Behind These Scars

by Lilah Grey

  Her silver locket bounces against her chest as she moves between the pot and the kitchen table, selecting her ingredients and then dumping them in the boiling stew. There’s a sort of gracefulness to her movements, as though she were skating on ice.

  The longer I watch, the more uneasy I become.

  She hasn’t tasted the mixture once.

  A thought crosses my mind as she tips a vial of light blue liquid into the pot. I can feel my temper well inside me. I can feel it taking control.

  I step out of the shadows of the dining room. “What are you doing?”

  My mother jumps from the sound of my voice and drops the vial onto the floor. It shatters. She looks at it for a moment and then turns to me.

  “I’m making soup for Libby,” she snaps, bristling at my question. “What are you doing back? What happened with Emma?”

  “We broke up.”

  “Typical.” She grabs a broom and dustpan and begins to sweep up the mess.

  My eyes wander to the vials and bottles on the table. It was like a chemistry lab in here.

  I grab the pot from the stove and make for the sink to dump it out.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” my mother squeals, grabbing my arm.

  Liquid sloshes around the pot and spills onto the floor.

  “I know what you’re doing to Libby. I know you’re the one who’s making her sick. I’ve seen the way you act when she’s getting better. You hate it. You hate her. You want her sick. You want her helpless and weak and dependent.”

  Shock registers on her face, but it’s all an act.

  “How dare you…”

  A second later, she lunges for the pot, but I dodge. She slips on some of the liquid that sloshed out and falls hard against the table, striking her forehead.

  I glance at her over my shoulder as I dump the soup into the sink. There’s a cut just above her eye. Blood streams from it.

  The house rattles as Henry rushes down the stairs. His eyes land on my mother. She's dazed. Her trembling hand hovers over her wound for a moment before she touches it and then looks at the blood.

  “What the…” Henry mutters as he takes in the scene.

  Margaret’s eyes widen as she turns her head, pointing a bloody finger at me. “He did this.”

  My stepfather crosses the room before I have a chance to react. The pot falls into the sink with a clank as Henry drags me off by the collar of my shirt.

  He opens the door and throws me out, slamming the door behind him as he follows me outside.

  “What’s wrong with you, Luke? What am I—What—”

  He throws his hands in the air as he paces around the front porch.

  “I—I didn’t do anything. She was—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Henry cuts in, eyes boring a hole in mine.

  I’ve never seen Henry so mad.

  He holds out his palms to me. “Look at your hands! Come on, Luke—what am I supposed to do here?”

  They’re still raw and bloody from earlier.

  “I didn’t hit her,” I bite back.

  He swings an arm and points back to the door.

  “Then how did she get that cut on her head? Did she just fall onto your fists?”

  “No, she fell onto the table.”

  He lets out a sigh and runs his hands through his hair, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  “You’ve left me no other choice.”

  My gut clenches as I realize what's coming next. All I can think about is Libby. What's going to happen to her…

  “For the safety of this family, I think it’s best if you find somewhere else to stay. I can’t risk you doing something like this to your mother or Libby.”

  “I’d never harm Libby,” I snap. “And I didn’t touch Margaret.”

  Henry stares at me, his hands on his hips.

  “She’s poisoning Libby, you know. Margaret.”

  Henry snorts.“Really? That’s it?” He shakes his head as he turns around to head inside.

  “I’ll leave.”

  Henry pauses, glancing back at me.

  “I promise you that. But you have to promise me you’ll look out for Libby. You have to promise me that you won’t let Margaret hurt her.”

  “No one’s going to—”

  “Promise me,” I boom.

  Henry sighs.

  “Fine. I promise.” His eyes flit between the door and me. “Wait here, and I'll get a bag for you. I don't want you stepping inside this house again.”

  A few minutes later, I grab the bag Henry prepared for me. I glance back one last time at Libby’s window before I round the corner and leave our street for the last time.

  15

  Luke

  “I slept in an abandoned barn that night. ”

  Tears flow silently down Libby’s cheeks as she watches me. Her hazel eyes are ringed in red. It tears me apart to see her like this, but I have to finish.

  “When I woke up the next morning, I went to the library and used one of the computers to contact Elliot. Fyrefly as I knew him online. We’d gotten to know each other over the years through a forum, bouncing ideas off each other, troubleshooting bugs and issues in our programs. I knew nothing about his real identity or if he was telling me the truth, but I had no one else to turn to. I told him what happened, and he drove all the way from Dallas to pick me up. Pale, thin, lank black hair, and a mouth that never shut up—he was exactly who I thought he’d be.”

  I take a breath and look out the windows to my right. The sun’s reflection from the building opposite ours streaks across the wood floor. I run a hand through my hair and look back at Libby. Even with red, puffy eyes, she was beautiful.

  She was always beautiful.

  “I stayed with his family, finishing high school up there, too. Elliot and I were inseparable. Every spare minute we had was spent knee-deep in code. We were programming in the dark back then. We had no idea what we were doing half the time.”

  I laugh.

  “Sometimes I feel like we’re still winging it. We’re both imposters; the world just hasn’t found out yet.” I shake my head and look out the window again. “We had no idea that we’d build something this big. We were just two kids in a basement with a vague idea of the future.”

  I look back at Libby and realize I’m getting sidetracked. She didn’t want to hear about my company, and to be honest, I didn’t want to talk about it.

  She’d moved to the couch not long after I started talking. Her legs are folded underneath her as Crouton sits next to her, purring.

  I sneeze. So much for keeping Crouton contained in a room…

  Libby pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt down so that only her fingertips peek out. She sniffles and then wipes her nose with her sleeve.

  After a few more moments of silence, she speaks. It’s rough at first, as though the words catch in her throat, but she takes a moment, collecting herself before she begins again.

  “It still doesn’t mean Margaret has been poisoning me,” she says.

  Her gaze immediately falls to her lap.

  “That's true.” Her eyes meet mine again. “And to be honest, I thought I had it all wrong. That it wasn't Margaret. But I haven't told you everything. There's still a little more. A few pieces that I've cobbled together to create the bigger picture. As I see it, anyway.” I clap my hands against my knees and stand. “But first, I need some water.”

  She glares at me and I shrug.

  “Sorry.”

  I fill a glass of water and sit back down.

  Most of what I know is circumstantial, but the pieces fit. They lead directly to Margaret. It was enough to force me out of my office to find Libby. She wasn’t safe any longer.

  “I’ve never told you about my father, Paul. He took a job in Milton when I was ten, and we moved into the house.” I motion between us. “Our house. It was a few years before my mother met your father. ”

  I let out a strained sigh.

  “Margaret hated
everything about Milton, and she resented my father for ripping her away from the social circle she'd built in her hometown. I can understand why she wasn't very happy. She'd lived in the same town her entire life and didn't want to leave.”

  “My father started getting sick, and now that I’ve had time to think about it, his sickness closely resembled yours.”

  Libby begins to fidget. I can see her fingertips dive beneath the sleeve of the sweater. I can hear the snap of the rubber band striking her skin seconds later.

  “It started with headaches,” I say, continuing, “but it evolved into something much worse. Full body aches, irregular heart beats. Some days he could barely get out of bed.”

  I can feel my throat begin to close as I think about it. I hadn’t thought about my father’s sickness in years. I’d pushed it as far back in my mind as I could.

  I’ve never talked about him to anyone before.

  “When you're that young, your father seems invincible, you know? Someone larger than life, a superhero. I didn't understand how he could get so sick.” I pause for a moment. “It really fucked with my head for a while.”

  And now that I know the truth, it fucks with my head even more.

  “No one knew what was wrong. No doctor could help him. He just kept getting worse until he died.” I pause for a moment, sucking in a deep breath.

  “Cardiac arrest. When I found out that the same thing happened to Henry, that his death was ruled natural without so much as a second thought, I knew it was her.”

  I slam my fist into the couch, sending Crouton skittering across the floor and down the hallway.

  Tears begin to well, making my vision blur.

  “I figured you were safe in Millwood, but once I found out you weren’t there, I had to find you. I had to protect you.”

  “Why didn’t you take me with you that night? If you knew and wanted to protect me, why did you let me stay?”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me. Fuck, I could hardly believe it myself. My mother was poisoning her stepdaughter. I mean, what the fuck?”

  Libby sucks in her bottom lip and chews on it.

  Lippy.

  She sighs. “You’re right. I would’ve looked at you like you were crazy.” She pauses, gazing down at her hands as she fidgets her fingers.

  “I still think you’re crazy.” She shrugs, glancing up at me. “This whole thing. It doesn’t make sense. Why would she do something like this?”

  “No idea. I know it might sound insane, but look at all the pieces. My father. Your father. Henry wrote about his sickness in the journal. Came to the same conclusion…”

  She nods.

  “And you. You were getting better at Millwood, right? Away from Margaret.”

  Another slow nod.

  “I know it's circumstantial, but…” I let the sentence trail off.

  There wasn’t anything else to say. I laid out all the pieces as I knew them. She’d either believe me, or she wouldn’t.

  It was a lot to take in, but I knew she’d come to the same conclusion I had.

  “Why didn’t you visit me at Millwood?”

  Her tone is soft but laced with sadness and pain. It punches me right in the gut and leaves me winded and dizzy.

  Fuck me.

  I wish I had a good answer but I don’t. I could lie; I could tell her that I was too caught up in the whirlwind of getting Fyrefly off the ground, but I know it’s not true.

  I could’ve visited her once Fyrefly launched. I should’ve visited her then, but I didn’t because I’m selfish. I didn’t want to see her wasting away in a place like that. I couldn’t bear it because a part of me knew that I played a role in sending her there.

  I left her alone with my mother when she was the most vulnerable. Libby's strong, but even the strongest person can break over a long enough period of sustained emotional abuse.

  It’s why I’m no good for her. I’m too weak. I don’t deserve her.

  “I don’t know,” is the only thing I can muster.

  I can’t look at her.

  I stare at my hands as though if I study them hard enough, I'll find the answer written on them. Something to say that will get me out of this corner. But there's nothing I could say that would help me here.

  For the first time in my life, I’m at a loss for words.

  “I remember that morning so well,” Libby begins. “It’s so clear and vivid that it plays like a movie in my head.”

  I look at her. Her eyes are unfocused and glassy as she stares at an indeterminate point outside of the apartment.

  She tugs the sleeve of her sweatshirt up to the middle of her forearm and begins stroking her bare skin. There's a scar on her arm. I noticed it only once before when I dressed her wounds in the parking lot of Buck Wild. Bile creeps up my throat as I wonder what happened. I swallow it and drag my gaze back to Libby.

  “I woke up to the smell of pancakes. I didn’t care that my head throbbed, or that all my muscles ached. None of that mattered to me because I knew you were downstairs. You kept your promise.”

  “I rushed down the stairs, pausing at the bottom for a moment to catch my breath. When I finally made it to the kitchen, I didn’t see you. Margaret was standing in front of the stove pouring batter into the pan. My father was sitting at the table, one leg crossed over the other as he sipped coffee and read the newspaper.”

  “I rushed back up the stairs, and Margaret yelled at me to slow down, but I kept going. Your bedroom door was open. My stomach sank when I saw your empty bed.”

  Libby’s gaze drops to her hand, watching her fingers as she traces the outline of her scar. After a few moments, she presses her hand against the scar, covering it before she looks back at me.

  “They told me that you left. They told me that you didn’t want to live with them… with us anymore.” She shakes her head. “I knew it was a lie. You might’ve butted heads with my dad from time to time, but you wouldn’t just leave like that.”

  She looks away as I see tears streak down her cheeks and her voice becomes gravelly.

  “I knew you wouldn’t leave me like that. But as time passed, I felt myself growing weaker and more depressed. I could deal with Damian cheating on me. I could deal with losing my best friend. I could deal with Margaret. But the one thing I couldn’t deal with was losing you.”

  My throat’s beginning to close up as I listen to Libby. I can’t even begin to manage the swarm of emotions rising inside me all at once. I’ve never felt so gutted. It’s disorienting, and I can feel the world spinning around me as I’m trying to catch my breath.

  “Losing you hurt me in ways you can't even begin to imagine. It hurt so much that eventually, my body was numb to it. The only thing that could make me feel again was cutting.”

  I feel like I’m falling, like I’m on a rollercoaster. My body is heading one way while my head rushes in the other. Damian wasn’t the one who broke Libby. I broke Libby.

  It’s all my fault.

  “I started cutting before you left. You almost caught me doing it once, but I lied and told you that it was period blood.” She lets out a small laugh. “You should’ve seen your face.”

  I want to laugh, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

  “But once you left, everything got worse. It wasn’t like before. I actually needed to do it. And then one night, not long after you left, I cut this into my arm.”

  She holds up her left arm, showing me the scar she'd been tracing with her fingertip earlier.

  “It was supposed to be your name. It was supposed to be a reminder for why I felt so bad.”

  She lets out a harsh laugh.

  “But I couldn’t even get that right. I cut too deep. I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened. When I started screaming from all the blood, Margaret came rushing into the bathroom and found me kneeling on the floor, clutching my arm.” Libby shakes her head. “I’ll never forget the look on her face. The shock and horror. Like I was some freak. I’m surprised she helped me. She
wrapped a towel around my arm and called 911. I was rushed to the hospital, and after I recovered, Margaret sent me to Millwood.”

  She shrugs, defeated.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I wish I could take the words back as soon as the leave my lips. No apology could ever fix what happened, especially not a weak one like that. Based on the look on Libby’s face, she didn’t want one.

  She pulls the sleeve of her sweater down over her scar as she stands up. I make to stand and follow but she holds out a hand, stopping me.

  “Please,” she says, shaking her head as tears roll down her cheeks.

  I sink back into the couch, watching Libby as she disappears down the hall. A few seconds later I hear a door shut.

  I let my head fall backward against the couch and close my eyes. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if there's anything I can do.

  My phone buzzes, and I see Olivia’s name on the screen. We’re late. I’m late.

  I tell Olivia to find me another flight. One seat is all that would be necessary. Libby needed her space and time away from me.

  After collecting my suitcase, I walk down the hallway and pause at Libby’s bedroom. I flatten my ear against the door, listening, but I’m met with silence. She’s probably asleep.

  Crouton bumps against my leg. I reach down to scratch his head, but he rears back and bats at me.

  “You too?”

  I open the door wide enough to let Crouton inside. Maybe he can give Libby the comfort I can’t. I lay my palm against the door for a moment and then walk away.

  I leave the apartment and Libby behind. But no matter the distance between us, I can’t stop thinking about her.

  She’s the song that’s stuck in my head.

  16

  Libby

  Hello, again.

  It's been a while since my last entry, but I can't be too harsh on myself. I don't even have my journal with me. I'm writing this entry on a loose sheet of paper I found in Luke's apartment. Yeah. I'm in Luke's apartment right now, and that's not even the strangest thing that's happened to me.