Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Red and orange. They mixed together in my mind, swirling around each other on the color wheel. Red like blood, orange like fire. Fire to cauterize the wound from which the red came from.
Looking at the stained glass almost felt like home.
Or maybe a morbid, chaotic form of it. The shards didn’t look like they belonged together yet, and it was my job to make them fit.
I’d created them, forcing the wounds to fester longer than necessary.
They reminded me of my mind—stained red, and suddenly on fire.
Sometimes it felt like my insides were slowly burning to a crisp, the blood in my veins too hot to survive beneath my skin.
There was nothing I could do but boil from the inside out, or let the fire pour out of me with a razor to my skin.
I slowly pressed the copper foil onto each piece, taking gentle care to fold the edges as neatly as I could. I never rushed through any step, enjoying the attention to detail I found myself getting lost in. Together, they’d make a stunning rendition of what haunted me day in and day out.
Soldering had consistently been the easiest part for me, though it seemed to be the hardest for others. I’d found dozens of threads online about how difficult it was, so I was grateful it wasn’t like that for me.
Just as I’d gotten out the soldering iron, my phone started to ring.
Despite it being the most inopportune time, I didn’t want to miss it in case it was Emerson, as disgustingly romantic as that may seem.
It wasn’t him, though. Elio was calling me, which was odd by itself.
We usually texted or saw each other in person, since he wasn’t much of a phone call guy.
I answered and put him on speaker. “Everything okay?”
“Hello to you, too, Moon. Yes, everything is fine. No need to panic.”
Though I knew he was being sarcastic, I sighed in relief and put him on speaker, sliding my phone along the table as far away from the soldering iron as possible. “Sorry. What’s up, El?”
“I just wanted to call and check in on you one-on-one. We haven’t really been able to talk without someone else around in a while.”
He wasn’t wrong. The birds started to chirp through the open window right by the table, reminding me of the world moving around me.
I brushed some flux over the glass, priming it.
“No, we haven’t. Been kind of busy, huh?
How’ve you been doing? Everything with you and Cres still going as storybook as possible? ”
Elio huffed a short laugh. “I’ve been okay. Better than I have been in years, honestly. Cres and I are doing great, too. You’d hear about it if we weren’t. But I really didn’t call for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted to check on you.”
“You don’t gotta worry about me, El. I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
Sighing, I made sure my gloves were still tight around my fingers and started my first line of solder. “You all just love to investigate my emotions, don’t you?”
“You do the same with us, and you know it.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever. I’m the big brother, I can’t help it.”
He hummed. “Even the strong ones deserve a chance to not be so strong. I’m pretty fucked up about what happened and the years I spent under Jude’s lock and key. But I know it fucked with you, too. You don’t have therapy like I do, though you could if you agreed to do it.”
Therapy this, therapy that. It was always therapy.
I was glad it worked for them, and I knew it worked for a whole lot of people, but how many times was I going to have to say no?
“I killed them because if I hadn’t, they could’ve hurt you far worse than they already had, and Jude would’ve killed me. No reason to get fucked up about it.”
“Sure, there is. First of all, Sarah was an accident, and you should know that by now. She hit the—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I cut him off. “She hit the bookshelf in just the right spot. I know. But I still contributed.”
There was silence on the line for a little bit.
Nothing but the sound of the melting solder beneath my hands as I tried to keep my lines steady.
When Elio finally spoke back up, his voice was quieter—more contemplative.
“Seeing a dead body in person is a lot different from seeing them on TV or something.”
I picked up the soldering iron, closing my eyes. It was the wrong thing to do, because all I saw behind my eyelids were Jude’s eyes as they slowly turned lifeless, my hands wrapped tight around his neck. “Yeah, it is. I hope I never see one again, honestly.”
“Me too. But you killed for me, and I can promise you that I’d kill for you, too. So, if I had to, I would.”
Hearing someone I considered my baby brother just as much as I did Crescent say something like that didn’t settle well. It was heavy in my stomach, speaking to whatever dark, sinister being lived in my bones. “You don’t ever have to defend me. I’m your big brother. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Just because you’re protective of me doesn’t automatically mean you have to always protect me. You can need protecting as well. That’s what family is for. We have each other’s backs.”
“I know what you’re saying.”
“I hope you do. Read in between the lines, dude. You haven’t been the same since that day, whether you admit it or not.”
How could I be? After what I’d seen and finally understood. After realizing just how much I’d missed, despite being the last person who should’ve. I just couldn’t let anyone else know that. “I’m sorry I never noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
“That Jude was hurting you.”
“Nobody did. I mean, I think some people had suspicions, but I never let them have definitive proof. Hell, I left the house thinking I could just hide it all away and pretend like it was all fine. What a decision that was.”
“Don’t blame yourself.”
“What, like you are?”
I paused, looking toward the phone like he could see me. “I’m not blaming myself for anything.”
Elio groaned into the speaker. “Ugh, you so are. You and Cres both. Me dating an abusive asshole had nothing to do with either of you. It happened. I survived. And nobody could’ve known.”
I could’ve, though. I should’ve. There were a hundred different signs I could’ve noticed.
When I didn’t say anything, Elio continued. “Anyway, enough about that. Check-in time. How’s life look for you?”
It was something Crescent and I did when he’d moved away, and we couldn’t see each other often.
When we could sit down and call each other, that’s where we’d start.
Hearing Elio use the same phrase made me smile.
After thinking about it for a moment, I realized there were a few things I could tell him.
“Well, I’m currently working on my third stained glass piece, and I have a boyfriend. ”
Elio gasped. “A boyfriend? Who? What? How? When? Oh, my god. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to date anyone. Well, wait, there was that one girl when you were in high school.”
I flinched at the mention of her, messing up the final line of solder I’d been doing. I stared at it for a moment, letting too much time pass to fix it. The silver melted over a part of the edge, blocking some of the red there. Covering it up. Suppressing it.
The red meant to be spilled and unleashed. The carnal, evil, disgusting sin I’d manifested into reality. I shook my head and turned the soldering iron off. “Uh, yeah, it’s Emerson. We made it official a few days ago.”
“Holy fuck, bro! I’m so happy for you! Crescent was telling me about him. I can’t believe he ended up moving here.”
“I know. What a coincidence, huh?”
“Nah, after finding Cres again, I can’t not believe in fate. I think it was fate at play here.”
“Fate, huh? Mom and Dad really have rubbed off on you.”
“It’s fate, Moon. Not meditation in the front garden with incense burning even though the wind just carries it away.”
None of us really took after our parents’ spirituality.
I kept more of it close to my heart than my siblings, though.
I believed in some things, like the universe giving back, and nature being the center of our energy.
I think I was the only one who really knew anything about the idea of sin, rather than good and bad karma, though.
I grabbed two hooks from beside me, turning the stained glass around to position them. “Yeah, I know. Has the universe spoken to you today, Elio?”
“No. Has it spoken to you today?”
I snorted. Mom and Dad had a plaque right by their front door with that same phrase on it, with all our names etched into the metal.
They’d included Elio when he first came to live with us and never took it down.
Deep down, we always knew he’d come back as part of the family—we just never expected it to be in this particular way.
As the wind blew outside, carrying fallen leaves and whispering secrets too quiet for me to hear, I realized that the universe had tried to, at the very least. I just wasn’t very good at listening.
“No, I don’t think it has. What’s life look like for you, hm?
Aside from you and Cres’ ever-blossoming relationship. ”
He sighed dramatically. “Oh, you know. The usual. I’ve been painting my ass off.
I’m working on one commission now for an underwater scene with some really creepy imagery.
There’s all these skeletons and a shipwreck with some ghosts coming out of it.
They want the ghosts to look like shadows beneath the water.
It’s pretty challenging, but I’m getting the hang of it. ”
With the hooks melted into the stained glass, I pulled a silver chain out and looped it through them. At the very top, I placed another hook. “That sounds spooky. You making a lot of money, though?”