by S. M. Soto
I’ve gained weight over the summer. It’s obvious. My chest is bigger and so is my backside, but Madison has remained the same, keeping her thin figure, just like my mom. It’s tough. We’re supposed to be twins, but, at times like these, we couldn’t be any more opposite. I feel like I’m constantly trying to keep up.
Delilah’s been calling me names, and now, the entire sixth grade class has followed in her footsteps, adopting her mantra about me. My sister has obviously taken notice. She does what she can at school, standing up to Delilah to get her to stop—all the things I’d never be able to do for myself.
My biggest fear is she’ll be dragged into all of this, and that’s the last thing I want for her. Me bringing her down.
I shrug noncommittally, focusing a little too hard on a broken shell I’m in the process of digging up, anything to avoid her gaze. I wipe the damp grains of sand off the iridescent anomia shell, trying to clean it. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Mack.”
The way she says my name gives me pause. I look up, giving her my full attention. “What?”
“You’re not any of the things she says you are. You know that, right? You’re incredible.”
I grimace, thinking of all the shitty things she’s said lately. “Doesn’t feel like it,” I mumble, biting back the sting I feel behind my eyelids. I’ve always cared too much about what others think about me. I don’t want to be this way. Why does it matter if I’m not liked? Why do I feel the need to be friends with everyone? Why do I want everyone to like me? It comes so easily to Madison. Everyone loves her, and the few who don’t? She really couldn’t care less.
“Hey,” she says sharply, drawing my gaze back up to hers. “Delilah is a catty bitch who is miserable in her own life and is taking it out on you. Do not let her win, you hear me? You’re strong and beautiful, Mack. Don’t ever forget it.”
The tear slips down my cheek. So much for keeping my emotions in check. My sister reaches out, catching the tear with her finger.
“I’ll always be here, Mack. I’ll always protect you, no matter what. It’s you and me against the world.”
Two Weeks Later
I stare out the windows with a bored expression, shaking the memory away. All it does it cause my heart to restrict with pain. I keep everything on the outside vacant, but inside, I’m working on finding a way out of here.
It’s been hell in this place. The past few weeks have been absolute hell since the “incident.” That’s what they’re referring to it as.
I want gone.
From the pain. From the thoughts and the memories.
Gone from this shithole. Held here with people who need actual help. I don’t belong here. That much I know. Yet, I’m being treated like I’m the flight risk.
It’s fucking insane.
They’ve just barely deemed me okay to go outside for fresh air and lunch, which is better than nothing, I guess. I’ve noticed the leaves have slowly started to change color from vibrant green to a maple rust. The calendar in Dr. Aster’s office has shown me the harsh reality—I’ve been here for a month and a half with no contact with anyone other than patients and doctors.
The only nurse here who has shown me an inkling of kindness is Stephanie. She’s taken it upon herself to deliver my meals with one of the other nurses, and to help keep me sane, she’ll hang back and keep me up-to-date on what’s happening in the real world. Just today at lunch, she showed me a clip from TMZ. The two stars of said clip? It was Vincent Hawthorne and Zach Covington fighting with each other in a club that looked a whole hell of a lot like Kings. The clip made me smile, despite the fact that I’m trapped here. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one falling apart. Apparently, the Savages were, too.
With only one cast left to go, it’s a bit easier to make my way around my plain room that feels a lot more like a prison cell. I’ve been working with the physical therapist, and even though the pain in my bones and my body is overwhelming at times, it isn’t completely unbearable. Each day gets a little easier to wade through, the pain subsiding a little more each day.
I still haven’t heard from anyone. Not the girls. Not my parents. It’s not like I expected to hear from Baz, but I can’t help but wonder where he is. I have no doubt in my mind that he’s heard about what happened, and even though I shouldn’t care, I want to know if he hates me. Does he hate me as much as I should hate him?
Does he think I’m insane?
I loathe that any part of me cares what he thinks. Especially after what I know. I should want him dead. I should be plotting my revenge against him, too. But sometimes, love outweighs everything, because even though I hate him with every fiber of my being, I love him, too.
Because where there is hate, there is love. And sadly, I’ve come to realize one can’t live without the other.
Every night, when I close my eyes, he’s there. But it’s a nightmare. Because I’m imagining that night. I’m picturing him hurting her. I’m picturing him these past few months laughing at me inside his head—behind closed doors. He was probably thinking I was stupid and foolish. All too pleased that he was able to get one over on me so easily. And to think I felt so disgusted with myself for how far I took things. To think I was heartbroken over what we had, even when it was all a huge lie. It was all a façade. He kept me around just so they could destroy me. He never really cared. He just wanted to finish the job he couldn’t finish years ago. Nothing has been clearer than it is now.
I let that anger and heartbreak fester. I’m almost at full capacity with it at this point. A part of me feels like I’m going to explode with it. And sadly, the other part of me wants to see him. I want to forgive him, and I want him to forgive me. I want to go back to that night. When we were strangers. Before we knew anything about each other, before any lies slipped past our lips.
Sometimes, I like to wonder what things would be like for us had we really been strangers. Where would life have taken us? Each and every time those thoughts pop into my head, I cry because it’s too good to be true. There’s no point in ever thinking about it.
I’ve never felt more alone than I do in here. I keep away from most of the patients for obvious reasons, but without visitors and consumed by my lonely, sad thoughts, it’s hard not to feel like I’ve been abandoned. Even Madison has left.
I haven’t heard her.
She’s no longer a permanent fixture in my mind or dreams.
She’s just gone, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
Part of me is relieved. Because it was so hard to hear her day in and day out. Being near her when I knew she wasn’t really there. But the other part of me? I feel like I’m crumbling. I am broken in every shape and form. My body and spirit are shattered. Where I normally had her to help me push through, she is no longer around to do that. She is silent.
I can’t even feel her anymore.
And I think that’s what hurts the most.
The feeling of abandonment. Even though she swore I didn’t, part of me still feels like I let her down. Now more than ever.
Her urges for me to move on and be happy are there, niggling at the back of my mind. If I were smart, I would do just that. I would stop dwelling on the past. I would stop trying to make sense of everything. I would let them fix whatever they thought was wrong with me, so I could get the hell out of here.
More often than not, I think about the future. What does the future hold for me after this? Can I really come back from something as low as this? Do I even have it in me to try?
Her recycled words of moving on and taking care of a little girl who needs me are what plagues me the most. Because the only little girl who comes to mind is Ava. I haven’t forgotten her. There hasn’t been one day when I don’t think about the little girl who is like staring at a figment of my past. She is the reincarnated version of Madison and myself. That, I am sure of.
I want to help her, to force myself to get better, so I can keep her.
I’m not sure if I am str
ong enough to do that either.
I’m jolted out of my turbulent thoughts at the sharp knock on the door. I groan when I try to push myself upright. Getting up from this bed is still a bitch.
“Ms. Wright, you have a visitor. Would you like to go out on the grounds with them?”
My mouth drops open in shock.
A visitor?
My parents haven’t come to see me, not once, and now, all of a sudden, they want to pretend they care? Despite my better judgment, I force a smile and ask for some help.
Like an invalid, the nurse helps me out of bed and gives me a minute in the restroom to make myself look somewhat presentable. The scars are still there, but they’re slowly starting to fade. The bruises have gone through most of their phases, but for the most part, a few are still sticking around, mostly from my fight with that psycho, Jones. If I’m being totally honest, I still look like I’ve gone twelve or more rounds with a trained fighter.
The second I lay eyes on the broad shoulders and dark suit, my heart starts to beat again for the first time since the night of the accident. No amount of trauma or even a brain injury could ever erase this man from my mind. He is ingrained in every single part of me. His name written across my skin like a tattoo, a branding I can’t seem to part with.
A sharp burning tightness spreads across my chest in a flash of horrible intensity and I fight to mask the bolt of surprise when I see him again. The sensation is heaven and hell. He is the devil disguised as an angel.
Baz King is the kind of man you can’t help but notice in the room, and that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment. He is the only thing I can focus on. He is water in the Sahara Desert after days without a single drop. He is rain in a drought. He is the glimmering stars next to the moon. He is the very air you breathe—essential.
He’s not noticed my presence yet, so I take advantage of this moment and soak him in. All of him. He looks good, better than my memory has served me. Dressed in another impeccable three-piece suit, the charcoal and black match his inky hair, somehow making him look more devastating and handsome. He looks stronger, bigger, somehow, more like a man than the last time I saw him. That chiseled face, reminiscent of a Greek god, gives nothing away to what he could possibly be thinking.
In the back of mind, I know I should tell the nurse to turn me back around. I should stay far away, but I don’t do that.
I find myself tightening my grip around the nurse’s arm instead, preparing myself to speak face to face with my sister’s murderer.
The man who stole my heart.
Sebastian Kingston Pierce.
Baz King.
One and the same.
My heart races violently in my chest, and I’m sure if it wasn’t for the nurse’s help, my good leg would’ve given out by now. His hair looks a little longer than I remember it being before. It curls more at the edges. On anyone else, it would look ridiculous, but on him, it only serves to add to his rugged features. It adds to the unkempt look he already has going for his hair.
I let out of hiss of pain when we get closer. That is the thing about sustaining a shit ton of injuries. I can’t stand or do anything for too long. I’m exerted, huffing like an asthmatic who just ran a mile. Baz tenses at the sound, his gaze clashing with mine almost immediately. Thick and arched, his brows darken his expression with heat as he watches me, but his eyes remain icy, chilling me to the bone. The blue in his gaze feels like shards of ice piercing my heart.
The spark ignites between us, even when I try to ignore it. Something crackles in the air, in the space between us. It’s electrifying. Waves of tension that are so thick I can feel them flow through my body, intensifying the air.
I sense his gaze on me, taking in the cast, the scars, the bandages, and the bruises. I can’t imagine I’ve looked any worse than I do now. Once we’re close enough for me to sit, the aid lowers me onto the bench across from Baz. I suck in another pained gasp when I try to swing my leg to the side, so I can fit between the table and the bench. It doesn’t work. My mobility in my hip is still very limited. Tears of pain spring to my eyes, and I blink them away rapidly, hoping he won’t notice. Odds are, he’d get off on my pain.
An awkward silence descends when the nurse takes off, leaving us on our own. He stays within a safe distance, in case I need help or in case I decide to attack my visitor.
I keep my gaze fixed on the plain, gray concrete table resting between us. It feels like an ocean instead of a slab of concrete. That’s how far off we are. I still feel his gaze on me, taking me in. It’s fire along my skin, incinerating my flesh. If I’d known it was him, I would’ve at least taken a fucking brush to my raggedy hair.
“What are you doing here?” I try to disguise the pain in my voice. But it’s no use. I just hope he chalks it up to my condition and not the pain bursting from the seams of my heart.
Baz remains silent, still soaking me in. In my peripheral, I notice the muscle along his jaw jumps, and I can see the tic, like he’s grinding his teeth back and forth, working through his response.
“You’re hurt.”
My eyes widen, and I glance up at him, surprised by his pissed-off tone. There’s a second that passes between us, as I stare in his eyes, where things don’t feel so fucked up, but like the devil on my shoulder, I hear Vincent’s voice, a sinister whisper, telling me over and over how he and Baz hurt my sister. Took their turns with her and killed her.
My throat closes up, and my battered heart takes another blow. My lips thin, and I dart my gaze away, no longer able to look at him. “No shit, Sherlock,” I mumble.
“Why are you in here, Mackenzie?”
Suddenly exasperated by his very presence, I snap at him, “Look, just say whatever it is you came here to say. I don’t want to look at you anymore.”
A darkness enters his face, and slowly, he leans forward. I get a whiff of his scent, and it exposes the chink in my armor. “I waited weeks to get in here and talk to you. After everything you’ve done, the least you can fucking do is show some goddamn respect.”
My mouth drops open in shock, and red enters my vision. “Respect?” I hiss, my chest heaving. “Where was the respect when you killed my sister, you fucking bastard? If you think for one second I’ll let you guys get away with this, you’re dead wrong. I’m not done. I’ll never be done.”
Baz searches my gaze, and for a quick second, I see the surprise. Maybe it’s the surprise that I know. Maybe he really thought I’d never figure it out. But that surprise quickly morphs into something else. It’s not exactly sad, but disappointed. Is he…disappointed?
Baz laughs darkly, roughly scrubbing his hand down his face. “So, that’s what you think? That’s the conclusion you came to, that I killed your sister?”
“Yes! Vincent painted the picture for me very clearly. I didn’t want to believe it, but that’s what you all were counting on, wasn’t it, me never figuring it out? Me being so fucking in love with you that I’d look past it all.”
Baz’s fist curls into a ball on the table and his lips thin. “Vincent told you this?”
“Seconds before he fucking stabbed me.” I jerk down to my bandaged middle and the ugly scar hidden there as an example.
“Fucking hell, Mackenzie,” he growls as though he truly cares. “You think I actually did that? That I’m capable of murdering someone and lying to you about it for that fucking long?”
My bottom lip trembles. My chest quakes with pain. “Yes.”
Baz leans back and blows out a gust of air like I’ve struck him. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“I’m not fucking crazy!” I choke out, like just that, a crazy person. My tears teeter on the edge of falling as we have a stare off. Baz looks away first. He glances out at the barren space of the institution’s grounds. There are a few trees and some plants. Nothing colorful, just…plain and sterile, just like the walls in my room. “Now, if that’s all you came here for, you can go. I don’t want to see you. I want to forget you ever existe
d. I want to forget that I let you, a man capable of murdering my flesh and blood, touch me. I let you inside me. You’re my biggest mistake.”
His nostrils flare, his gaze narrowing on me like laser beams, drilling into me, ripping the flesh from my body. “You think you have all the answers, Dirty Girl?” Frustration laces his tone as he crowds my space, getting into my face. “You haven’t even fucking scratched the surface. All your research should’ve fucking told you that.”
I jerk back at his words. He knows.
“You’re not as innocent in all this as you think you are.” The feigned sympathy dripping from each syllable is so condescending, it makes my gut wrench, but I can’t look away from him. “And when you finally see that, don’t come crawling back to me for help, because I won’t make it easy.” With those harsh words, he shoots away from the table and leaves. My chest is cinching with pain as I watch him go, equal parts angry and heartbroken.
“This isn’t over,” I call out after his retreating form.
The muscles in his back bunch as he tenses. He looks at me over his shoulder, a cold gleam in his eyes. “I’m counting on it.”
Guilt tries to work its way through my chest, but I tamp it down. He, of all people, doesn’t deserve it. But one thing is for certain. He didn’t deny any of it. He made me out to be the bad guy.
My anger only grows to new heights as the day goes on. The longer I think about the conversation I had with Baz, the more the fire stoking my revenge burns stronger. Part of me can’t believe that he was here in the flesh. The other part of me expected him to be angrier, colder. Hell, he didn’t seem all that interested in killing me like I thought he would be, especially after what Vincent said and what Zach tried to do to me.
Or was this part of their plan? To show me they truly have someone here watching me at all times. I wouldn’t put it past them.
“Why are you helping her? If she doesn’t trust you and you don’t trust her, why are you doing this for her?” Marcus asks from his perch on the chair on the other side of my desk.
