Chapter 28 - Wolfson #2
My pulse still shakes from her mouth as I drop on the couch and pull Frankie’s journal onto my lap.
“All right, Dorothy. Remind me why there’s no place like home.”
I don’t go in gentle. I open page one and jump, throwing myself into the graphic account of her first day in captivity.
Several dozen pages later, I take my first breath.
Christ, I forgot how horrible we were to her. She miscarried Monty’s baby, my would’ve-been sister or brother, and we acted like it was nothing. She was scared out of her mind and so fucking alone, and we piled on, and on, and on.
We were monsters.
The memory hooks me under the ribs and yanks hard. I breathe. In for four. Hold for four. Out for six. Dr. Thurber’s box breathing technique. Dr. Freud. Whatever.
I power through the first half of the journal without pausing. The imagery is vicious, the details merciless. My brain wants to sprint ahead to where it hurts less, but I make it stay and absorb every painful word.
Monty comes in once, carrying a tray of sandwiches, pasta salad, and ice water.
He gives me a discreet perusal, and I see him doing the thing, chewing on the inside of his cheek when he’s uncomfortable and trying to figure out how to fix something.
But instead of interrupting, he makes a quiet exit.
I stop him at the door. “Did you read this?”
“Yes.” He glances at the book and looks away, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Can I get you anything?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m here if you need me.” With that, he steps out.
I return to her journal, consumed by the memories and her surgical details. My eyes burn, and my neck aches from holding the same position for hours.
The pages keep turning.
At some point, the sentences shift, and her map begins to point at me. My detachment. My depression. She pins it down with the same brutal precision she uses on the worst of the Arctic.
The sky is turning the wrong shade.
The cold is so vicious it hates human skin.
Wolf grows withdrawn and distant.
When I reach the part I dreaded, her account of that day doesn’t deviate from my memories.
Frankie asleep by the fire, my brothers dealing with Denver’s body, the snowdrifts pushing against the walls of the cabin… I threatened to kill her on the cliff, and she knew I wouldn’t. But I still hurt her irreparably.
I left them to mourn and ration and freeze because my head told me the only clean escape was death. I told myself that leaving this world would save them from having to watch me fall apart.
What I did, as her journal shows without pity, was leave them to carry too much heartache and suffering alone.
I reread one sentence in particular, one she scribbled in a cramped, furious hand.
Every day, we count our breaths and keep one for Wolf.
Fuck, that hurts.
They never gave up on me. They looked for me. They waited for me. They hoped.
If survival is a story, Frankie’s just handed me the part where the martyr finds out he was a selfish cunt.
My face goes numb, and the tears come without ceremony. One, then another, followed by a steady drizzle that smears the pages. I let it. I let myself feel the thing I keep tucked away, the knowledge that I left my family to a frozen fate I knew they couldn’t survive.
I fucking left them.
If I could rewind, I wouldn’t jump. I’d stay. I’d be the brother shivering beside them in the dark, bitching about the last can of beans, and cracking sick jokes to distract their stomachs from twisting inside out. I would man up and choose to be there because love is harder than death.
I read the rest with an achy throat, and despite what I told her, I skip the sex stuff.
That belongs to them, not me. I stick to the parts that hurt.
The bear attack, the icy lake that swallows her, the SOS signal, every harrowing effort they make to survive.
I inhale it all, knowing where I was during those ten months.
Was being tortured by Dr. Rhett Howell worse than the hell they suffered? I don’t know.
Physical pain aside, they weren’t alone. Through it all, they had one another.
And they had one more thing.
Hope.
Turns out that was the map out of hell. Who would’ve thought?
My tears dry, leaving tracks on my face, as the book finishes beneath my thumb. I close the cover, hollow and heavy in the space where regret sleeps.
Setting the journal on the coffee table, I stare at the other book.
My book.
Write your story.
“Okay, Frankie. You mouthy little gangster. Here’s mine.”
Dropping my head back on the couch, I close my eyes.
I’m in a guest house on an island in Sitka. I don’t know if I’m straight or gay or maybe I’m stepsexual. Is that a thing? Because apparently I can’t have one stepsibling without the other.
The woman I want is a badass mechanic. Hard, honest work. The woman who gave birth to me was a rapist, and I killed her.
The man I want is a criminal stalker. Dangerous, dishonest work. The man who raised me is a pedophile, and Frankie killed him.
My real father? He’s one of the good guys. He loves like a man who refuses smallness. Too much love for a broken son like me. Too much grace. But I’m so fucking grateful for him.
I’m not where I was. I’m safe. My family is safe. I’m free to shop for clothes and feed my girl and lose my virginity.
I have a job that sparks joy and have more money than any man needs. I’m in a story where the narrator is unreliable, unhinged, and broken beyond repair. But I’m finally brave enough to put the nightmare into words.
Should I start at the beginning? That’s normal. Expected. But I’m not normal. I’m not expected. I’m not a book that follows rules or order.
If I’m going to open a vein, let it be honest. Let it be the aftermath, the scars, the hand job, and yesterday’s breakdown. I need to start with the now, today, and work my way backward, tracing the steps that made my damage unavoidable.
Might be braver. Might be lazier. Or crazier. Either way, it’s honest.
I flip to the last page.
“Let’s ruin the sheets.”
I light a cigarette.
I pick up a sharpie.
In the rise of ink and smoke, something inside me unclenches.
One sentence. No flourish. No fairy tales.
I write…
I woke up and wanted the day.