I try to shake my head, but my head doesn't move. "Sagan."
"What kind of person does that to her own sister, Merit?" He grimaces and turns away from me, gripping the back of his neck with his hands. He walks into the kitchen and grabs his hoodie off the back of a chair. I look completely pathetic as I stand up and take a few steps toward him.
He walks to the door and opens it, but he pauses before he exits. When he lifts his head to look at me, his eyes are full of disappointment. "You are such an asshole."
He closes the door.
I stumble back to the couch until I'm sitting on it again.
You are such an asshole.
I've been called a lot of things in my life, but no one has ever called me an asshole. It hurts so much worse than anything anyone else has ever said to me.
I guess I was wrong. I am the worst person out of the three of us.
Chapter Ten
I listen for a car to start, but it never does. Sagan left, but he didn't leave in a vehicle, which means he's either walking or just lingering outside until he cools off. I want to run after him and beg him to forgive me, but I'm not sure I want his forgiveness right now. I'm not sure I deserve it.
I'm hugging my knees, wondering how I've been so blind. I just assumed he was in love with Honor. They do so much together. They talk like they're a couple. And almost every time I've referred to him as her boyfriend, no one has corrected me. It's as if they wanted me to believe that.
Or maybe it was just Honor who wanted me to believe that.
I use the blanket on the back of the couch to wipe away my tears. Jesus is staring down at me, judging me. I roll my eyes. "Oh, shut up," I say to Him. "Aren't you up there so people like me can be forgiven for doing terrible things like this?"
I fall back on the couch and feel like I want to scream. I grab a pillow and cover my face and do just that. I'm frustrated, embarrassed, angry, disappointed. It's a far fall from what I was feeling while Sagan was kissing me just a few moments ago. It's like I plunged from the warmth of the tropics straight into the ice-cold waters of Antarctica.
I don't want to feel anything anymore. These past two days have supplied me enough emotional turmoil for a lifetime. I'm done. Done, done, done.
"Done, done, done," I reaffirm as I roll off the couch. I walk to the kitchen and grab a red Solo cup. I open the cabinet above the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of liquor. I don't even know what it is. I've never had alcohol before, but what better time to try it than in the same week I almost lose my virginity and piss off the one person I actually feel something for in this house?
I don't know how much it takes to get a person drunk, but I fill my glass halfway to the top. Or maybe it's halfway to the bottom. Am I an optimist or a pessimist? I glance down into the cup.
Pessimist.
I down as much as I can before I feel like I'm gagging on a fireball. I sputter and cough and even spit a little bit of it into the sink.
"This is disgusting!" I wipe my mouth with a paper towel. I can feel the burn as it slides down my chest. I can also still feel the frustration, the anger, the sadness.
I somehow manage to get down the rest of what's in the cup. I take the bottle and the cup with me as I exit the kitchen. I don't want to be in here when Sagan gets back from his walk. I open the door to my bedroom, but it's lonely. Empty. Depressing. It reminds me of me. I set the bottle of alcohol on my dresser, but the cup falls to the floor. Whatever. It's empty.
The first thing I do is change out of Honor's nightgown and into my own pajamas. I also undo the braid and pull my hair up. I don't want to be her anymore. It's not as fun as I thought it would be. I also don't want to be alone right now. The only person who might feel bad and sympathize with me is Luck.
I'm not sure if he's asleep, so when I open his door I do it as quietly as possible. I slip inside and then face the door as I close it with both hands, not wanting to make a noise. When I turn around, I'm relieved to see there's a tiny sliver of light coming from my father's computer on the other side of the office. Enough light for me to be able to make it to the sofa bed.
I hear Luck groan as I tiptoe further into the room. The mattress squeaks and it sounds like he's rolling over.
"Luck?" The mattress squeaks again and it sounds like he's making room for me. "Are you awake?" I whisper, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
All of a sudden, I hear the word, "Shit!" but it isn't out of Luck's mouth. It's not out of mine, either.
"Merit?" That's Luck's voice.
"Luck?"
"What the hell?!" That's Utah's voice.
Utah? I jump up.
"Shit!" Luck says. "Merit, get out!"
Something crashes to the floor. The lamp, maybe?
"Get out!" Utah yells.
"Shit!" Luck says again. There's so much commotion going on, it takes me several seconds to regain my bearings and turn around for the door. When I open it, I make the mistake of glancing back into the room. There's enough light now that I can see both of them as they struggle back into their clothes. Utah freezes when he locks eyes with me. Only one of his legs has made it into his pants. He's not wearing any underwear.
"Oh my God." I'm scarred for life. Luck is on the other side of the sofa bed, struggling to pull on his boxer shorts.
I slap my hand over my eyes when Utah yells, "Get the hell out, Merit!"
I slam the door shut.
Please be a nightmare.
I go to my room and grab the bottle of liquor and don't even bother with the cup this time. I need these feelings to stop. I need to forget, forget, forget. What in the hell did I just see?
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can't be that oblivious. Then why were they naked? Together? In bed?
Luck almost had sex with me yesterday. He said he couldn't finish because I looked like Moby, but Utah looks more like Moby than any of us! Now he's having sex with my brother? If this isn't the ultimate form of rejection, I don't know what is.
What's wrong with me? Luck would rather have sex with my brother than me. Sagan called me an asshole right after we made out on the couch. Drew Waldrup broke up with me with his hand on my boob. WHY AM I SO REPULSIVE?
"Merit!"
Utah is knocking on my door as I pace my bedroom floor. What in the hell did I just interrupt?
I swing open the door and Utah pushes himself into my room and closes the door behind him. He looks angry and a little bit worried when he points at me. "Keep your mouth shut," he says. "What I do is none of your business."
I stop pacing and step closer to him. "Have I ever spilled your secrets before this?"
His anger fades with the mention of his past indiscretions.
"You think I forgot about that, Utah? Well, guess what? I didn't. And I never will."
He winces and I can see the guilt in his expression. I want to punch him, but I'm not a violent person. I don't think. I'm not sure, because my hand balls into a fist right before he slips out of my bedroom and shuts the door.
I hate him. And I hate myself for never telling anyone the truth about him.
I sit down on my bed and squeeze my eyes shut. I feel like I might puke and I'm not even sure why, exactly. I think it's everything. It's Luck, Sagan, Utah, Honor, my father, Victoria, my mother.
This family is just as terrible as everyone in this town believes it to be. Maybe even worse. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the secrets and I'm sick of the lies. And I'm tired of being the one person in this house who has to hold on to all of them!
I have Utah's secret.
I have my father's secret.
My mother's secret.
Honor's secret.
Luck's secret.
I don't want any of them anymore!
Maybe if I let all the secrets out, they wouldn't make me feel like drowning anymore.
Yes. Maybe that would help. Maybe getting it all out will help me feel like I'm not about to implode.
I reach to my nightstand and grab a pen, then
open the drawer and sift through it until I find a notebook with enough empty pages to hold all these secrets.
It still hurts. All of it. The entire past few days. I grab the bottle of . . . what the hell am I even drinking? I read the label. Tequila. I grab the bottle of tequila and slide to the floor because I'm starting to feel dizzy. I grab my pen and notebook and open to the first blank page I can find. I squeeze my eyes shut until my vision feels sturdier. I feel wobbly. My hand feels wobbly when I start writing.
Dear inhabitants of Dollar Voss. Every last one of you. Except Moby. He's the only one I like and still have respect for at this point.
I have so much anger building inside of me, and it has nothing to do with me. It's anger at almost every single person in this house. Anger due to all the secrets you've been keeping from each other, from the outside world. I refuse to hold on to any of it for one more second. Every day, there are more and more secrets and I'm tired of looking like the bad guy. You all hate me. You all think every argument in this house is my fault. You all wonder why I'm so damn BRASH all the time. IT'S BECAUSE OF ALL OF YOU!
Where do I even begin?
How about I begin with the oldest secret? Did you think I would forget, Utah? Did you think, because I was only twelve, that I wouldn't remember the night you forced me to kiss you?
It's hard to forget something like that, Utah. If you knew how much I worshipped you as my big brother, you would understand why it's so hard to forget when you did what you did.
"It's not a big deal, Merit."
That's what you said to me when I shoved you away. You tried to make it seem like I was overreacting to what had just happened. One minute I was in my brother's room watching a movie, the next minute my brother was trying to kiss me.
I ran out of your room that night and never looked back. Not once. I've never been to your bedroom since then. I've never allowed myself to be alone with you since then. And it's like you don't even care. You never even apologized. Do you even feel guilty?
Is that why you find it so difficult to look me in the eye? Because the few times you do look at me, you look at me with contempt and disgust. The same way I look at you.
All of you think I'm rude to Utah. You're all telling me, "Calm down, Merit." Think about how you would feel if your family tried to force you to be nice to the brother who stole your first kiss from you.
You disgust me, Utah. You disgust me and I'll never forget and I'll never forgive you.
But at least you have Honor. She worships you because she didn't endure the side of you I endured. She thinks you're sweet and innocent and the best thing to ever happen to her. She looks at me the same way you do, but only because she can't understand how I can treat you so terribly when you do nothing to deserve it.
I know you probably find all of this hard to believe, Dad. Yes, I'm speaking to you now, Barnaby Voss. I've said all I need to say to Utah.
You've set the perfect example for us on how to treat each other, haven't you? You created this beautiful family, but as soon as your wife became ill and couldn't satisfy your needs anymore, you slept with her nurse. You couldn't even be discreet about it. Couldn't you have slept with her and then pretended it never happened once Mom got better? No. You had to take it a step further on the selfish scale and screw Victoria without a condom. Now we're stuck with a woman who hates us. A woman who hates our mother.
I wonder how Victoria would react if she knew you were still sleeping with Mom?
Yeah, that sentence probably shocked ALL of you.
Sorry, Victoria, but it's true. I saw it with my own two eyes. At least we have an explanation now for why our mother still dresses up every day. She lives in your basement, hoping her ex-husband will sneak down and pay her a visit, so she keeps her makeup pretty and her hair perfect and her legs nice and smooth.
Your husband is probably why our mother still lives here in the basement. He's doing so much damage to her mentally that she's under his complete control. He gets you in the bedroom and my mother in the basement. And you're both Victoria, so he doesn't even have to worry about screaming out the wrong name! He's living every man's fantasy. He doesn't even have to worry about the two of you overlapping because he's got my mother so doped on medication, she's too scared to even leave the basement.
And don't think you're getting off easy, Mother, simply because I feel sorry for you. I liked you more before I knew you were still sleeping with Dad. At least then I could excuse why you're still here, living in a dungeon, wasting away your life. I thought it was because of your social phobia, but now I know it's because you're playing some kind of sick game, trying to win Dad back. Well guess what, Mom? He's not taking you back! Why would he? You open your legs to him any time he wants it.
You're probably more pathetic than he is. At least he's raising his children. At least he's working to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. He's damn shitty at the whole father thing, but he's a much better parent than you've ever been to us. So yeah, consider this my goodbye. I won't be visiting you in the basement anymore. If you care about any of us, you'll suck it up, get a job, move out, and get a life!
Who else?
Oh! Let's not forget the newest addition to Dollar Voss. Luck Finney! He seems great, doesn't he? Shows up this week, makes up with his sister and then almost fucks his step-niece.
Granted, it was my idea to lose my virginity to him. Not like it would have made a difference to him since he's had sex over three hundred times! But now that I know he's making his way through ALL the Voss siblings, I feel even cheaper than I felt after what I'm sure would have been the worst sexual experience in history . . . had he been able to go through with it.
Maybe he couldn't finish with me because he prefers dick. Utah's dick, at least.
Oh! Did no one know Utah was gay? Not that I have anything against anyone being gay. Love is love, right? But I just didn't know that about Utah. But yes, Utah is gay and he's sleeping with Luck. I know because I walked in on them. I can't get the image of them out of my head no matter how hard I try. It's embedded there, just like the image of Sagan when he called me an asshole.
He was right, though. I am an asshole. What kind of person betrays their own twin sister in the worst possible way? Of course, the fact that I pretended to be Honor so I could kiss Sagan wasn't really a betrayal, considering Honor and Sagan aren't even a thing. But how was I supposed to know that? Honor doesn't tell me anything! A sister should know who her own twin sister is dating! But I still somehow get stuck with everyone's secrets, and then you all beg me to keep them from everyone else!
Kind of like the one I'm keeping for Honor right now. She's off with some guy tonight, probably naked with him on his death bed.
Can we please address this?
Can we please discuss how disturbing it is that Honor is obsessed with the terminally ill?
Why is this okay?
Why have you not put her in therapy, Dad?
WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND SEEKS OUT LOVE FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE DYING?
Honor, from one sister to another, please get help. You need it. Desperately.
Who am I forgetting? Moby? I won't even go there. Just someone please save this kid from this family before it's too late.
Sagan, I really don't have anything negative to say about you. You're quite possibly the only sane one living in this house. I guess in a way that's your flaw. You actually have the option to leave, yet for some reason, you stay with the most screwed-up family in Texas. Your family must really suck. Is that why you've never met your own sibling? Because you were smart enough to get as far away as you could?
Well, that was fun. I think I feel better now that all your secrets are no longer my responsibility. In the future, keep your shit to yourself because I don't care.
I'll say it again in case none of you are getting it.
I.
Don't.
Care.
Sincerely,
Merit
I slap the pen
to the page.
That felt good. Too good. I feel like a weight has been lifted and it's now evenly disbursed among every person in this family. Or at least it will be once I make copies for everyone.
If it felt that good just writing it, I can't imagine how good it will feel delivering it. I tear the pages out and stand up, but I have to grab my dresser to steady myself. I laugh because I think I finally drank enough to make all my feelings go away. Or maybe it was the letter I just wrote. Either way, I think I like tequila. I feel freaking great. I like it so much; I drink the rest of it before I head to my father's office to make copies.
I don't bother knocking. I heard Utah's door slam earlier, so I know he's not in here with Luck anymore. When I open the door, Luck is messing with his phone. He doesn't look happy to see me. "What do you want?"
"Not you," I say, walking to the other side of the room. "I need to use the copier."
Luck sighs and leans against the back of the sofa bed. I place the first page on the copier and hit the number 7. There are nine people in this house, but Moby can't read and I've got the original. I press the Copy button and then turn to face Luck.
"So," I say. "Is there anyone you won't have sex with on this earth besides me?"
"Are you drunk?"
I open the copier and put the second page facedown. I hit the copy button again. "Yes. It's the only way I can deal with this family, Luck. The family you chose to move in with." I turn around and look at him again, this time with confusion. "Why would you willingly choose to live here?"
Luck doesn't answer me. He looks back down at his phone and starts texting again. "Are you almost done?"
I put the final page on the copier. "Yep. Nearly there." I glance to the other side of the copier and see Luck's worn notebook with all his conquests in it. I glance back at him and he isn't looking at me. I flip to the last page and sure enough, he has my name written down. It says, 332.5 M.V., her bed, DNF.
I got DNF'd. A big, fat DID NOT FINISH.
"Do I at least get a participation trophy for this?" Luck sees the notebook in my hands. He jumps off the sofa bed and snatches it out of my hands. He walks back to the bed. I chuck a pen at him. "Here. Don't forget to write Utah's initials down. Lucky 333."
When the copier is finished, I gather all the pages and take the original off the copier.
Without Merit Page 14
