by Jay McLean
Her lips tremble with the force of her exhale. “I’m not going to lie, Logan. I worry about you, especially now, knowing what we know, I worry that you—that things are going to get worse with you and that you’re going to fall into this cycle, and we—Dad and us—we’ll have no choice but to watch someone else we love slowly die…”
“Lucy,” I whisper. “It’s not that bad…”
“For you, maybe,” she says, looking down at the space between us. “But for us… it’s the same, because we can’t control it. We can’t control you.”
The struggle for air squeezes at my lungs, at my throat.
“You know,” she adds, “before Cam and I lost that baby, we would always talk about our kids, about our future…” Her tears come faster now. Freer. She glances up at me, then back down.
If I could hold her hand, I would.
“I always had this picture in my head,” she says, “this one scene where we’d come by the house and y’all were there. I’d open the car door, and our daughter would be in her seat—blue eyes and pigtails—and as soon as I had her unbuckled, she’d be off running toward her Uncle Logan, her favorite uncle…”
My heart skips a beat. Two. I struggle to ask, “I’d be her favorite?”
“Yeah,” Lucy says, nodding. She looks up, right into my eyes, and keeps me pinned to her stare. “I mean, when you think about it, she’d be a pretty lucky girl to have all those uncles looking out for her. But with Lucas, he’d be her protector, you know? And Leo, he’d be the serious one. The one trying to teach her all about morals and”—she rolls her eyes—“how to be a lady.”
I can’t help but smile.
“But you, Logan—you’d be the fun uncle. The one who’d skip out on work just to take her to the zoo. You’d be the first to dress up as a fairy if she asked you to. You’d for sure be her favorite, and she’d love you beyond words, and in my mind, in that scene, I’m always smiling when I see you waiting for her with your arms spread, lifting her off the ground the second she got to you. She’d call you Uncle Lo… and you… you’d call her your Little Princess.”
I wipe my eyes on the pillow, and Lucy reaches up, cups my face. “Can you see it, Logan?”
I nod against her hands, sniff back the sorrow.
“Can you see it if you’re too high to see her?”
My chest rises. Falls. “Lucy—”
“Because I’m pregnant, Logan,” she cuts in. “It’s a girl. We’re going to name her Katherine, after Mom. Katie for short. And I want you to be around to watch her grow up. I want Katie to have her favorite uncle in her life,” she cries. “But I’m scared… I’m scared that you…”
I can’t breathe. “What do you need from me, Luce?”
She muffles her sobs into my chest.
I hold her face in my hands and plead with her. “I’ll do anything, Lucy. Just tell me…”
“I need you to get help, Logan.”
And I say…
I say…
“Okay.”
51
Aubrey
I forced my mother to give me the names of the five boys. I don’t know why I needed to know or what I even planned to do with the information once I had it. A part of me wanted to reach out to them, to apologize for the actions of a man I’d once loved. I could do that. So long as I never used the words “I get it” or “I understand” because being the daughter of a pedophile is not the same as being a victim of one.
I don’t eat.
Can’t.
And when I close my eyes, I see the twenty different pictures of Logan hanging on the wall next to the staircase in the Preston house.
I do my best not to close my eyes for too long.
For the fourth day in a row, I sit in the confines of my room, on my computer, in a bomb shelter made of boxes that once filled an entire house. I type in their names, one after the other, multiple search engines, numerous filters.
Mom says I shouldn’t obsess over it.
My mom can fuck off.
Because as much as she likes to think that she somehow did the right thing, my dad died ten years ago. For ten fucking years she’s known about it, and she was just recently looking for Logan. No. That doesn’t make sense. She could’ve found them within minutes had she tried. My dad coached them. Their details would’ve been under the same roof we called home. She could’ve reached out to the parents then. She could’ve done so many things. Instead, she was a coward, and now she’s using me to defend that cowardice by saying she did it all to protect me. There were five boys out there who needed the protection more than I did.
I go through pages and pages of searches and sites and don’t come up with anything solid. And so I rely on my last option: social media.
I log onto Facebook for the first time since Logan’s return from Cambodia. I don’t expect many notifications, if any. But there’s one. A status update from Carter that he’d tagged me in:
When you drive three hours to slip a letter in a mailbox… Revenge is a bitch, Aubrey O’Sullivan. Enjoy the hate.
My eyes narrow, my mind confused, and I try to think if I’d seen anything come from him. I look at the date he’d posted, and my breath, my pulse—all of it stops.
I rush downstairs, ignore Mom calling after me, and grab my keys from the entry table. I get in my car and let rage drive me, let it control me.
My hands are fists at my sides while I walk from my car into the office of the BMW dealership owned by Carter’s dad. I hear him before I see him, his laughter grating on my nerves, building my anger. His office is surrounded by floor to ceiling glass, and he’s lazing back in a chair behind his desk, having no clue to the fury I’m about to unleash. A couple is sitting opposite him, signing paperwork, and as soon as I open the glass door, I tell them to get out.
Carter’s eyes are huge, and he’s on his feet, making his way toward me. “Jesus, Aubrey, you don’t look so good.” He’s smirking, cocky, and I wish I had the strength to wrap his stupid tie around his neck and choke him to death.
He holds up a finger to his clients. “One minute,” he asks, holding the door open for them.
They leave his office.
Carter closes the door behind them.
He’s still smirking.
I say, doing my best not to cry, “What the fuck was in that letter?”
His eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
“That letter you put in my fucking mailbox!” I shout. “What was in it?!”
“Keep your fucking voice down,” he utters. “That was, like, weeks ago.”
I shove his chest. Hard. “What. Was. It?”
He grasps my wrists. “Feisty,” he says. Laughs. “I like this version of you, Aubs.”
“Fuck you.”
He rolls his eyes. “It was a police report about your dad, okay? Oh, and a picture of you two…” He smirks. “You always wanted to find a photo of him, right?” He shrugs, releases my wrist. “You should be thanking me, really. I gave you what you finally wanted. Did you know Daddy Dearest was a kiddy fiddler? Did he ever… you know…” He wags his eyebrows.
I try. Honestly, I do. But the tears fall, his words weakening my determination. “What is wrong with you, Carter?” I cry out. “You ruined so many lives with…” I trail off, unable to speak through my sobs. I don’t lower my head, my gaze, because I want him to see me. See what he’s done to me. “Why would you want to hurt me like that?”
His features fall, and he steps toward me.
I take a step back.
Shaking his head, his voice is as weak as I feel when he says, “Fuck, Aubrey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t… I don’t…” He takes my hand. Holds it.
I snatch it away, bile rising to my throat. I whisper, “You have no idea what you did.” I leave his office, my torment building cement walls around my chest. I should just leave, because there’s nothing left to say, nothing left to do. But then I hear him behind me, “Don’t you feel better for knowing?”
I stop in my tracks
, scream so loud my throat burns. A bomb explodes inside me, shattering the walls that had just been built. I pick up a metal chair, throw it at him. Pick up another. Throw it through his office walls. Glass falls to the floor, as if in slow motion, and I picture Logan opening that mail… try to imagine the look on his face when he was reunited with a past that destroyed him…
Weeks of silent sobs force themselves out of me. I cry. I cry so loud my lungs, my throat, beg for me to stop. But I can’t.
I can’t stop.
I run for my car, and when I hear Carter coming after me, I run faster.
I get into my car, lock all the doors, and start the engine. I should leave, just drive away, and forget this day. Forget Carter. Forget every single moment from my past.
Logan included.
Logan.
And then I remember the pile of ash sitting on the garage floor, the burnt remains of Logan’s history.
Through my rage, my agony, the never-ending tears blurring my vision, I see Carter’s Pathetic Dick of a car parked in front of the office. I don’t think. I just do. I put the car in gear, hit the brake and accelerator. I hear the tires screeching, smell the burn. My head lands on the steering wheel when I crash into the side of his car head-on. I check behind me. Reverse when it’s clear. Then I hit the brakes. Put the car in drive. I don’t close my eyes when I smash into the BMW again. And again. And again. I ignore the sirens blaring and the shouting from outside. But most of all, I ignore my own screams. My own cries. My own pain. My own mind telling me that I should’ve worn my seatbelt, that I shouldn’t give into the darkness.
52
Aubrey
Four months later
Time heals all wounds. At least the physical ones. I ended up with a concussion, a few stitches over my eye, a fractured wrist, collarbone, and a couple bruised ribs. Carter paid for the damages I’d made at the dealership from his own pocket. The last time I spoke to him, it was to tell him that there was no way I’d be paying him back a single cent. He told me he hadn’t expected me to.
As soon as my injuries healed, I went looking for a job. I now work full-time cleaning rooms in a mediocre hotel. Once I’d saved up enough money, I got the hell out of my mother’s house and moved into a share house with two college girls. They leave me alone. I leave them alone. Laney is the only person I’ve spoken to from my old life, and it was only so she could inform me that she found someone to take over the lease at the shop. Lucy’s called a couple times. Leo, too. I don’t answer their calls. I’m ashamed. For so many reasons. Not just because of what my dad had done, but my mom… after what happened with Carter, I sat in a hospital room with her while she stared at me, concerned, and I looked at her, and the only thing I felt was ill. Sick to my goddamn stomach. How could she do what she did? How could she not say anything? And then when it came to saying something, how could she do it the way she did… just spitting it out to get it out of her system, with no regard for how the Prestons might feel. How Tom might feel. How Tom might want to handle it when it came to the other kids. My mom is selfish in the most slyest, most vindictive way, and she doesn’t even realize it.
She calls every now and again.
Occasionally, I’ll answer her calls.
Some days are good.
Some days are bad.
But every day, I think about him.
I wonder how he’s doing.
I wonder if time will ever heal his wounds.
Those days, I cry myself to sleep, clutching onto the work jacket he’d given me for Christmas. It was the only thing of his I kept.
Some nights, I can still smell him on it.
Those are the nights I live for.
53
Logan
“Well, it was really nice meeting you, Logan,” the girl sitting next to me says. Her name’s Courtney, a twenty-two-year-old in her final year of college. Her major: marine biology. I know all these things because for the two-hour flight from West Palm Beach, Florida to Charlotte, North Carolina, she hasn’t shut the hell up.
I’m pretty sure she’s flirting, or at least trying, and I’m also pretty sure that I’m annoyed by it. Or, maybe I’m just not used to it because I’ve spent the past four months in a detox, rehab, and intense therapy treatment facility where the only people I really spoke to were the therapists themselves.
Lucy and Amanda were the ones to find it. According to Amanda, it was one of the best treatment facilities in the country. Thank God I never went to college, because the four months there cost my dad the same as four years of education at the University of North Carolina. He says it’s money well spent, and honestly, I agree.
The treatment was only supposed to last two months, but Dad made it known prior that if I felt like I needed more time, I shouldn’t hesitate to stay. So, I stayed.
I had to make sure I was ready.
The extra two months helped me with that.
The only rule at the center I struggled with was no contact with the outside world, bar one person of my choosing who had to be approved by the therapists.
Of course, I chose Lucy.
She’s the reason I was there.
Well, her and my unborn niece.
Now, I keep my eyes on the seatbelt light, waiting for it to switch off, and murmur, not looking at Courtney, “You, too.”
As soon as the seatbelt light is off, I get out of my seat, shoulder my duffle bag—the only luggage I have—and practically run down to the exit. I told Lucy I didn’t want to make a big deal of my coming home and made her promise not to bring everyone with her. I didn’t want to create a scene at the airport with eleventy-three people. And the tears. God, I don’t think I could handle seeing my family cry any more than I have. My family—their reaction to everything—it was one of the reasons I stayed back those extra months. I wanted to be sure I knew how to handle their questions, their concerns, their unconditional love for me. It took all four months for me to accept that last one. For me to finally believe that I was worthy of it.
My heart beats wild in my chest while I look at the waiting faces outside the gates. I search and I search, and it seems to go forever. People walk left, walk right, walk right into my vision, and then, like in those sappy movies, the coast clears and I see her. She’s on her toes, biting her bottom lip. Lachlan is on one side. Leo on the other. Her belly… oh, my God. I find myself smiling, laughing to myself, and I slow my steps as I move toward them, taking in every single moment. My lucky penny shifts against my chest with every step, and I smile wider. I truly am lucky.
Lucy squeals when she finally sees me, starts running/waddling and I drop my bag, make sure I can catch her. She throws her arms around me, and I keep my lower half at a distance that won’t suffocate the baby. I don’t know how that stuff works, but I’m pretty sure any impact is bad impact. When she pulls away, I say, “Holy shit, Luce, you’ve gotten big.”
She glares.
I backpedal, “Not, like, fat. No, that’s not—”
I’m shaking my head, and she’s pursing her lips, and then an old lady approaches us and says, “You guys are such a sweet couple.”
Lucy drops her hands from my neck, sticks out her tongue and makes a gagging sound. “Ew! He’s my brother, you creep!”
“Luce!” I laugh out, then apologize to the woman on her behalf.
When the woman’s gone, Lucy says, “Pregnancy 101, Logan. You can pretty much get away with saying anything.” She smiles, so much like Mom. “How are you feeling?”
“Good, Luce.” I exhale, look over her to see my brothers walking toward us. “Honestly, I’ve never felt better.”
“Clean teen looks good on you,” she says, hugging me again.
I rear back so I can look down at her belly. “How’s my little princess doing?”
“She’s a feisty little one,” she says, letting go of me to rub her stomach. “She won’t stop kicking.”
When Lucy told me she was pregnant, she didn’t say exactly how pregnant she was.
I didn’t find out until she was driving me to the airport that she was sixteen weeks. Four months. She said I was the first person she’d told. She’d been too scared to tell anyone in case there was a repeat of last time. Then she showed me her bare belly hidden beneath her loose shirt, and there was no doubting she was either pregnant or had just eaten way too many tacos. So, basic math… she was four months pregnant four months ago, which means she’s eight months now… and this baby of hers, my little princess, she’ll be arriving real soon.
Lachlan gives me a hug that challenges the strength of any hug I’ve ever received. He holds back tears that bring on my own. “I’m okay, now, Lachy. I promise.”
Through the weekly phone calls with Lucy, she’d told me about Lachlan. About how they all sat down with him and told him everything about me, past, present, and future. It wasn’t just so he understood what all I went through, but so that he knew if anything, anything, ever happened to him, he should feel comfortable enough to talk to someone about it. To not keep it inside. That no matter what was going on in anyone’s lives, we’d all be there for him. Always.
Leo gives me our standard bro hug—this one lasting a little longer than most. “You didn’t have to leave campus for this,” I tell him, picking up my duffle again.
He side-eyes Lucy. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I ask, settling my hand on Lachy’s shoulder as we walk toward the exit.
“I quit school, man.”
My steps falter. “Not for me, right?”
He shakes his head. “You don’t need a college degree to join the police force. And honestly, I faked it for as long as I could, but I hate school.”
I stop to stare at him, to look right in his eyes. We’ve spent enough time together that I know his traits, his downfalls. His eyebrows rise when he lies, and as soon as he’s done, he chews his bottom lip, like he’s doing right now. I should call him out on it, but what would be the point? Instead, I laugh under my breath and shake my head, “Welcome to my world.”
