Chapter 37
DOVE
Dear Boo,
I feel that I’m losing him. Or that I’m going to. And when I do, it’ll be my fault, and mine alone.
I don’t know how to stop this…THING inside me that keeps popping out and making me do things I don’t want to.
I lie to him. I tell him I’ll meet him somewhere and then don’t, without calling or anything. I say mean things…cruel, awful stuff.
Even though he should, he doesn't tell me to fuck off. He doesn’t dump me for someone who won’t act like a total psycho cunt to him all the time.
I hate this, and hate that I don’t know how to stop it, or why it happens. I hate that I snap out of it later and just want to cry or throw myself off a fucking bridge.
I’m legit going crazy, Boo.
There’s a monster inside me, and it’s getting harder to keep it caged up.
It’s getting harder to tell what’s real and what’s all in my head.
Please help me.
A lump forms in my throat as I read the entry a second, then a third time.
Jesus.
I’m nearing the end of Lark’s diary, and they're all like this at this point. Painful to read, full of confusion and doubt and self-loathing as she becomes unsure what’s real or what’s not.
I was terrified before to see her mental state devolve into, well, mine. But at least now, as horrible as it is to read about her spiraling as she unwittingly got closer to her death, I know why her story feels so familiar.
It’s not a bizarre coincidence that Lark’s mental state mirrors my own.
It’s genetics.
I exhale slowly as I blink away a tear for the twin I lost.
I’ve forced myself to read these final entries one at a time, because they’re often just too heavy to read back to back. But I’m so close to the end, and I have to know how she was just before her death.
I also need to know if she ever knew. If Agatha told her the truth about who she was, or if she died not knowing.
That’s why I turn the page with shaking hands to read the next entry. But when I do, my brows knit.
“What the hell?” I blurt out.
Bane, sitting on the other end of the couch with my feet in his lap, looks up from his phone. “What?”
I frown at the book, flipping forward. There’s a bunch of ripped, frayed edges between the passage I just read and the blank pages at the back.
“There are pages missing.”
Bane frowns, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Lark’s diary,” I add, holding it up in case he didn’t realize what I was reading. I no longer have the fake cover on it. “Some of the pages are gone. It looks like they’ve been torn out.”
His brow furrows. “By her?”
“Maybe. But why?”
Bane shrugs. “Baby, I don’t know. I also feel like maybe you’ve gone as far as you should, given that it’s a diary.”
“You’re saying I’m snooping?”
He lifts a brow. “Is that up for debate?”
Fair.
But the thing is, if Lark was going to tear pages out because of bad stuff she wrote, I mean…there’s a lot of other shit she’d have torn out, too.
I don’t mention that to Bane, though. Not that I want to keep secrets from him, but I don’t think I need to tell him how I’ve read all the truly terrible stuff Lark put him through, especially toward the end.
“I’m going to go to my dad’s and look for them. Maybe they fell out.”
Bane shoots me a look. “We're talking over seven years ago,” he says.
“There was plenty of other stuff still in Lark and Agatha’s rooms after so long. Maybe—”
“I really think you should drop—”
“She was my sister!” I snap before I can stop myself. Immediately, I wince, my brows pinching. “I’m…I’m sorry. The comedown from some of the meds…”
He nods, rubbing my foot with his hand. “No apology necessary. I get it.” He exhales. “Still, I really do think you should drop it.”
“I get why you might not want me to,” I say gently. “But…I need to do this, and I need you to understand why. I just…” I shrug. “I need to know, Bane. If she knew about me, about our mom.”
He looks away.
“Look, you stay here. I’ll go—”
“No.” He nods decisively as he looks back at me. “We’ll go together.”
Melinda is working upstairs. But it is my dad’s house, and it’s not like the downstairs apartment is locked. I also rationalize that I won’t be poking around in Melinda’s room, just the rest of the place, which is fair game.
Sort of. Kind of. Right?
I further rationalize it with the same argument I gave Bane: this was my fucking sister. I have a right to know if she knew about me, and to follow any and all threads that might lead me to the answer.
There’s nothing in Agatha’s old room, not in any of the boxes still there, or in the closet, or the ensuite bathroom.
Lark’s room is the same. Not a thing. I even check behind the framed Van Gogh print that’s still on the wall, just in case.
Nope.
Not in her closet, under the bathroom vanity, or behind the toilet or radiator.
The kitchen cabinets and drawers are empty, and there's nothing behind the refrigerator.
I comb through every nook and cranny of the living room, the hallway, the broom closet and the dining room.
I untape every box and shake out every book.
Bane exhales as he leans against the wall of Lark’s mostly empty old room, save for an empty bookcase and her old, bare desk. “I think it’s time to admit defeat.”
I nod, but then think of the one place I haven't checked.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Stop,” he growls as I make a beeline for Melinda’s room. “No,” he hisses, grabbing my arm. “We’re fucking done here. We’re not breaking and entering—”
“I’m not breaking or even entering!” I blurt. “I’m just going to peek inside, and see if maybe—”
“Maybe what?” he snaps. “Maybe they’re tacked up on the wall?”
“What do you not understand about this?!” I scream, whirling on him, shaking, my throat tight. “Do you know what it’s like to lose someone and not have any fucking idea if they—”
“YES!!!” he roars, so loud that I jump back.
Fuck.
“Yes,” Bane spits venously. “Yes, I fucking know how that goddamn feels!”
I drop my head.
“I… I'm sorry,” I whisper, dragging my eyes back to his. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
He looks at me with quiet intensity, slowly shaking his head. “Can you just…” he smiles wryly. “Can you just please leave this?”
“No,” I whisper hoarsely as tears bead in my eyes. “I can’t.”
Without another word, I turn and walk to Melinda’s bedroom door. My breath is shaky as I reach for the knob. But the second I touch it, the door swings wide open, like it wasn’t latched at all..
“What the fuck…”
Melinda’s room looks like it’s been ransacked.
Torn to pieces.
Every dresser drawer is open or completely yanked out, their contents strewn across the floor.
The bed is tipped over, the bottom of the mattress and the pillows slashed and their stuffing ripped out.
The nightstand lies broken on the ground, together with the glass shards of the lamp that was on it.
A reclining chair in the corner looks like a tiger attacked it, and the things in her bathroom cascade out the door and across the floor of the main room.
“Get behind me.”
Bane firmly pulls me away from the doorway and steps into the room, his eyes darting to every corner. He checks behind the upturned bed, looks in the closet, then the bathroom.
He glances back at me, his face grim.
“I don’t suppose Melinda has any enemies?”
I blink, looking at the chaos. “I mean, it’s Melinda. She’s too perpetually beige for that.”
Bane nods. “Stay here in a second. I’m going to check the rest of the place just in case.” He stops in front of me, cupping my face. “And then we’re going to get the fuck out of here, okay?”
I nod, trembling. “Yeah, okay.”
He kisses me, then slips out of Melinda’s room.
I turn, surveying the wreckage. Part of me thinks we should just leave it as is, given that it’s a crime scene.
…Then I remind myself how fucking stupid that sounds. As if my father will be inviting the police into his home to investigate.
I grab the side of the bed and bring it down onto four legs with a heavy thud.
“That was just me!” I yell, so Bane doesn’t freak out.
I'm heading over to the dresser when a little book that was under the upturned bed catches my eye.
What the hell?
My eyes widen as I stoop down and pick up the Bible bound in green leather with gold leaf inlay.
This was Lark’s. She wasn’t religious, and I doubt she ever read a single page of the thing. But Agatha was raised Catholic, and Lark sometimes went to church with her on Sundays.
I remember when she gave her this Bible.
It had been Agatha’s, and she handed it down to Lark on her thirteenth birthday. I have no fucking idea why I remember that with such clarity right now, but I do.
Sure enough, when I open the inside cover, I smile when I see “Agatha Peltier” written in her gorgeous penmanship, with “Lark Peltier” written beneath it, in much newer ink and less tidy handwriting.
I know Melinda didn't steal it or anything. Maybe Lark thought Melinda would get better use out of it and gave it to her. Maybe even Agatha did, as a parting gift before she died.
I exhale and toss the Bible onto the bed.
…And my heart almost stops beating when two folded pieces of paper with torn edges slide out onto the messed-up sheets.
My skin tingles and a dull whine hums in my ears as I reach for the papers—both the two that slipped out from between the pages of the Bible, plus another three that I can see are still tucked inside.
A choked cry withers in my throat as my hand goes to my mouth.
They’re the pages from Lark’s diary.
A tear slides down my cheek as I smile, shaking my head.
Of course this is where Lark hid the pages she didn’t for whatever reason want in the diary anymore: it's the one place no one would ever think to look, because anyone who knew her knew she’d never once cracked this book open.
I sit on the edge of the bed and unfold the pages, glancing at the dates and shuffling them into order.