70. Dollie—present day
Dollie—present day
“ Y ou took a while.” Shane’s words straighten my spine as I enter my room.
Seeing him on the bed, the sheets turned back, and waiting for me, makes my stomach roll.
“I took as long as was needed to explain it to him.”
Leaning back against my door, it clicks shut.
Shane stares at me from the bed, a book in hand. Its yellow cover faces me. His tablet is nowhere to be seen, and that fills me with hope that movie night is no longer on the cards.
“No tablet? What happened to you wanting to watch a movie?” I ask, trying hard to mask the quivering in my voice that makes me appear less frightened than I am.
I’d told Ambrose I was fine. At the time, I was, but being closed in a room with Shane alone makes my chest rise and fall a little faster.
“The old TV works.” He points to the flat black screen on the wall that hasn’t been switched on in years.
“It’s only showing a blank screen?”
“I found something more interesting.” Shane taps the aging pages in his book. “I figured we could look through this together first.”
“At what?” I cautiously crawl onto the bed and dip below the covers where Shane lies back against puffy pillows.
“Your mom’s diary. There are some interesting things in here.”
“Shane, you can’t read that.” I reach for the diary, but my arms are too short to get it when he extends his arm over the bed edge. “It’s personal.”
And private, and it belongs to my mother, who deserves to keep her secrets. Secrets she’d probably written about us—Ambrose and me, getting kidnapped, getting too close, being separated. All that damn guilt she talked about that’s been passed down to me.
The urge to find out if she ever found peace taunts me as I glance at the book. Then, I shake myself because the words in that book aren’t for my eyes, even if I did inherit them from Mom.
I shake the thought away, and meet Shane’s face in search of humanity, but all I see is excitement over the juicy gossip he thinks he’s found.
“Doll, she isn’t here anymore.”
“Nothing good can come out of knowing a person’s most personal thoughts.” That I know is true, and my body recoils over the battered yellow book with roses on the cover. “When did you even get it? I thought you were tossing everything out?”
“I saved this. Trust me, you’ll want to know. Especially if all those rumors of rape are true.”
“What are you talking about?” I still, goosebumps rising on my arms.
“Bout your brother forcing you.”
“You know he didn’t, Shane. Do you really think I’d be in this house with him if he did that?”
Shane shrugs. “Something made your dad send him away.”
“It wasn’t that.”
“I won’t judge… you. I just need to know if your brother fucked you. Ever.”
Sinking deeper into the bed, my hands fidget with the blanket. The satin is cold to the touch and does little to soothe my nerves.
“Just answer the question. I need to know for your sake and mine.”
“I have answered. And why are you digging up the past with a false narrative that bored locals made up?”
“Because I’m starting to think he did. I’m beginning to think that’s where your little trauma bond came from.
“No, we were kids. He never touched me.”
“What about these last few days?”
“Shane, we were both ill.”
“That’s convenient, isn’t it?”
“It’s likely that you’ll pick something up from someone when you live together. Especially if you have a chronic illness.”
“Maybe, and you both do.”
“That’s just me. Ambrose doesn’t have a chronic illness.”
“Really? He didn’t tell you that?”
“He doesn’t have one. I’d have remembered.”
“Because you grew up together or because he’d have mentioned it when you got intimate?”
“Shane, you’re being ridiculous right now. I’ve told you, I haven’t slept with him, and even if I had, which I haven’t?—”
“Because it’s sick, right? It would be really sick to fuck your brother. So wrong and fucking disgusting.” Shane eyes me with a squinted glare that creeps over the book, already disbelieving anything I’ll reply with.
“I have never slept with him. But no one talks about their health struggles during that time. I never have.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Well, for one, you ramble on about them enough daily.”
That’s not true, and I reel back in shock. I’ve said nothing to Shane about my struggles in years. I even let my body do the talking over my pained joints tonight. Shane, in his typical fashion, ignored each stiff movement.
“But,” he continues, “no one can catch yours, either.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Well, your mom has spent the last three pages of this diary crying over dear sweet Ambrose being HIV positive.”
My mouth falls open in disbelief, and the air dries it out quickly.
I have no words.
Is that why things stalled at stolen touches on the sofa?
Did he feel the way I felt and would have taken things further, but was scared to act on it?
“Maybe that’s why he never feels clean.”
“That wouldn’t make him dirty,” I snap. “He has OCD. That’s why he doesn’t like germs. That’s what that is.”
“That’s another of his issues. Your Mom talks about that, too. It probably got worse after this diagnosis.”
“Put the book down,” I choke out.
“No, it’s getting interesting.”
I can’t say another word. I can’t even breathe. The feeling in my rattling chest gets heavier and heavier until I feel something inside me break.
And I know it’s my heart.
My eyes fill, but I don’t dare let a tear fall out of fear of what will happen to me.
“You’re upset? I knew you would be.”
“I feel bad for him.” That’s all I manage.
“Eh, don’t. Doesn’t change who he is. A waste of fucking space.”
My teeth feel like they’ll grind to dust.
“Come on then, I’ll put it down.” Shane sets the book down on the nightstand, trading the remote’s place with it. “Let’s watch our movie.”
“Shane, I can’t?—”
“Can’t what? Can’t wait to watch a movie with me?” His tone dares me to say something else.
How on earth am I meant to concentrate on a movie right now?
There’s no way. Ambrose fills my head, squashing the guilt to one side.
Is he okay? How does he cope? Why did he never tell me?
Did he think I’d see him differently? Why would he think that?
It changes nothing. Does he really have a condition that will impact his entire life?
From that fucking freak clown? Is he okay? I need to see him—to talk to him.
I glance at the nightstand where my flower from him still sits, low on water in its little clear glass.
My phone is nowhere to be seen. My eyes wander the room before I picture it, downstairs, with frosting fingerprints on its screen, nestled amongst the flour and cake supplies I haven’t cleared away.
“So,” Shane interrupts my thoughts. “The movie?”
“What do you want to watch?” I ask, my mind still swirling.
“Come on, get down here.” Shane pulls me into his hold, his tight grip keeping me there. He turns off the nightstand lamp and starts up the TV.
My hoodie leans against his sweaty torso. My bare legs against his gray sweatpants that he wears too high up his waist, looking nothing like Ambrose.
Eerie music plays as the opening credits roll. A stray tear leaks from one eye as my thoughts repeat themselves. Shane’s next words have more coming to the surface.
“I’ll warn you, this movie has a clown mask at the start.”
“Then we have to pick another.” I mask my sniffle with a cough.
“No. You can brave it. It’s only for like two minutes.”
“I don’t want to watch anything with a clown.”
“Just close your eyes for two minutes.”
Arguing my point will mean he’ll hear the sadness in my voice.
None of this can surely be true. Life can’t be that cruel.
A horrible scene plays out on the TV, and watching this movie in the darkness of this room feels nothing like the last horror movie I watched.
Safe, I was safe while that chainsaw—wielding maniac sawed through flesh and bone.
Safe, in Ambrose’s presence, as blood spilled and splattered.
Here, I don’t feel that way. Goosebumps still line my arms, leading down to my hands on the sheets, sweaty and sticky.
Shane plays on his phone, ignoring me and my discomfort over what’s happening on the screen, a young boy murdering his sister while she screams. His parents find him in the clown mask shortly after, but that poor girl is already gone.
My parents screamed too. Their voices—their pleas—get trapped in my head, spinning around with the image of Ambrose, small and scarred in that hospital bed after we were found.
A long, hard blink takes it all away, and I glance up in Shane’s direction, seeing him through tears that stay in my eyes.
“What’s up?” he asks, as if I haven’t had the most awful news today.
“That was a scary scene.” I lie because it’s easier.
He kisses my hair, and shivers run over me, hating the feel of his mouth on me. It’s a new feeling, but it settles quickly, here to stay.
“Bless you.” He laughs, the forced sound echoing in this lifeless room.
I glance around at all my missing possessions. He’s stripping me bare, making it so I have nothing left but him.
Hate builds inside me over it.
“We should have brought some snacks,” I say in a low voice, needing just a few minutes of peace.
“Yeah, we should have. Go get us some?”
“I can’t go through the house after watching that.”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t either, not after pissing off your brother so much.”
“He’s not home. He only stopped by, then went straight back to work.”
“Really?” Shane pushes me aside with rough hands. “I’ll go get some.” He places down his phone, face flat, like he always used to, hiding whatever is on the screen.
He doesn’t notice how I’m shaking with a mix of anger and anxiety as he slips out of the room in his jogging bottoms that have been tumble-dried a few too many times.
The sound of his feet fading out takes him farther away, and I wait, sitting on the bed with so many throw pillows that I’m propped up in an uncomfortable way.