Ward #5
“Arlo, please, honey,” Matilda pleaded, and I winced at the sound of fear in her voice.
I wasn’t directly responsible for what was happening, but I was responsible enough.
If it hadn’t been for me and my damned curiosity and my need to seek out interesting things and people, Arlo and his parents wouldn’t be here right now.
Then again, my parents or the staff wouldn’t be here.
Hell, I probably wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for Arlo because the sabotage of my electrical wiring would have probably killed me.
In fact, it seemed like I owed a great deal to Arlo’s ‘curse.’ If it hadn’t been for his presence and his tendency to take all the hits for me, I would have been dead at least three weeks ago, maybe sooner.
Everyone else here would have been safe and clear, my mother would have had me buried with a lot of unnecessary pomp, and she probably would have used my death as another tool to get herself even higher up in office.
“But I do understand,” Arlo said in a low voice. “I know what it’s like to lose someone dear to you. I know what it’s like to have them ripped away from you and to feel like you’ve lost everything.”
“The fuck you do,” Devon snarled, but even I could see the doubt in his eyes. You could say what you wanted about Arlo, but when he spoke, it was hard to believe he was telling anything but the truth.
“I do,” Arlo said softly, giving him a sad smile.
“I lost more than I can explain to someone who hasn’t been where I am.
I know what it’s like to lose someone so important that it feels like your entire world has been flipped upside down, turned inside out, and set on fire.
I know what it’s like to feel grief so strong that it feels like there’s some animal inside you that wants to tear its way out.
Sometimes that animal just wants to hurt you, and sometimes it wants to hurt the world that took what mattered so much to you, more than anything. ”
Devon’s shoulders sagged slightly. “She was...my baby sister.”
“I get it,” Arlo said slowly, still holding onto that sad, patient smile.
“And it feels like nothing will ever take that pain away, and you’re right.
It’s never going to stop hurting. Even down the road, you find yourself thinking that you’re okay, that it’s all much better now, and you’ll hear a piece of a song that she loved, you’ll smell something that reminds you of a meal she cooked or a perfume she wore, and you’ll feel the ground under you start to shake.
You’ll start to think that things have gotten better, and they have, and they haven’t.
It is the kind of pain that sticks with you, and you don’t conquer it, but.
..you learn to live with it. You learn how to sit beside it and let it just.. .be.”
Devon’s face twitched with emotion, and I couldn’t tell if he was about to lose his mind or cry. “So what? I just let him get away with it? Let him go about his life?”
Arlo sighed. “Devon...he’s not responsible for anyone but himself—the same as you and me.
No one can be responsible for another person, not like that, not like this.
When I was...preparing her, I wondered what kind of people she had in her life, what kind of meaningful relationships, who she left behind.
Now I can see that she left behind someone who loved her dearly, so much so that he’s willing to take extreme measures to try to make sense of what’s happened. ”
“It already makes sense,” Devon snarled, the anger pushing the sorrow back into the shadows again.
“Pretty boy here decided to play with other people’s lives, let them have their fun, let them get so fucked up and hooked on shit that they forget to take their meds.
Get so wrapped up that when the fucked up shit comes for them, all they have is drugs that don’t help, they just hurt.
And she killed herself on his goddamn bathroom floor because he wasn’t content to just destroy himself, he had to drag other people into it! ”
“You are trying to make sense of it,” Arlo said gently.
“Because even though she stopped taking her medication, she started doing drugs and partying all the time, she stopped talking to her family...it still doesn’t make sense to you.
Because you thought you knew her, you thought you would see the signs and didn’t, which doesn’t make sense.
How can you miss so much when you loved her so much? ”
“I...shut up,” Devon said. I heard fear in his voice, and that fear reverberated through me. Arlo was getting through to him, but one misstep, easily made at a time like this, could send the man spiraling even harder into the dark of his mind. “I did love her; I do love her.”
“I’m not doubting that for a moment,” Arlo assured him. “But killing him, killing any of us, isn’t going to make it make sense to you. It’s not going to bring her back, it’s not going to avenge her, and it’s not going to make it any easier for you. This isn’t revenge...this is grief.”
Devon hung his head, staring at the ground and closing his eyes to take a deep breath.
“She’s all I can think about. When I sleep, when I eat, when I drink myself stupid, she’s there.
I even...well, I tried to see what was so great about that shit, the shit she was on, but I didn’t know what she was taking.
None of it worked, she was always there waiting for me when I was done being high, you know? ”
“What she was taking?” Arlo asked softly.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Heroin.”
“What?” I barked out in surprise. “Like hell, that shit destroys everything it touches; it’s as bad as meth. I didn’t let either of those things through the door.”
“People find a way,” Arlo said, shrugging. “But the tox screen from when she was brought in showed it. That’s why you were losing her, Devon. To a drug that has killed thousands, millions. It’s not Ward’s fault. He was never responsible for her.”
“It was his goddamn party!”
“I already said I would never knowingly let that stuff in,” I grumbled. There were limits, and heroin was one of them. People got lost in it, and it was all too easy to overdose…I’d seen it happen.
“So it’s her fault? You don’t get to take any blame?” he snarled, and I could see in his eyes the same look I’d seen in my mother’s. No matter what I said or did, he would find a way to pin it on me.
“No blame, but he’s taken responsibility even if it wasn’t obvious,” Arlo said. I stared at him in confusion.
“What?” Devon barked.
“Where do you think the anonymous donation toward her funeral service came from?”
I was taken off guard by the intensity of the situation. “How the hell did you know?”
“I suspected,” Arlo said with a shrug. “But you just confirmed it.”
“Bastard,” I grunted.
“Shut the fuck up,” Devon said, and I winced when he swung the gun back toward me. “Your blood money won’t bring my sister back.”
“Your sister was fighting a losing battle you knew nothing about. All you could do was watch her fade away,” Arlo said quickly, and Devon froze.
“This whole tragedy unfolded in front of you, and you couldn’t do anything.
Neither could Ward. No one here is responsible, Devon.
I know what it’s like to blame yourself for something that is, and never was, your fault.
But you can’t push it onto other people. ”
Devon clenched his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Goddammit, you do understand, don’t you?”
“I do,” Arlo said as his expression softened and tears ran from Devon’s eyes down his cheeks. Even I felt bad for him. He looked so lost it was almost impossible to hold it against him…except for still being held at gunpoint.
Devon’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at me. “But you don’t, do you?”
“I haven’t known it like you and Arlo have,” I admitted. “I don’t know that kind of loss.”
“Fine, then let’s give you a taste,” he said, voice shaking as he raised the gun and pointed it….at Arlo.
There was no time to do anything but react because deep down I knew what was about to happen.
I jumped out of my seat and flew forward, desperate to do something so Arlo wouldn’t take a bullet to the brain.
I saw the flash as the gun went off. I heard a shriek somewhere in the room.
Something punched me in the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me reeling.
Well, I guess I had done something.