by Leigh, T. K.
The rage inside grew to a fevered pitch and I knew what I had to do. I knew what would stop the pain. Cutting wasn’t working anymore. I could only think of one thing that would help. That would bring me the peace I so desperately needed.
Grabbing the photo and the map with the route that Cam had highlighted, I stormed out of his room and into the garage, opening the safe that I was told to never open unless it was an emergency.
As I sit behind the wheel of my Mustang writing this, watching him walk into his house with his very pregnant fiancée, I’m convinced this is an emergency.
CHAPTER FORTY
UNFORGIVEN
“I’LL BE BACK IN a half-hour or so,” I said to Brianna. “Don’t worry. I promise I’ll drive your baby with care. I just want to make sure Marley’s okay.”
She stood on her tiptoes in the entryway of her mother’s stately home and placed a kiss on my lips. “I look forward to it. See you soon, Cameron.”
I bolted down the driveway and into Brianna’s Beetle, driving carefully along the coast of Myrtle Beach. Parking in front of my house, I noticed that my aunt and uncle’s car wasn’t there. I assumed they were dropping off Meg and Julianne at their grandmother’s before heading to the ball for the evening.
Just as I was getting out of Brianna’s car, Doug pulled up. “Hey,” I called out.
“Hey,” he said, meeting me. “Where’s Marley’s car? Is she here?”
“Where else would she be?” I responded, scanning the street for her red Mustang.
He nodded. “I just hope she’s okay after getting yelled at by your aunt. I know she was a bit nervous about that.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.” I entered the house and ran up the stairs, banging on her door. “Mar? Are you in there?”
No answer.
“Marley?”
Still no answer.
“Okay. I’m coming in so you better be decent.” I opened the door, surprised to see the gown she was going to wear that evening hanging in the closet. “It doesn’t even look like she’s been here. If my car wasn’t sitting out front, I wouldn’t think that she had ever come home. Her stuff from the pageant isn’t even here. Nothing is.”
I ran down the hall and into my room. Approaching my desk with the intention of calling Aunt Terryn’s mother to see if Marley had gone with my aunt and uncle to drop off the girls for some reason, my eyes fell on the photocopies I made of the file my uncle kept on Buck. “Shit,” I breathed, my mind racing as a horrible feeling settled in my gut.
Snapping to, I looked at Doug standing in my doorway, a worried expression on his face. “Go to the ball. Find my aunt and uncle. They should be there soon. Tell them to go here. I have a bad feeling.” I scribbled an address on a piece of paper and shoved it at him before running down the stairs.
“What? Why? I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not. And call Brianna for me and tell her I’m not going to make it.”
“Cam. Please. What’s going on?”
I stopped and looked at Doug, my shoulders dropping slightly. “I’ve been keeping tabs on Buck. It looks like Marley found out and now knows where he lives. I have a bad feeling that she’s over there. Maybe I’m wrong, but…I don’t know. Something feels off right now.”
“How do you know?”
“Call it my twin-sense. I just know.”
I ran out to my car and drove away from the shore toward the house that I had staked out and observed over the better part of the past year. It killed me that I hadn’t been honest with Marley from the start.
Spotting her car parked on the street, I jumped out and ran up to the house. Reaching the door, I peered into the front windows. Almost instantly, my gaze settled on a very frightened version of Buck, his body trembling. I followed his line of sight to see my darling sister…the light of my life, my other half…pointing a gun at him.
I threw open the front door, thankful that it wasn’t locked, and shouted, “Marley! No!”
She spun around and her wild eyes met mine. Tears were streaming down her face as she held on to the nine millimeter with shaking hands.
“Marley,” I said softly as I surveyed the room, noticing Buck’s fiancée crying in the corner. “Please. Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this. It’s not going to change anything. It’s not going to make you feel better. I didn’t feel better. I felt worse. Please.”
“No, Cam. I think it will. It will make me feel so much better,” she said, her voice quivering but strong at the same time. It was unlike any tone that I had ever heard come out of her mouth. She wasn’t herself. Something set her off and this girl pointing a gun at me was not my twin.
I began to examine her body, noticing that she still wore her pageant gown. It was torn at one shoulder with more ripping at the seams and the slit, exposing her leg almost all the way up to her hip. My eyes traveled the length of her leg and I saw bruising and redness in four thin strips midway up her thigh. There was even more bruising, marks, and scratches on her arms. On a few of the bruises there was a distinct crisscross pattern, as if the imprint of a ring. Her face was scratched and she had carved numerous words into her legs and arms. This Marley was completely different than the Marley I saw just a few hours ago.
“Marley,” I said, my chin quivering at what all those marks could be from. They were certainly not all self-inflicted. “Why are you still in your dress?”
“Because it never stops, Cam!” Her chest heaved from her heartbreaking sobs, her expression manic. “No matter what! I can make a stand all I want, but will it end? No! Nothing I say or do will ever make it stop. There are thousands of sick, twisted men just like him everywhere.” She gestured with the gun toward where Buck stood, shaking in fear of the weapon pointed at him by a seemingly irrational woman.
“I’ll never be free of my past. It will always cling on to me and not let me go.”
I swallowed hard, her inferences making it clear what happened to her in the last few hours.
“Who, Marley?”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before returning her defeated gaze to me. “You already know the answer, Cam, but you’ve been too blind to see what’s been right in front of you all along. And so have I.”
I was completely baffled. Nothing made sense.
“Please, Marley. I need to know.”
She shook her head and I could see her body shivering from the memory of what she had endured today and all those years ago.
“It needs to be stopped! And I’m starting with him!” Vengeance in her eyes, she took a step closer to Buck, clinging to the gun as if it were a life vest…her last hope of survival.
“Marley! No! You don’t want to do this. He’s turned his life around. He’s sorry for what he’s done, aren’t you?” I met Buck’s tear-stained eyes.
He nodded quickly. “Yes. I am. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I know it doesn’t mean anything, and that I hurt you and betrayed your trust, but you have to believe that I’m reformed. I would never harm another person or touch another girl in that way again. Please,” he begged, sweat falling from his brow.
“He’s trying to move on with his life, just like you’re trying to move on with yours, Marley.” My voice was soothing as I attempted to talk some sense into her.
She closed the distance between herself and Buck, her eyes crazed. “He’s going to get married, Cam! He convinced her to marry him! And they’re having a baby! She’s pregnant, due to deliver the baby any day now!” She grabbed a picture of an ultrasound and shoved it at me. “It’s a girl! What if he’s lying, Cam? What if he hasn’t turned over a new leaf? What if he’s planning on doing the same thing to his daughter that he did to me? I can’t live with myself if I don’t do something to stop him. To stop all of it! It needs to end!”
“Please, Marley,” Buck said, taking a bold step toward her. “I will not touch my daughter that way. I love her. Please. Let me know my daughter.”
The atmosphere in the room int
ensified as Marley stared into Buck’s apologetic eyes, the distaste that covered his being all those years ago absent.
“Please, Marley. Let me move on. You have such a bright future ahead of you, despite all the pain and suffering I put you through. Don’t take that away from yourself.”
A protracted moment passed before she shook her head in resignation and I could tell that Buck’s words forced some sort of revelation in her. Her rigid body visibly relaxing, she gradually lowered the gun. Both Buck and I let out a long breath.
Then a smile crossed Marley’s face. “I just can’t take that risk, Buck.” She raised the weapon and shot him in the chest.
He fell back, toppling over the coffee table as it shattered beneath his weight.
“Buck!” his fiancée shouted, rushing to him.
“No! Marley!” I ran to Buck, trying to stop the flow of blood as best I could with the little first aid training I had received. His fiancée cried and held his hand.
“Doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?” I asked, glancing back at her before returning my attention to Buck, praying that he wasn’t dead.
“You were right, Cam. I don’t feel any better. Killing him won’t stop it.” Her voice was stoic and void of emotion as a look of tranquility crossed her face. It was the most at peace I had seen Marley since our eighth birthday.
I began to give Buck CPR, not knowing if that would help in the case of a gunshot.
“I get it now. I know what will finally stop my pain,” Marley’s sweet voice said as I continued my compressions regardless of the fact that I knew it was useless. He was dead.
“From the stars to the ocean.”
A gunshot sounded and I jumped, turning to see that Marley was slumped over on the ground, blood streaming from her head. “Marley! No!” I screamed, the pain of that sight torturing my soul. I could feel my heart crumbling in my chest as I rushed to her.
“Marley,” I sobbed, cradling her lifeless body against mine. “Please, Mar.” I hugged her tight, hoping that my arms would bring her back to me. “You need to wake up now, Marley Jane. Stop playing. It’s not funny anymore. You made your point.” I held her for as long as I could, warming her body when it grew cold over the hours that I sat in a strange house in a complete daze, flashing lights illuminating the night sky outside.
“Cameron, baby,” a soothing voice said, waking me as I kept Marley clutched in my embrace. “You need to let her go.”
I looked up to see my mama standing there next to my aunt and uncle. Brianna and Doug stood in the corner, holding on to each other, tears in their eyes as they watched me. I wondered when everyone had arrived. The last thing I remembered was hearing the gunshot that changed my life.
“Let Marley go,” Mama said.
I stared at them, emotion overwhelming me at the thought of ever letting Marley go. “I don’t know how,” I sobbed out. It was the absolute truth. I had no idea how to let go of my sister. We had been together since before birth. There was no such thing as life without Marley. I couldn’t even imagine a day where there was no Marley.
“You find a way to honor her memory,” my uncle said, always the level-headed one. “That’s what she would have wanted.” My aunt nodded and let out a loud sob as she ran from the room.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to cry. Mostly, I wanted my sister back. My other half. My heart. But she was gone. Never to return again. Never to punch me when I was being an ass. Never to kick me underneath the dining room table when I stretched my legs into her space. Never to tease me about my relationship with her friend.
Looking down at her, I planted a kiss on her cheek. “To the moon and back, Marley Jane.”
My heart shattered when she couldn’t respond how she usually did.
And that was the moment the realization washed over me like a tidal wave. She was gone…
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
REASON
I WAS IN A complete daze that night and into the early hours of the morning as I sat answering question after question, while the police tried to put all the pieces together about what happened. I wish I could give them the answer they wanted to hear, but I couldn’t. All I could say was that my sister snapped because she didn’t get the help she needed when she needed it, and now she was gone.
Marley was gone.
My sister was dead.
My best friend killed herself.
No matter how many times I said it, I still couldn’t come to terms with the cruel reality of it all.
“Now, I want to go back to one thing and then you’ll be free to leave, Cam,” Mr. Benson, Grady’s father and the police chief, said, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“You mentioned that Marley had said something to the effect that someone had hurt her.”
“Everyone hurt her,” I replied, my voice low and empty. “Maybe not directly, but everything in this town put another nail in her coffin until she couldn’t take it anymore. That’s why she’s…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it out loud because then it would be true. Steadying myself, I stared into Mr. Benson’s benevolent eyes. “All I know is that something happened to her yesterday after the pageant. I don’t know what, but something happened that pushed her over the edge. That’s all I can really tell you right now.”
“Okay. Thanks, Cam. I’m sure you’d like to be with your family so I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. If you think of anything, anything at all, please call me.”
Getting up, I started to leave the room. I reached the door and glanced at him. “It won’t bring Marley back so I don’t know why it even matters.”
“Cam, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through,” he soothed. “I’m not even going to pretend that I can sympathize with you because I most certainly cannot. But what I can tell you is that if we find out that something did happen to Marley, we’ll catch whoever’s responsible and bring them to justice. Isn’t that what Marley would have wanted?”
Shaking my head dejectedly, I said, “What Marley would have wanted was to finally be at peace. I guess now she is.”
I left the police station and hopped in my Wrangler. Everything about the short drive home seemed inherently wrong as I watched the sun rise in the east. There was an emptiness and desolation in the streets of Myrtle Beach, the vibrancy of our beautiful beach community replaced by bleakness. I could no longer feel Marley’s spirit around me, and I had no idea how I could possibly be expected to survive without her. I had hoped, with everything in me, that last night was one giant nightmare…that I would wake up and Marley would come bounding into my bedroom at any second. But as I pulled in front of my house, I knew that I wouldn’t get my wish.
Killing the engine, I couldn’t muster the strength I needed to step out of the Jeep and into the house. As I sat there staring at the roof that reminded me of everything I had lost, a thousand emotions rushed over me…sadness, rage, hate, anger, resentment, desperation, and love. The love I had amplified those emotions a thousand times.
I punched the steering wheel and screamed, wishing it would make it hurt less. But it didn’t. I didn’t think anything would ever be able to take away the pain and guilt I was experiencing. For the first time in nearly seven years, I let it all wash over me. I stopped pretending that everything was okay when it was anything but.
Taking several deep breaths after letting out my emotions, I pulled myself together the best I could, unsure of what scene would greet me when I walked through the front door. As I climbed the steps to our porch, everything seemed grim and somber. I entered the house, surprised to see Brianna sitting on the floor of our living room, playing with Meg and Julianne.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
Her head shot up quickly and an empathetic look crossed her face. Turning back to my sisters, she said, “Can you two color by yourselves for a few minutes while I go talk to your brother?”
Meg looked toward the hallway where I stood and I c
ould tell that she had been crying. “Okay. We’ll stay here and color.” Her voice was subdued and lacked the innocence that she normally exuded when she spoke.
Brianna walked up to me and grabbed my hand, leading me up the stairs and into my room. Once we were alone, she wrapped her arms around me and I felt her body begin to shake against mine.
“I’m so sorry, Cam,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Closing my eyes, I let the tears fall, not caring that I was crying in front of my girlfriend. She felt my pain, too. She had a bond with Marley almost as strong as I did.
“Why are you here?” I asked softly.
“I wanted you to feel some sort of love when you got home from the police station. And the girls’ grandmother couldn’t watch them this morning so I agreed to while your aunt, uncle, and mama…” She trailed off.
I nodded. She didn’t need to tell me. I knew they were at the funeral home, making preparations.
“They came home a few hours ago to let the girls know what happened…” She brought her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to hide her quivering chin from me.
I pulled her into me once more in a feeble attempt to be the strong one.
“It’s all my fault,” Brianna lamented into my chest.
“No, it’s not. It’s everyone’s fault. Everyone in this town is to blame here.”
She shook her head. “No. I knew exactly what happened to Marley and I stood aside and let it happen again. I should have known.”
I reeled back. “What do you mean? What do you know?”
Her eyes grew wide, a look of horror on her face. “I can’t, Cam,” she whispered.
“Why not?!” I shouted, my expression fierce. “My sister is fucking dead! She shot herself, Bri! If you really care about her like you say you do, tell me! What is it that she kept from me?! What is it that you’re keeping from me?!”
“It’s not something I can share with you! I want to. I just… I can’t!”
