Chapter 1 #3
"I'm so sorry, Elias. None of that is your fault." Without thinking about it, I wrap my arms around him, placing one hand on his back, and with the other, I run my fingertips through his hair. "How old were you?"
"It was earlier this year," he says. "And then, I started drinking too much.
A couple of months ago, I drank so much that I don't even remember getting in the car, but I did.
And when I woke up, this had happened." He raises the arm in the soft cast. "I had a full scholarship to play hockey at a school in Maine; I was supposed to get the fuck out of this place.
I was going to help her. Now she's gone, and I'll never play again. "
"You don't know that," I tell him. "It'll get better."
I'm not even sure why I'm doing it—comforting him, I mean. I don't know him. I don't even think I can trust him, but I also can't seem to make myself leave him here.
"I do know that. My shoulder is mostly screws now; my arm was crushed. No amount of physical therapy will ever make it better. And I don't need a doctor to tell me that, because I can feel it, but they have. And that's not even the worst part…"
"What's the worst part?" I ask.
"That night, he told me the fucking bitch—his mistress—and her daughter are moving in with us. That's why I did it. They're at the house right now, I guess."
My eyes go wide. All the air leaves my lungs as I begin connecting the dots.
My mom works as a secretary. She married her boss, and we're moving in with him and his son. I'm supposed to be there right now.
But she never mentioned he was married. He didn't wear a ring. Could it be a coincidence? Would my mom do that to someone?
Is the person I'm cradling against my chest my stepbrother?
I never asked for any details about him; I was too angry about moving.
For some reason, when she said stepbrother, I pictured an eight-year-old little boy playing Legos or shooting me with Nerf darts.
I did not picture a full-grown man trying to fuck me.
I'm about to say something. I should say something, or at the very least, I need to get the fuck out of here, just in case I'm right, before it gets worse.
"Elias…I—"
"Why'd you stop?" he asks.
"Stop what?"
"Your fingers in my hair…it felt good."
"Oh…I don't know. Sorry." I resume combing my fingers through his hair, trying to steady my breathing and slow my heart rate, hoping he doesn't sense how nervous I am the way he did before. "I'm sorry, Elias…that you're going through that. Maybe it won't be as bad as you think it will be."
"It's okay," he says. "I'm going to make sure they get what they fucking deserve. I'm going to make their lives hell. My mom was prettier than her, you know. It doesn't make sense. And she was smarter, too. She was a doctor…before she got sick."
It's difficult to listen to. My mom is a good person; she's my friend. She is smart, and I look just like her—everyone says so.
I don't think she could do this.
My eyes well with tears again as Arcadia curls up beside us on the blanket.
"Do you think people get what they deserve?" he asks.
I remember when my dad packed his bags to move in with someone he met online, only for her to leave him a month later, and how still, he never came back.
I think of how I started getting postcards instead of presents on my birthdays, and how strong my mom tried to be, but the walls in our apartment were thin, and when I was alone, crying in my room, I could hear her crying, too.
Just minutes ago, I was staring up at the sky, thinking this could all be okay—that I was getting a family, and the world would be a little less lonely.
What if I got this instead?
"No," I whisper, blinking and sending tears from my eyes and into my ears. "I don't think people ever get what they deserve."
"Yeah, neither do I." He groans, shifting on top of me and wrapping an arm around one of my legs.
"You're pretty," he slurs. "Really fucking pretty.
But you're too nice, Saige. You're too trusting.
People are always going to use it against you unless you start using the former against them.
I could help you hurt them, if you wanted.
Of course, I'd want something in return. "
"I don't want to hurt them. I just want to stop feeling like this."
"Hurting them would make it better. Especially if they deserve it, and even if they don't. I do it all the time."
"Then you must be very lonely."
He's volatile; I sensed that early on, and I expected a reaction, but I didn't expect this.
Pushing aside my zip-up hoodie, he sinks his teeth into my chest, biting the upper part of my right breast through my t-shirt, hard enough to leave a bruise.
I squirm beneath him as pain shoots through me, feeling him hard against my leg before I cry out.
"Ahh!"
He chuckles as he unclenches his teeth. "I bite back, Saige.
And I'm not lonely. Even without the arm, I've still got the entire town falling at my feet and all the girls falling to their fucking knees, and that includes the teachers, too.
I might get bored with how pathetic they all are sometimes, but it never gets lonely.
And I'm honest with all of them. I'm not like my dad—I make sure they all know they're nothing to me; I'm not a monster.
If they cry about it afterward, it's their own fault. "
Jesus. He's everything I hate. I really, really hope he's not my stepbrother. "Got it."
"Good," he mutters, his breath warm and heavy against the wet spot on my t-shirt, the flesh beneath still burning from where his teeth sank into me seconds ago.
Minutes of silence pass before eventually, that same breath slows, giving way to light snoring.
I close my eyes, relieved, and slowly begin wriggling out from beneath over two hundred pounds of dead weight.
It isn't easy, but he's drunk enough that I manage without waking him. My shirt is wet in more than one place, confirming my suspicion—he had been crying.
I tiptoe across creaky floorboards in my Vans, stopping when I realize I'm being followed.
Arcadia pouts as I reach for the doorknob.
"It's okay," I say, patting her and scratching behind her ear.
"Stay." I open the door just enough to squeeze out and close it behind me, and then practically run to my car, locking the doors before starting the engine.
I back up, flip around, and put it in drive.
I don't even stop to put the address back into my GPS until I reach the road.
When I do, I find several missed calls and messages from my mom, who, in the end, decides I must have stayed with a friend in the city as some final act of defiance and demands I call her first thing in the morning.
I also find that I'm only a few kilometers away from my destination—just on the other side of these trees—which doesn't bode well, considering Elias said we were on his property earlier.
Moments later, I pull up to the large craftsman-style home off the beaten path. The key she left for me turns easily in the lock, and I step inside, closing the door behind me.
"Saige?" my mom calls from the living room, her tone both worried and raspy with sleep.
"Yeah, it's me." She crosses the room, dark aside from grey moonlight streaming through several windows lining the back wall, and wraps me in a hug.
Despite how I'd wanted her earlier—how I'd been desperate for her to crawl into bed with me and hold me while I cried—I don't hug her back now. I don't even want to tell her. After what I'd heard from Elias, I just stand there, stiff and uncomfortable in her arms.
Did Elias's mom die in this house?
"Are you okay, sweetheart?"
I swallow hard, forcing back a sob. "Yeah, I just want to go to bed."
"Come on," she says. "I'll show you your room."
I follow her up the stairs and then to a bedroom at the far end of the hall.
Once inside, she turns on a small lamp sitting on the desk just inside the doorway.
Aside from the desk, there's a daybed against the far wall with a couple of pillows and blankets folded and stacked neatly at its center.
To my left is a closet and several boxes labelled S-BEDROOM, and to my right, a large picture window.
I take a few steps toward it, looking out at the dark forest and a break in the trees that must be the chasm I almost fell into earlier.
"Do you like it?" my mom asks, smiling when I turn around.
It's a beautiful home in a beautiful place; even in the dark, I can see that much. Is that why she did it?
I shrug. "It's pink."
"I know. But Alex said you can paint it any color you want. He really wants you to feel at home here, Saige."
Frowning, I tell her, "Yeah, okay. I just want to go to bed."
"Okay. I love you. The bathroom is just next door, okay? I know you haven't gotten the chance to unpack yet, so…I'm at the opposite end of the hall; just let me know if you need anything."
"Thanks," I mutter.
"You're a good daughter, Saige," she says, hugging me again. "I know you're nervous about starting a new school when you have only two years to go, and you'll miss Sawyer and your friends, but they'll still be there."
"I'm not so sure about that," I say, shrugging her off.
"I get the apprehension; I do. But you're beautiful, smart, and thoughtful. You're always putting others first; there aren't many people like that anymore. He'd be foolish to fumble you."
Cringe. I sit on the bed, dropping my face into my hands. "Mom, please, for the love of god—"
"Okay, sorry. I'm just…so glad you're here. I'll leave you alone now. I love you. Good night."
"Night."
But you know what I hear lurking beneath what she just said? I've been too nice, just like Elias told me. And that's why this is happening to me.