My chest constricted.
I knew I should cut all ties with him and save us the heartbreak we’d no doubt face in the future.
But I knew I couldn’t, because I was weak.
There was nothing I could do now, but let the pieces fall where they may.
⌘⌘⌘
Caelan
My heart raced as Sutton drove closer and closer to the place where it all began, and ultimately ended.
It had been a week since I made the decision to come here.
And in that week, I’d changed my mind about doing this more times than I could count.
I kept telling myself that Sutton was here and she’d make it okay. She would keep me together when it all fell apart. I’d become more dependent on her than was healthy.
“Are you okay?” She asked me for at least the hundredth time since we’d gotten in the car, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.
I nodded, looking out the window at the bare trees passing by. How quickly the colors of the leaves changed, and before you could enjoy their beauty they fell away, scattered by the wind.
“Don’t lie to me, Caelan,” she warned.
“I’m as okay as I can be,” I grumbled.
It was the truth. There was no way I could be entirely all right with this. I’d avoided this place since the police carried me out. My grandparents had gone to pack up my stuff since I refused to set foot in the place. So, yes, the last time I’d been here was when… I swallowed thickly, not wanting to go there. I didn’t want the memories to overwhelm me. I wanted them to stop. I didn’t want to have to remember that day anymore.
“If you need to talk about it, I’m here for you.”
“Shut up!” I screamed, my voice filling the small confines of the car with its ferocity. “You’re not a fucking shrink, Sutton! Just stop!”
She frowned, but stared straight ahead, shoulders squared. My words didn’t faze her. Sutton wasn’t afraid of anything.
“You don’t need to act like a jerk,” she said calmly, turning the blinker on and making a right. “It was a simple statement.”
Only Sutton could put me in place and make me feel an inch tall with her words.
I glared out the window, choosing not to make a comment. For once, I’d let her have the last word. I didn’t want to fight. Not now. I just wanted to get this over with. My chest had already tightened with fear and we weren’t even there yet.
“We’re almost there,” she said five minutes later, listening to the directions from her GPS system, since I refused to utter them.
“I know,” I snapped, my tone harsh. “Don’t you think I fucking know where the house is?”
She sighed dramatically, letting me know I was wearing thin on her nerves. That was fine. She was tap-dancing across my last nerve as well.
“I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea,” she muttered under her breath, not caring whether or not I heard.
“You think?”
She smacked her palm against the steering wheel and glared at me briefly before her eyes returned to the road. “Should I turn around?” She asked, her tone biting. Yep, she was pissed. But I deserved her anger for my behavior.
“No,” I muttered, bowing my head in shame like a small child. “You were right. I need to do this.”
“Mhmm,” she murmured, tapping her fingers to the song playing on the radio.
“You know,” I started, “maybe, since I’m doing this, you should think about contacting your parents.”
Her fingers immediately stopped tapping. “Absolutely not.” The words tumbled out of her mouth without a breath in-between. “I took the leap by telling them in the first place, I don’t need to put myself through even more heartbreak. I couldn’t…”
“You couldn’t what?” I prodded.
“I won’t be able to handle them rejecting me a second time. It hurt enough the first time.” Shrugging her shoulders lightly, she continued, “I believe we can only handle a certain amount of heartbreak.” Frowning, she added, “I’ve met my quota. Anymore would just…crush me.”
I hated hearing her speak so negatively, but I understood.
The closer we drew to the house, the more nervous I became.
Sweat broke out across my body. My palms grew damp and I rubbed them on my jeans.
I really needed something right now. Anything. All of it. I’d take any high to knock me out at this point. I wanted oblivion. I found my fingernails digging into the skin until it drew blood. Sometimes physical pain was as freeing as the mind-bending numbness brought on from drugs.
“Caelan,” Sutton called my name, trying to pry my arm away. “Caelan! Stop it!”
It was like she spoke to me from a tunnel. I heard her, but she sounded far away. I didn’t want to listen to her anyway. I needed to feel the pain. I needed to focus on it, let it seep inside me, so that the other stuff wouldn’t matter as much.
“Caelan, you need to stop! You’re hurting yourself!”
I continued to ignore her, focusing instead on the sharp sting on my arm and the rapid beating of my heart.
The last five years of my life had been leading to this.
Acceptance.
Yeah, I knew they were dead.
But it was a lot easier to ignore everything that had happened.
Not anymore, though.
“Caelan,” she said my name again, trying to break through the walls I’d built around myself, “I’m right here. You’re not alone in this.”
I laughed under my breath at her words.
She might be here at my side supporting me, but I was still alone. She couldn’t begin to understand what I felt right now.
I heard the blood rushing in my ears and it felt like everything was closing in around me.
I felt so hopeless, because going back home would only further remind me that there was nothing I could have done.
I’d replayed that night over so many times in my mind that it would forever be burned inside me.
And like my nightmares showed, even if I had been there, the outcome would’ve still been the same. Only, I would have died with them.
I pried my nails away from my skin and looked over at Sutton.
I was beginning to realize that living wasn’t such a bad thing. If I had died that night, I would’ve never met Sutton, and I wouldn’t have had a chance at a future. True, I’d thrown the last five years of my life away, but I could still find redemption, right?
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the seat. We should be there in…
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
“We’re here.”
Sutton’s voice was soft and hesitant. I knew she was unsure how to handle this…how to handle me.
“Give me a minute,” I told her, grasping the car’s seats between my hands.
You can do this, Cael. I heard Cayla’s voice inside my head. Just get out of the car, and go inside, and…
And what? I asked her silently.
And it’s time for you to say goodbye. You need to let us go.
I began to hyperventilate. Say goodbye? Could I really do that? Could I just let them go like sand scattered in the wind?
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I knew this was going to test me, but aren’t the hard things in life supposed to be the most rewarding? I only hoped this could be a turning point for me—a good one.
“Caelan—”
“Not yet,” I barked.
I needed to calm down and prepare for this, and that took time. If I got out of this car before I was ready…well, things wouldn’t be good. It probably wouldn’t go well anyway, but I could try.
“There’s a car in the driveway,” she whispered.
“I know,” I responded.
“You know?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, staring at the ceiling. “I called my friend Kyle to be here in case…”
“In case what?” She pro
dded.
I slowly turned my head towards her and blinked my eyes open. “In case I go in there…and lose it. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“So…” She paused, nibbling on her delectable bottom lip, “you called him to protect me from you?”
I couldn’t tell whether she was touched by the gesture or angry. “Yes.”
“You really think I need to be protected from you?” She snapped, pushing her black hair out of her eyes. “Jesus, Caelan. I can handle you.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe!” I yelled. “I don’t want to hurt you again, not like—”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she cut me off.
“Yes. I. Did.” I bit out each word, wanting to beat them through her thick skull. This was Sutton’s problem; she couldn’t sense danger because she was attracted to it.
She let out a dramatic sigh. “If you hurt me, why am I still here?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you really want me to answer that question for you? Because I’m pretty sure you already know the answer.”
Her teeth clamped shut and she stared ahead.
Mustering up all the courage I had left in my body, I opened the car door and stepped out.
Upon seeing me, Kyle got out of his car. Sutton trailed somewhere behind me as I walked slowly up the driveway. My head bowed and my eyes were trained on my feet, so I hadn’t gotten my first look at the house yet.
“Hey, man,” Kyle muttered, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I hope you aren’t still mad about the last time.”
“It’s okay,” I shrugged. “I understand why you did it.” Lifting my head, I looked him in the eye. “Just don’t try it again.”
He chuckled, but didn’t reply. I knew that meant he wasn’t going to make a promise he might not be able to keep.
Clearing my throat, I placed my hand on the small of Sutton’s back, pulling her against my side. “This is Sutton.”
“Nice to meet you.” Kyle shook her hand. With a smirk, he looked at me and back at her. “I didn’t know that Caelan had a lady friend.”
Lady friend? What the hell?
Sutton laughed, the sound light and sweet. She acted as if our conversation in the car had never happened. “I’m not his friend. We just fuck around.” She looked up at me, smiling evilly.
“Oh, is that what this is?” I snapped.
Her eyes widened in false surprise. If she was looking to piss me off, it was working, and I certainly didn’t need to deal with this bullshit right now. Not today. Not when I was about to force myself to do something I absolutely didn’t want to do.
“Isn’t it? Am I wrong?”
“I don’t have time for your bitchiness,” I growled, my voice low. “Are you on your fucking period or something? There’s a drugstore down the road. Get some tampons and a bar of chocolate.”
Her face reddened and her glare was withering. “You know why I’m mad,” she spat.
“Hey,” I stepped away, towards Kyle, “I was only looking out for you.”
“Uh…” Kyle squirmed, clearly uncomfortable. “Is this some kind of lover’s quarrel? Should I leave?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sutton,” I scowled.
“Caelan.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the driveway.
“She’s mad that you’re here,” I explained to Kyle, not caring if it pissed her off further. She was being dumb.
“No,” she shook her head adamantly. “I’m mad that you don’t think I can handle myself. I think I’ve proven that I’m stronger than I look.”
I let out a sigh. I was about three seconds away from dragging her ass back to the car and making her wait there.
“This,” I shoved a finger over my shoulder at the house I had yet to take one look at, “is going to be really hard for me. Impossibly so. Stop acting like a fucking child. This isn’t about you, and you know it.”
She smiled slowly and then flounced by me, heading for the house. “It got you to get out of the car, didn’t it?”
That little faker! I was going to toss her over my shoulder and spank her ass for this.
“Come on,” Kyle forced me to turn around. “It’s time to get this over with. You’ve been putting this off for…” He counted on his fingers, and then said, “Too long.”
I sighed. He was right. Sutton was right. Everyone had been right. I had to face this. Every day that I stayed away only made this harder.
Are you there? I asked Cayla.
I’m here. Her voice echoed through my skull. Even when you can’t hear me, I’m here for you. Always.
I closed my eyes as I soaked in the warmth I always felt when Cayla was near. Before their murders, I’d never believed in ghosts or anything like that. But now? Yeah, there was definitely something to the afterlife.
Finding some inner strength I normally lacked, I opened my eyes, and looked at my house for the first time since I’d been taken away in a police car—handcuffed.
I couldn’t breathe.
It was like all the oxygen in the world was suddenly gone and I was suffocating.
The house…it hadn’t changed. It was still exactly the same.
It was a two-story brick front home. Steps led up the front door that was painted a cherry red color. A wreath still hung on the door—the same wreath that had been there that night.
I don’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this.
I guess I thought the yard would’ve become a jungle, overtaking the house and everything else. I believed the paint would be faded and chipped and it would have the overall appearance of being abandoned—because it was.
That’s not what it looked like though.
It was exactly like my parent’s had left it.
They’d both prided themselves on our house looking nice. They’d been the people always working in the yard. My dad mowed the grass and my mom planted flowers that she spent the entire summer tending to.
I felt relieved that it hadn’t changed.
“It’s the same,” I whispered.
“You didn’t think I’d let the place rot, did you?” Kyle asked.
“You did this?” I asked.
He nodded. “I knew one day you’d come back, and I didn’t want it to be any harder on you than it needed to be. I thought if I kept things up...maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad.”
I sighed, squinting my eyes from the reflection of the sun. “You’re a far better friend than I deserve.”
He chuckled, scratching his jaw. “Let’s just say, you owe me a lot.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t have a key though, so…”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence. I understood. I needed to be prepared for the worst.
I forced one foot in front of the other. Even though the front door couldn’t be more than twenty feet from where I stood, it seemed like twenty miles. I thought I’d never make it there.
Sutton stood off to the side. Her being there meant a lot to me. I might not have shown it, because I was under so much stress, but I knew I couldn’t have done this without her.
I stopped at the door.
I ran my fingers along the wood, my touch lingered over a small slip of tape still stuck there—the tape that had once labeled this a crime scene.
I leaned my head against the door.
A crime scene.
That’s what this was.
I had to keep reminding myself of that.
“Caelan,” Sutton whispered my name a moment before I felt her hand touch my back, “it’s going to be okay. You can do this. I know you can.”
I swallowed thickly. “I’m scared.”
I was so overwhelmingly afraid of what my reaction might be the moment I opened the door. I had no idea what to expect. I feared that the house would still be in disarray and that their blood would still stain the upstairs. But I also feared that everything would be clean and perfectly in place. Which was worse? I wasn’t sure, and I wouldn’t know unt
il I opened the door.
I dug in my pocket for the key. When I found it, I handed it to Sutton. She closed her hand around it so that it didn’t drop.
“You do it,” I breathed. “I can’t.”
She nodded, slipping in front of me. I stepped back to allow her room.
“We’re here for you,” Kyle said from beside me. “Remember to breathe.”
That was easier said than done.
The lock clicked, but Sutton didn’t open the door.
She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes sad. “Are you ready?”
No. “Yes,” I said instead.
Her hand wrapped around the knob, twisting it. The door swung open and I froze.
She turned around, and upon seeing me immobile she reached her hand out for mine. I reluctantly placed my hand in hers. “It’s okay.”
With her pulling me inside, and Kyle behind me, I took my first step into the house.
Memories rushed over me, threatening to drown me with their startling clarity.
The house was exactly the same—in the sense that nothing was out of place. Someone had taken the time to clean up the mess and restore order. It looked like your typical suburban family home, except for the fact that it carried an emptiness. The air was still and it felt unlived in. This wasn’t a home, not anymore. It was an empty shell that stood in commemoration of what once was. There was no happiness here anymore. It was a reminder of the horrors that happened here. I wondered if the neighbors that lived here were the same ones I remembered or if they’d moved on, taking with them the memories of what happened. I guess what I really wanted to know was, did any of them still care?
I moved further into the house, gliding my fingers along the walls.
Dust clung to everything in a thick coat. Pictures of my sister and me still hung on the walls. Upon entering the kitchen, I found several dishes still lying in the sink.
The house was stuck in a time warp—forever frozen in place in testament to the last activities that had taken place here.
I felt Sutton’s hand tighten around mine.
Beauty in the Ashes Page 24
