by Lindsey Iler
“Mom knew what they were doing?” I question, needing to know everything. Leave it up to my mom.
“She had a big hunch. She was rather certain. With the work she did, she knew the signs. They were all there.”
“And now he’s trying to gain access to the foundation. A foundation with the most vulnerable women within its walls.” I grab the roll of paper towels and chuck it across the room, needing to release the anger building with every passing second. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Sit tight.” Aunt Emily races from the kitchen. “Stir that pot while I’m gone!” she yells down the hall.
I grab the spoon, welcoming the distraction, and stir the red sauce. A few minutes pass before Aunt Emily takes the spoon from my hand.
“Take this,” she instructs.
“What is it?” I inspect the plain brown envelope.
“Don’t read it right now.” She presses it into my chest, blocking me. “Read it when you’re alone.”
“Do you know what it says?” I ask.
Aunt Emily shakes her head. “Those final words aren’t for me. She said what she had to say to me before she left. Those are all for you, and one day, Charlie and Tatum.”
I fold the letter and tuck it in my pocket. My arms wrap around Aunt Emily’s waist. She traces light circles along my spine like she did when I was young and didn’t feel well.
“You did a good job, you know, taking her place for us three.”
“No one took her place, Breaker.” She leans away, and her sad smile matches mine. “She’s still here.” She points to my head and then my heart. “When you make your choices, it’s her voice that tells you what to do, even when you don’t hear it.”
“You’re right.” I nod and leave the kitchen, the piece of paper burning through my jeans and scarring my skin to never be the same again.
There’s a certain kind of chaos we are equipped to work with. It’s the kind of chaos that allows us to continue to move. It doesn’t matter how disappointing everything becomes. We put one foot in front of another. We continue to live.
What I’ve discovered today is a different form of disorder.
“What are you looking at, handsome?” Delaney’s kind tone catches me in the middle of my nightmare daydream.
I’ve sat for five minutes, deep enough in the shadows to not be seen. These last five minutes haven’t given me nearly enough time to figure out how I feel.
“You’re acting goofy,” Tatum says as I walk into the room.
“It’s because he’s in love.” Charlie playfully pokes her finger in her throat, pretending to act disgusted.
“I get it. She’s awesome.” Tatum smiles at Delaney. “Do you know she has a collection of vintage Chanel handbags?”
“No, I didn’t know that.” My tone is even. Not a tremble, not a pitch change. I’m numb. “We better go, Delaney.” I check my phone and see the time.
“You’re not going to stay for dinner?” Charlie sits up a little straighter. “Come on, Breaker.”
“Yeah, can’t you, though?” Tatum joins in on the assault. “Stay for dinner. We don’t see you enough.”
“Girls, I can’t. We need to go,” I snap. When their faces fall, I realize I’m taking my stress out on them.
Delaney eases off the couch. The tension on her face tightens like ribbons, visible yet somehow beautiful. She doesn’t know what I know yet. She’s blissfully ignorant, and I resent her a little bit for this.
Charlie comes up and hugs me, instantly lessening the sharp pain. I kiss the crown of her head. “I’ll be there when you meet with him, okay? You won’t be alone.”
“You promise?” Tatum joins our hug.
“He’ll never come close enough to you to do any damage. I promise that much. You don’t have anything to worry about.” I glance up, holding my sisters in my arms, and catch the glisten in Delaney’s eyes as she watches me with them. “Okay, you two, listen to Aunt Emily.”
“Oh, they always do.” I spin to see her in the doorway. The girls move out of my arms and sit on the couch. “Don’t worry about us.” Aunt Emily is always so carefree, but maybe for the first time, I see the stress in her eyes. I can’t imagine her pain and turmoil from carrying her sister’s secret for years. She clutches my face between her hands, making me feel like a child. “It’s going to be okay, Breaker. Even though it doesn’t feel like it, it will be,” she whispers.
“How do I do this?” I wrap her in a hug.
“The truth will always come out, so start there.” She kisses my cheek. I catch her eyes fluttering behind me to the bookcases covered with photographs of my mother and our family. “She would have been so proud of you.”
“I doubt that. I’ve done a lot of questionable things.”
“Sometimes our actions, questionable or not, don’t matter. Sometimes, all that is worth taking inventory of is where our heart is when we make the choices.” She kisses my forehead. “Delaney, I wish we had more time to sit down and get to know each other, but I’m certain we’ll see each other again.” She dips her chin once, a confident smile flashing at us both.
“You ready?” Delaney has a thoughtful gleam in her eyes. She must sense it. The mood between us has changed. No matter how much I tell myself, no matter how certain I am that I can’t blame her, my mind and heart are hurting for the part her family has played in my mom’s death.
We walk out of the house, hand-in-hand. I guide her to the passenger side and open the door for her. Neither of us says anything as I get behind the wheel and drive through town to campus. The music is a low hum, breathing life to the space around us. If it were up to Delaney and me, we’d be strangling from lack of oxygen.
“Whatever it is, I can handle it,” she whispers.
“How can you tell I have to tell you something?” I ask, drumming my thumb to the beat on the steering wheel. It’s the only thing keeping me calm.
“Because I know you. You were somewhere talking to your aunt, and when you walked into the room, your face had changed. You had changed. I know whatever it is, it’s big, and I know by the way you’re avoiding looking me in the eyes, it has something to do with my family.” She glances at me and then away. I’m thankful for the lack of eye contact.
“What I learned, Delaney, it’s going to change us. We’ve already been through so much,” I confess.
“So, whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” she pleads.
Does she feel me slipping through her fingers? I have full control of what comes and goes in my life, but her, she feels one word away from being gone. Is it worth the risk by telling her the truth? Will it change us beyond repair?
“I need to be able to look you in the eyes when I tell you. I can’t be driving when these words leave my mouth for the first time,” I admit what I’m in need of.
“Are you taking me to the house or my dorm?” she asks a seemingly easy question.
My answer will prove how detrimental this new revelation is. I don’t want to say these words, and on the other side of the coin, if I don’t utter them, I’ll be disrespecting the memory of my mom.
“The dorm,” I whisper.
Delaney’s eyes widen. Her hands run up and down her thighs. “Okay.” She nods her head slightly, darting her eyes around like she’s afraid to let them settle on one single thing. “Okay then.”
The remainder of the drive is silent. I have the ability to loosen the tension hold on our hearts. We both are feeling it. That would require me to have the right words, and I fucking don’t. My mind is blank. Uncertain and hurt. I’m angry in the way that creates complete silence.
Students are milling around, couples walking hand-in-hand, and mostly living a mostly carefree life.
“Tell me,” Delaney says as I park. I don’t kill the engine because I don’t plan on sticking around, instead keeping my foot on the brake pedal and popping the gear in reverse, waiting for an out.
“My mom didn’t kill herself, Delaney,” I tell her.
She covers my hand, stopping me from rolling the ring on my thumb. “What do you mean?”
“My mom didn’t kill herself. She was killed.” I pull out the brown envelope and toss it against the dash board. “And this is all I have left of her and I don’t have the heart to even open it, to read her last words to me.”
“Someone murdered your mom?” Her eyes burn with tears for a woman she never met. She grabs the envelope from the floorboards of the truck and places it safely between us.
It doesn’t matter though. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to untuck them from where they’ve stayed safe this entire time.
“Not someone, Delaney.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, take a harsh breath in, and release it on the truth. “Your dad.”
“My dad?” She laughs, uncertain if what I’m saying is what she heard. “What are you talking about?”
“My mom, she started to figure out the business they’re running.”
“Your dad and mine?” she asks for clarification.
“Your dad, mine, and Tripp’s,” I elaborate.
“What the fuck!” Her voice is loud, echoing off the glass. Her eyes widen with fear. “My dad killed your mom?”
I nod, panic constricting my airway. She covers her mouth with her hand, tears streaming down her cheeks and pooling on the edges of her fingers.
“All to keep their secrets,” I finally say.
“She knew too much,” Delaney says through a sob. She reaches for the door handle. “I’m going to go.”
“Delaney!” I yell before she has the chance to escape. I open my door, slamming the gear into park, and race to her. I cup her face in my hand. “This doesn’t change us.”
“How does it not change everything?” she cries. “You’re dropping me off at my dorm, Breaker. I know what this means.”
“I need a little bit of time. Processing years of lies won’t be simple. I need a second to breathe where I’m not worried about you,” I confess, kissing the top of her head.
I leave her there, one piece of me imbedded into who she is, and the other part breaking down inside myself.
“Breaker?” Her voice cracks in the middle of my name, and I nearly crumble. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You haven’t done anything.” I shrug. “Get some sleep, okay?”
Sleep is sure to evade us both tonight. We’ll sleep alone in our own beds, wondering how our two lives have been so deeply connected, far before we ever were.
But we are connected in ways no one could ever foresee.
Her pain is my pain. Mine is hers.
Tonight is bound to be agonizing.
Chapter Eighteen
Delaney
As I stretch in bed, every bone in my body aches. My hand hits a face, and my groggy eyes flutter open.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Palmer says through a tight throat.
Last night around midnight, Palmer showed up on my doorstep, no supplies in hand but with open arms for me to fall into. I refused to talk, already knowing Breaker would have told her everything. She wouldn’t have shown up here if he hadn’t. I imagine him arriving home, sans me, and her demanding to know what happened.
“You ready to talk yet?” she asks, sitting up in the bed, stretching out the tension in her back. I’ve never been an easy one to sleep next to. My mother called me a thrasher when I would crawl into bed with her as a child.
“What’s there to talk about?” I play coy, knowing damn well Palmer will invade my business and demand for me to deal with this.
“It won’t work with me, so you might as well tell me what you’re feeling now, and get it out of the way. The way I see it, you have a couple of options.” She slides off the bed and starts rooting through the overnight bag she’d brought. “You can deal with this head on.”
“What’s my other option?” I yank the covers over my head, fighting the tears I’ve managed to keep at bay. Numbness will do that for me. It’s hard to feel things when I feel nothing.
“Oh, I lied. There’s no other option, sweetheart. You’re going to get out of bed, prove that you haven’t been beaten down with this news, and you’re going to push forward.”
“Did he not tell you?” That’s the only explanation for her upbeat, take-on-the-world attitude.
“No, he told me, Delaney. Your dad killed his mom.”
“You say it like it’s nothing.”
“No, I’m saying it like it’s everything. It was a senseless crime, but look around, everything done to us has been senseless. So, let’s get out of bed and make some sense out of it for those that cross us.”
“We’re eighteen,” I say as if that’s an explanation of any kind.
“Big fucking deal. We were eighteen when we took down Henry and”— she pauses for a second, a sadness hitting her eyes I haven’t seen in a while— “Reed.”
“Has she tried to reach out to you?” I ask.
“She sent a letter. I burned it in the fireplace. There couldn’t possibly be anything in there that will fix what she’s done, so why bother opening up that in my life, you know.” Palmer shrugs. “Get up, shower, and get dressed. We’ve got school. No time to throw ourselves a pity party.”
I do as she says. The heat from the shower warms my skin, awakening parts of me I’ve held frozen in time. Overwhelmed by everything, I crouch down and cry. The harsh weeps are impossible to stifle.
The door swings open, bringing in a rush of cold air. “Delaney?”
“I’m okay, I promise.” I straighten, placing my face under the water. “I’m okay. It’s just a lot.”
“Just think, one day it won’t be.”
“Can that day come sooner than later?” A giggle breaks free. Laughing feels good, even when it’s full of broken pieces of myself.
I finish rinsing my hair and open the curtain. Palmer hands me a towel, and I wrap it around my body. She sits on the edge of my vanity, kicking her feet, her hands tucked close to her thighs.
“I want to fix this for you,” she says, jumping down and walking out of the small room to give me space.
“It is what it is.” I shut the door and blow dry my hair.
When I finally come out, my uniform is on the bed, laid out for me. Palmer is nowhere to be seen. I take my time, prolonging the inevitable, and slide on my skirt and shirt. I leave a few buttons undone and then continue with my socks. Black. Nice choice. With my shoes on, I reach to open the door.
“We got this for you,” Reagan says, her arm out straight, offering me a coffee.
I grab the warm cup and take a small sip. “Thank you.”
“Palmer told me.” Reagan nods at Palmer who doesn’t have a look of regret for filling Reagan in.
“What!” Palmer shrugs. “She’s one of us.”
“Doesn’t always feel like it, but sure.” Reagan wraps her arm through mine while Palmer reaches inside my dorm and grabs my bag.
“Dixon still being—” I start to say.
“Dixon,” Reagan interrupts me. “Yeah, he’s impossible to get to open up. At first, I thought I was good with it being whatever it is, but the more he keeps from me, the more I want to know.”
“It’s the Glass House Boy effect,” Palmer cuts in, taking up my other side. “They give just enough to make you want more, and then shut down. Keep pushing. These boys need girls who are willing to trek through the messy shit to get to the good stuff.”
Reagan and I give Palmer the same look of irritation and bewilderment as we walk onto the elevator. Palmer is closest to the door, while Reagan and I make faces behind her.
“You’re kidding, right?” Reagan finally says, her tone matching my attitude. “You and Marek don’t count.”
“How do we not? You all are the carbon copy of us. We’re the originals, and you’re the remix.” Palmer glances over her shoulder, acting cute, and sticks her tongue out at us.
“Marek’s been practically in love with you since he saw you swimming in a pool of blood, so you barely had to
work for his affection.”
“Excuse me?” Palmer feigns hurt, covering her chest. “I hate to break it to you, but he almost killed me.”
“No, that doesn’t work anymore as an excuse,” Reagan argues. “And I’ll tell you why. He did it because he loved you in some twisted, fucked up way.”
“She has a point.” I sling my arm over Palmer’s shoulder and walk off the elevator with her tucked beside me. “You didn’t have to work as hard emotionally. He’s been putty in your hand since the beginning.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Palmer escapes my hold and spins around to address us. She bumps her back into the door, nudging it open, and practically falls into Marek’s arms. He picks her up and kisses her like he’s not going to see her tomorrow.
“See!” Reagan rolls her eyes at their affection. “Fucking molten heart.”
“What’s she talking about?” Marek sets Palmer on her feet.
Breaker is behind them, staring at me.
“She’s angry because Dixon is playing hard to get!” Palmer shouts at Reagan as she heads down the sidewalk to her class.
Marek and Palmer walk away, leaving Breaker and me alone, hidden by the large bushes lining the sidewalk to the dorms. I hear a muffled see ya later through the drumming of my heart inside my ears.
Breaker’s uniform is perfectly pressed, nothing out of place. The only thing that doesn’t fit the navy-blue slacks and sports coat are his tattoos and jewelry. Even with those, though, they seem to make sense together. His eyes work me over, starting at my feet and moving up my body. He allows them to linger a little longer on my bare thighs, admiring the small bow on the top of my knee-high socks. Every second or two, his attention jumps to my eyes.
Does he see the thirst in them? Or does he see eyes that match my father’s, the last eyes that saw his mother alive?
“Stop,” Breaker demands. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” I say, glancing away. It’s too much to look at him when everything about us is uncertain and cracked.
