14. Knox
FOURTEEN
KNOX
Bracing my hand against the marble, I let the water singe my skin, rolling over my shoulders, back, and arms, and take the vestiges of this fucking awful day with it. My eyes sting with exhaustion, my mind and muscles ache, and my chest burns with the all-too-familiar remnants of grief.
Memories flood my mind, vivid and as clear as if they happened only yesterday.
The house phone ringing when I stepped out of the shower, having cleaned up for dinner.
The color draining from my father’s face as I walked out of my room.
Kellen’s stiff shoulders as he stared at me from the kitchen counter, unblinking.
The look on Sheriff Wyatt’s face as the three of us pulled up to the accident on the frontage road...his words sounding so far away as I stared at my mother’s car smashed into an oak tree.
“ She’s gone. ” The regretful sound in his voice—even the cold emptiness that nearly swallowed me when I saw her body covered in a sheet on the pavement—is so achingly vivid I wish I could live one single day without remembering it.
But more than my mother’s lifeless form, I remember the look on Julio’s face as the police car drove away. The way he was staring at her, like he couldn’t take his eyes off what he’d done before they shifted to me, red and strangely vacant.
I lean my forehead against the shower wall and squeeze my eyes shut. This nightmare can’t be my life, and yet, death has stalked me for so long it feels inevitable, too.
Every night my father came home so drunk, I thought it might be my end.
Every time the phone rang in the middle of the night.
Every time I’ve had to look a steer in the eyes before shooting him square between them.
And every time I’ve woken to an ominous red sky at morning, I’ve fought the urge to hold my breath. Now, here I am, in the center of chaos that feels like both the beginning and the end.
I clench my fist, recalling the crunch of cartilage against my knuckles as Ty fell to the ground after I’d surprised him in the aisleway at the warehouse. Then I exhale the image of Lars’s pallid skin drenched in crimson. And worse than the echo of Rick’s agonizing cries as he tried to lift himself, only to fall back into a broken heap, is the memory of Scott’s final, ragged breaths and his plea for me to take Ava.
When her bloodshot, amber eyes flash to mind, I can’t help but find an acute, unexpected solace in her presence. Relief that her slight frame is no longer crumpled and unconscious on the cold cement floor and that I am not alone. Even if another part of me wants to blame her for all of this, I am not my father. Shitstorms may follow Ava wherever she goes, but to blame a child for a grown man’s drunkenness is wrong, no matter what my father has always chosen to believe.
Even after today, when all I want to do is curse her, I can’t. Not when I experienced Lars’s insanity for myself. When I heard the hatred in his voice, it was clear he was on a mission, and I was uncertain how it would all end.
Another memory forms, this one distant and disjointed at first. A memory I haven’t thought about in years. A younger Ava, maybe thirteen or fourteen, waiting for a ride on the middle school campus long after everyone had gone. I was in high school, and Tony and I were walking to his house after football practice. It was before the accident, but still, Ava looked so alone. I don’t know why I remember her tattered backpack or the way her dark hair fell in her face like a shield as she toed the gravel in the parking lot. But I do. Something happened that gave me pause.
Lars. His scrawny form comes into focus. He shouted at her from his group of friends, smoking under a tree on the adjacent soccer field.
Tony and I stopped, but I don’t recall what Lars said.
Opening my eyes, I watch the water circle the drain at my feet, searching my brain for the rest of the memory.
“ Poor Ava, all alone. Did your drunk uncle forget about you again?” Laughing, Lars took a drag from his cigarette like he thought he was untouchable. “ Too bad your mom can’t come get you because she’s dead.”
“Hey! Leave her alone.” Grip tightening on my backpack straps, I took a step forward and glared at him in warning.
Lars’s attention snapped to me, and his friend at his side looked uncertain he should get mixed up with us. We were older than them. Bigger too.
“Yeah, or what?” Lars taunted, but it was false bravado. “You’ll beat me up?”
Tony stepped up beside me. “Are you offering?”
Lars sneered, his eyes shifting between us as he considered the outcome. Flicking his cigarette in Ava’s direction, he scoffed. “I’ve got better things to do,” he muttered, and the two of them went back to the three girls waiting for them under the tree.
My eyes locked with Ava’s. Her relief was in the glassy sheen of her eyes. She muttered a thank you and hurried off in the other direction. I don’t know where she went, but I was both curious and concerned.
How could I have forgotten about that?
Mom died after that. That’s how. My entire world was upended.
I consider what else I might’ve forgotten until I’m numb to the sting of the water, and registering the tinge of sulfur filling the shower, I shut it off and reach for my towel. The glass is partially fogged, but I can see my outline well enough. A crescent darkens one of my eyes and my busted lip is slightly swollen. But I am alive, which is more than I can say for everyone else I know.
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I open the glass door and step onto the heated tile floor. It shouldn’t hurt so bad to put on my deodorant or shave, but after lugging bodies, fighting, digging, and the sheer tension that’s been coiled through me all day, each monotonous task feels like a chore and all I want to do is sleep.
Running my hand over my spiky, wet hair, I head for my room. Lucy looks at me from where she’s curled at the foot of my bed, and I’m about to cave in, climb into soft sheets, and pass the fuck out. But the floor creaks above me. A clatter follows, and with a groan, I hurry from my room, making my way upstairs.