back tears, and Lyric blinked sluggishly. “Lyric, baby, can you hear me?” At the same time her mother spoke, someone squeezed her hand, and Lyric lazily turned her head toward the source of the sensation. Luca smiled gently back at her as his thumbs caressed her knuckles. Elena stroked her head, pushing her hair away from her face. Lyric slowly realized she was on a hospital gurney and the lights were from Claymoor police cars and an ambulance.
Just beyond her mother, Detective Aaron Abbott, of all people, had Rhythm in handcuffs. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but Rhythm was nodding and not resisting.
“What . . . happened?” she croaked, parched and dazed all at once.
“Rhythm destroyed your art,” Luca explained. “He destroyed everyone’s, in the end, including Mr. Patterson’s.”
“But . . . why?” Pain arced through her forehead, and she winced, pressing her palm against it. “Ow. I feel like I got hit in the head with a wrecking ball.”
“Not quite. In the midst of his rage, Rhythm shoved you into a wall.” Lyric’s vision split in two, and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut to combat the resulting dizziness. She carefully opened them again and wasn’t surprised when tears turned everything watery.
“How . . . how could he. He promised—” Her throat suddenly got tight, and she let out a small sob. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into Luca’s arms and never leave, but she knew that wasn’t an option.
“When Lyric was a little girl, Rhythm dove into our backyard pool during a thunderstorm and saved her from drowning,” Elena explained. Luca nodded comprehendingly, squeezing Lyric’s hand tighter in an attempt to comfort her.
“He promised nothing would ever happen to me as long as he was around,” Lyric added, hot tears making their way across her cheeks.
“It was an accident,” Luca reminded her, but it didn’t help her feel any better.
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Lyric told him.
“Such is the nature of a Taurus,” Cadence commented as she walked over to them. “They’re taking Rhythm to the county courthouse to book him,” she informed their mother, who nodded numbly. This is all my fault. All of this could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t been so selfish, Lyric thought, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
“Which of you is going to ride with her?” A paramedic came up, staring at a clipboard as he asked the question. Luca made to take a step back, but Elena waved him away.
“You can do more for her now than I can. I’ll stay here,” she said, and Luca opened his mouth to protest, but Elena shook her head.
“You’re wasting time by arguing. Just go,” she told him, and after a moment’s pause, he nodded, climbing into the back of the ambulance as the medics got Lyric ready for transport. Awareness ebbed and flowed, but she couldn’t deny how comforted she felt with Luca by her side.
Her hospital stay turned out to be short and sweet. She wasn’t even admitted to the emergency room. They ran some cursory tests, checking for brain damage, but there was none, and they told her to take it easy for a few days until they could be sure she wasn’t concussed. All things considered, I got off pretty easily.
Once the local press learned that Luca Sherwood had been the one to stop Rhythm Meadows from further destruction and that Rhythm had been the vandal in the first place, it was safe to say that they went a little insane. The whole event even garnered national attention, but only for a few days and only because the son of a senator and presidential candidate was involved. Once something else happened, the focus moved away from their microscopic blip in the grand scheme of newsworthy events.
>
Ultimately, Lyric chose not to press charges against Rhythm, and neither did Jessie Smart. The latter of the two claimed she couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork or court appearances, while Lyric just wanted her big brother to get the help he craved. The fact that he’d been the one to destroy her art, that he’d been in her midst all along, should have upset her more than it did, but she also understood why he’d done it. He wanted to get my attention, so he went after something I loved. It makes sense, even if I wish he could’ve just talked to me. Not that I ever really gave him the chance to talk to me, but still. I wish things could’ve been different.
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey.”
“Hi.” Silence fell between them, and Lyric’s shoulders scrunched inward under Luca’s scrutiny. “What?” she asked, and he approached her with the smile that made butterflies whip around her belly.
“Stop being so hard on yourself. It doesn’t look good on you.” The compliment made Lyric’s toes curl even as she resigned herself to talking about this whole mess. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I know what it’s like to have an unpredictable brother. Maybe I can help.” Lyric sighed and pushed her palms against the countertop, using the leverage to sit on the edge. Luca stood in the space between her legs, but she didn’t look at him for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts.
“If only I’d noticed something was wrong sooner. He was suffering in silence, and for what? Because I was too oblivious to see the signs? Because I was in denial about what was really going on? How could I have been so selfish?”
“First, hindsight is twenty-twenty, meaning that of course you think you should’ve known the signs before things came to a head, but the truth is you couldn’t have known.” Luca reached up and curled a piece of Lyric’s hair behind her ear, letting his knuckles caress her cheek. “Second, you’re the least selfish person I’ve ever known,” he added, bopping her nose. “Third, it’s clear that Rhythm didn’t want you to know anything was wrong, so how could you? By osmosis? The important thing is that Rhythm is getting the help he needs.”
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