Chapter 2 #2
“It’s bullshit what they say. Family isn’t about blood. It’s about who shows up. Who gives a shit whether you live or die.”
I stare at him, my brain echoing monster.
There’s a part of me that’s adamant he’s wrong. That every life is precious. That no one deserves to die before their time.
But I want him to be right.
About everything.
“You’re allowed to be glad he’s gone,” Kai says, voice raw as he sinks down beside me on the sofa. “Fuck, I’m glad he’s gone. I’ve been hoping he’d OD in a ditch somewhere since I was twelve.”
I let out a half-sob, half-laugh. “That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah? Last I checked, we were both pretty fucked up.”
I snort. “Understatement of the century.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
I press my palms to my eyes, trying to get my brain to stop spiraling. Darker memories—ones I’ve buried even deeper than the Monstrosities of Bobby and Lenny—are desperately clawing their way to the surface of my mind.
I don’t know how much longer I can fend them off.
How much longer I can keep lying to myself.
Sure, Bobby was a monster.
But he raised one, too.
My eyes snap up to Kai as he stands.
“Don’t,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop.”
I roll my lips together, nodding curtly as I completely fail to stop anything.
He goes to fetch the paper out of the trash, scanning the headline as he stalks back to the sofa. His lips move almost imperceptibly as he reads the article.
“Jesus, you read all of this?” A deep frown pops up between his wild eyebrows.
I shake my head. Everything went kind of fuzzy after I saw the line, ‘identified the deceased as Robert Henry Lee.’
“They found him over by the storm drains.”
“Shit,” I mumble.
Kai runs a hand through his hair, eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Nothing, just…” He sits on the coffee table, facing me. It groans under his weight, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “They say he died last Saturday.”
My mind scrambles to make the connection. When it does, I sit forward in a rush, perching on the edge of the cushion. “The football match?”
Kai nods slowly. “The football match.”
My face goes cold. “You said Bastian gave him a whole wad of cash so he’d leave,” I mumble through numb lips.
“Fuck,” Kai mutters. “You think…?”
“He went to go score,” I say woodenly, my eyes focused on nothing, my mind focused on the memory of the rage on my father’s face as he confronted me outside the stadium that Saturday. “Not his usual dealer. Probably ripped him off. Impurities and shit.”
Kai is silent again.
Too silent.
When I blink and force myself to look at him, he’s watching me warily. “What?”
“You got into it, didn’t you?”
“Into what?”
There’s pain, and just a little bit of pity in Kai’s green eyes as he leans closer, fingers meshed under his chin, elbows propped on his knees.
I’m not sure which infuriates me more—the pain or the pity.
“When did you start using, Haven?”
I snort at him. “Fuck off.”
But he just keeps staring at me with that awful expression. “You addicted?”
“God, Kai, I’m not a fucking junkie!” I shove to a stand, wincing when I put too much pressure on my sore foot.
“Sure sound like one.”
“Bound to pick up a thing or two when you’ve been living with them your entire fucking life,” I spit out, going to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water.
I stare past the cutesy lace curtains into the massive boughs of the oak tree beside the Airbnb. Nature has always calmed me, but it’s doing a shit job of it today.
Despite what I said, none of this makes sense. Bobby was a rare breed—a careful junkie. To my knowledge, he’d never ODd. Got dope sick a few times, but always recovered quickly.
Unlike me, he hated the outdoors. He’d get stoned at home, or in his car—before I stole it—but never outside in the open. He was too paranoid for that, always going on about people stealing his stuff when he was shitfaced.
ODing by the Agony River doesn’t make sense.
“I don’t buy it,” I say grudgingly. “He was too careful to OD.” I glance at Kai over my shoulder. “It say anything else?”
“Nope.” He looks up from the paper, shoulders lifting as he takes a deep breath. “You know who you could ask.”
It’s not a question, but I shake my head anyway. “No fucking way.”
“That cop would—”
“You know what’s been working really great for me the past couple of years, Kai? Letting sleeping, flea-ridden dogs lie.”
“He’s gonna want to speak to you anyway,” Kai says calmly, like he’s trying to reason with a toddler past their nap time.
“You just want to satisfy your own curiosity,” I grump, draining the last of the water in my glass before setting it down in the sink. I spin around, hands on the edge of the laminate counter. “The king is dead. Long live the queen.”
It’s supposed to be a joke, but my voice is too raspy, the words too shaky, and Kai is too fucking serious.
“God, what?” I snap.
He shakes his head, wiping his hands down his face like he’s trying to pull himself out of his own dark thoughts. “Nothing. You’re right. This is good.”
I shrug. “Good riddance, right?”
Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll stop feeling guilty.
Because as fucked up as it sounds, it’s my fault Bobby’s dead. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have come back to Agony Hollow, and he’d still be alive.
Then again…
If Professor Rooke—my stalker, my obsession, my nightmare—hadn’t given him all that money, he wouldn’t have bought the dope that apparently killed him.
Fuck. If Bastian finds out about this, he’ll probably expect me to be grateful.
“I’ve wanted him dead for as long as I can remember,” I murmur as I walk back to the sofa, arms crossed tightly against my chest as I stare down at Kai. “Does that make me a psycho?”
Kai’s lips quirk. “Did you forget that we’ve been fantasizing about creative ways for Bobby to die since middle school?”
Despite everything, a real laugh bursts out of me, and Kai joins right in. We sound like a pair of comic book villains.
It’s inappropriate.
Horrible.
And so fucking perfect.
I sink down onto the sofa, the coffee table letting out another ominous creak as Kai shifts over to the cushion beside me.
“Fuck, I did forget,” I whimper as I wipe my eyes, still giggling. “Dumb Ways Bobby Can Die,” I sing.
Kai’s wearing a manic grin I know all too well as he counts off on his fingers. “Mauled by bears. Struck by lightning.” He glances up at the ceiling. “Um—”
“Spontaneous combustion!” I blurt out, stabbing his chest with a finger. “Remember that one?”
He cups a hand over his eyes, groaning dramatically. “Jaysus…You always went for the exotic ones.”
“Eaten by piranhas!”
“In the Agony River?”
We both double over on the cheap furniture in our cheap Airbnb that’s a hundred times better than the trailers we grew up in, laughing about my dead father and our fucked-up childhood trauma like it’s peak comedy.
God, we’re so broken.
When it finally subsides, my ribs ache and my face is wet, and I feel lighter than I have in days.
“So, uh, this is probably the worst timing in the world, but…” His expression softens, then tightens—eyes shifty, mouth tight.
The sudden change in him releases a swarm of hornets into my stomach.
This is the part where he tells me the vacation was fun, but we should stick to being friends. Or where he admits he’s been stringing me along as some kind of punishment for abandoning him.
Fuck, maybe he’s going to admit he killed Bobby and staged it to look like an overdose. After all, one of Kai’s ‘Dumb Ways Bobby Can Die’ was my father accidentally smoking rat poison instead of crack…because we’d switched out his drugs.
But my friend-turned-bully-turned-lover doesn’t admit to premeditated murder.
He reaches into his hoodie’s pocket and pulls out a small blue box.
Velvet. Like the kind for jewelry. A ring, to be specific.
My breath stops.
Oh shit.
“It’s not what you think,” he blurts out, his ears turning red.
“It’s not…jewelry?” My voice is shaking.
“I mean, it is, but, you know—Jesus, I’m bad at this.”
He opens it.
Inside, nestled in white satin, is the butterfly pendant I found in the envelope on his bookshelf when I snooped through his room like the creepy little stalker I am. The tiny blue stone embedded in one wing sparkles.
I still can’t breathe.
“I, uh…” Kai clears his throat. “I wanted to give this to you. A long time ago, actually. But then—”
“Shit happened,” I cut in softly, so he doesn’t have to try to sum up years of bullshit misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
“Yeah, that.” He won’t meet my eyes. “Anyway.”
“How long have you had it?” I ask, even though I know.
Three years and some change.
“A while,” he says breezily. “No idea why I fucking kept it…” His eyes narrow with frustration.
I stare at the butterfly. Its wings catch the light again, glinting silver and blue. Blue like the butterfly’s wings trapped in Bastian’s crystal paperweight in his study, frozen mid-flight.
The coincidence makes my skin prickle.
I can’t shake the feeling that I was always meant to get this necklace at this exact moment. After I came back to Agony Hollow. After I met Professor Rooke.
Right before…what?
I look up, shivering at the intensity in Kai’s eyes.
Whatever he’s about to say, I know I’m not ready to hear it. And it’s going to hurt him. Deeply.
He opens his mouth, but I cut in.
“We—” My voice cracks. “—were completely different people back then.”
“Yeah.” He finally looks at me, his expression so raw and honest it makes my heart ache. “But we’re still us, you know? Under all the bullshit. We’re still those same kids in the woods. Just, you know, surviving.” He clears his throat. “Together.” There’s a hint of a question in his voice.
God, why did he have to say it like that?
“Together,” I parrot through a throat so tight it hurts.
“Haven—”
“Put it on me,” I cut in, turning my back to him because I can’t stand the forlorn look in his eyes.