72. Ambrose—age eighteen #2
I bang the wooden surface, vibrating Mom’s phone in the distance, indicating yes, I can hear you, operator.
“Please, stay on the line while we get your location.”
Clicking into Dad’s messaging app, the first thread I see is him telling Mom how much he loves her. I don’t click into their personal conversations. I click the one that sits just below, named Princess.
Another message of endearment appears before me. It squeezes something in my chest. Dad loved hard, and he let the whole family know... except when it came to me.
I type a quick message and move back through the house. The light from the music room catches my attention. I spot Duggan on the sofa and pick him up. Deciding to use the secret door in the corner of the room to avoid my parents.
I stalk through the dark, not leaving the tunnels until I step out into my room—tunnel vision locks on my empty bathroom.
I allow myself the seconds I need to set the door in place and realize Duggan has slipped from under my arm on the way up.
Not having time to waste, I brush off thoughts of spiders spinning webs and creating homes on his saggy stomach.
We can get him on the way out.
I look down at the only thing in my hands, the phone with the half-written message to Dollie and the disconnected call from the emergency operator.
Shifting through my open bedroom door, I find Dollie in her room, her brows pulled down slightly as she sleeps.
I finish my message and stare at her in the lamp-lit room.
A pink glow cascades around the space that looks so different from how I remember it. It makes everything look pink, including me and the stains on my body as I look down at myself, stepping inside.
Dollie lies beneath frilly sheets, her wet hair fanned out on the pillow.
I shake her awake, leaving a bloody handprint on her bedsheets.
She jumps, waking from sleep instantly. “Yay.” She smiles big and cheesy, totally oblivious to what she’s done tonight.
She rubs the tiredness from her eyes with those tiny, soft hands that I looked forward to tracing my scars tonight.
The hands that ended our parents’ lives.
An invisible knife twists in my stomach, then my heart, when she talks again.
“I was hoping you’d come, but I guess I fell asleep.”
Unable to mouth anything with so many emotions choking me, I turn the phone toward her. The bright screen too close to her face has her rubbing her eyes again.
“What are you doing with Dad’s phone? If he comes looking for it, he’ll find you in here and won’t let you stay.”
The innocence on her face as she stares up, all wide-eyed, takes me to my knees.
In a rush of movements, I pull back the phone before she can read my message asking what the fuck happened to leave Mom and Dad like that in the hallway and type another, fingers flying over the phone as the sound of sirens grows louder in the distance.
I turn it to her, allowing her to read it at a distance that’ll be comfortable on her eyes.
Daddy:
We have to leave now.
“What? Where? Why? It’s the middle of the night.” Her eyes fly to the pink clock on her bedside table. It’s obnoxious round screen, different from all the mini ones Mom collects and stores in her room.
Without waiting for more delays, I pull Dollie from the bed, not granting a single answer. Dragging her into the hallway, she freezes in her doorway as I stand under glowing lights.
“Why are you covered in blood? Are you okay?” Her hands start patting me down.
It’s not mine.
Hand in hand, I pull her into the light and take her knuckles to my mouth.
I don’t know what happened, I sign. But we have to leave. Run with me?
“Okay. But is someone hurt?”
I glance over her shoulder at the window where moonlight peeks in. The sirens are getting closer and closer.
We need to get out of this house.
I pull her through the hallway—the fastest route, weaving us around our parents and the bloodstains.
The deadlock of her feet stops us both, even as I try to pull her away.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god! What happened to Mom and Dad?”
She yanks free from me, her hand rushing to the pulse point on Dad’s throat.
A heart-cracking sob falls through her lips when no gentle pat reaches her fingertips.
Her small fingers tilt his head, her hands rushing to his chest, pounding up and down in spaced compressions. She breathes air into his mouth once before her head collapses to his unmoving chest.
No heartbeat.
He’s gone, Dollie. She doesn’t look my way to see moving hands.
“He’s so cold. He needs a blanket.”
Her eyes move to me, tears streaming from her blue pools.
I don’t move to get him one. I still on her, all her pained cries and emotions wrapping around me, making it difficult to move.
Her head snaps to Mom, who I’d propped gently against the doorframe.
The gaping gash on display, so much blood on her pajamas. Still on my face, when Dollie looks back at me.
“Ambrose...”
I think it was a psychotic break. I meet her eyes. And everything went black.
Everything went black… I use that sentence because she’s used it with me many times before. Explaining the shadows or the monster in her room and the panic that resulted in her favorite possessions being smashed, and me regluing them all.
“You didn’t mean to hurt them, though, right?”
She really has no idea it wasn’t me, as she sits there on her knees, begging me to tell her I didn’t mean it.
My chest rises and falls slowly, as I find a sense of serenity in the fact that this way hurts her less.
Me taking the blame will hurt her less.
I shake my head. Please, don’t hate me.
I drop to my knees with her, forgetting the pain in my leg when everything inside hurts so much more.
I’d never intentionally hurt them. Please, don’t abandon me. I need you so much right now.
I’m risking everything for her. If we get caught?—
That thought cuts off as her eyes see the sadness in mine. “We have to call the police.”
I have. They’re almost here.
Sirens blast around, my chest rising and falling faster.
I crawl toward her, and she stumbles away from me, her hand landing on the blade that cuts through what looks like a fresh injury.
I clutch the blade from her, putting my prints all over the handle for the second time before I throw it into the distance.
I’d never hurt you. I’d do anything for you.
Always have. Always will.
A pounding fist slams on the door, the word “POLICE!” seeping through the old wood.
I stretch my hand out to Dollie, praying she’ll take it, the same way I prayed my father would.
There’s only a small hesitation before my fingers wrap around her small ones, and I drag her in, not letting go as we both cry.
The police will be in here any second, invited by the sounds of our sobs.
“I’ll tell them you didn’t mean it. Your history is on record. They’ll know you didn’t mean it.” Her arms lock around my body, those little unicorn pajamas soiled with our parents’ blood. “They’ll know you couldn’t mean it. I know you couldn’t. You could never hurt anyone.”
I take in all her words, saving them all for a low day that I’ll no doubt experience back on a ward, or worse, in a padded or stone cell.
I hold her that bit tighter too as police charge in, one of them instantly spotting us up on the second floor.
He shouts something about this being my dad’s house.
He’s in a different squad, but dad seems to know everyone—knew everyone.
The cop’s partner follows him closely, both of them pointing guns, both of them yelling something about us breaking away from each other, the second their eyes see the scene around us.
They surround us, one on each side.
I dry my eyes on Dollie’s pajamas, and those little unicorns shrink as I let a cop pull her away. I turn to the police officer behind me, hands up and silently admitting, I think I just killed my parents.
Force takes me to the ground, my head on the carpet with all the germs that Mom and her religious hoovering don’t reach.
My mind starts reeling here, enough to block out Dollie’s sobs and the aggression from these cop, who slams me back into the ground and cuffs me too hard, while I’m not even resisting.
Will an insanity defense be enough to put me back in an institution?
Will I ever get out?
Will I go to prison instead? Because this is murder, and there’s no justification for that in the eyes of so many judges who would have respected my father.
Wherever I end up, one thing is for sure as I’m pulled from the ground, seeing Dollie only feet away, all the heartbreak behind every tear...
I’ll still need you.
I’ll still need you.
I’ll still need you.