Chapter 16 Sixteen Candles #2
I close my eyes, and Kamlai leans up, brushing her fingertips along my jaw.
For a moment, I let her. I remember a hundred hazy, drug-drenched days when I lay here while she rode me, not caring that I had the oozing face of a leper under the layers of bandages.
I remember the weight of her head on my arm as she lay beside me, stroking my chest, telling me about my cousin, my grandfather, a groundskeeper named Mr. Potter who told her she was pretty.
I remember the smell of the jasmine soap she washed me with, the lull of her voice as she told me that my grandfather was divorcing her and sending her home, and she was scared to go.
I remember the wetness of her hot tears on my shoulder as she asked me if a baby would let her stay and if I thought anyone would marry her so she didn’t have to leave the country.
She wanted to go to school, to get a good job here, to send money home so her family would know she’d done well for herself and be proud.
I remember the bonus I gave the groundskeeper that year, after he married her, that I told him she could never know about.
The baby that came only six months after their wedding.
Asking her for a DNA test, and her telling me that it didn’t matter, because Mr. Potter was his father and would always be, and that’s all anyone needed to know.
I moved out after that. I only moved back a few months ago, but I always kept her close, though I know I’m not the only one.
Still, sometimes I wonder if the fifty-thousand-dollar decision on her finger is the worst one I’ve ever made.
Not that she knows any of it was my decision, or that I bought the ring, or how much it cost. She wouldn’t care, anyway. She makes plenty on her own, managing this place. She cares that she has a good job, that she takes good care of her son, that her husband loves them both.
I turn my face away, out of her reach. “Can I see Charlie?”
“It’s the middle of the night,” she reminds me, swinging her legs off the bed and sitting up. “He’s in bed. I’m only here because Magnolia came out to our house and got me.”
“Right,” I say, closing my eyes. I never wanted to be in this position again. Injured like this, like I was after they blinded me and again the next year, when I tried to go back to school and they beat me one too many times. “Where is she, anyway? Maggie? Is she okay? And Sullivan?”
“They’re fine,” she says, pulling the sheet up on my chest. “You’re the only one who got hurt. You’re lucky, if you ask me, with all the mischief that boy gets into with his friends.”
“He’s sixteen,” I say, pulling Dolly’s daisy pillow under my head. “I can’t cut him off from the world.”
Lucky is not the word I’d use to describe my family.
Karma’s a better word.
“Not the world,” Kamlai says, retrieving her phone when a text comes through. “But maybe some of the people in it.”
She goes to let the doctor in, leaving me to think about her words. It would be easy to blame the company he keeps, but I know Sullivan’s the problem, not his friends.
Dr. Swift makes a fuss when he examines me, but when I insist I don’t need to go to the hospital, he finally relents and says he can’t force me to go.
He thinks I have a concussion and my ribs are fractured, but there’s not much that can be done about that even at the hospital.
Having played football, boxed, and gotten in plenty of fights, I know all about these kinds of injuries, and I know all I can do is ride them out and endure the pain.
This is minor, anyway. I’ve gotten worse beatings from the Dolces, maybe even from Dad.
He gives me some pain medicine before he leaves and tells me to get some sleep.
Even though it’s close to morning by now, I know I won’t be able to, so I head down the hall and climb out the window onto the roof.
I sit down in my spot, the one where I first met Kamlai, back when we had to talk through an app on our phones because she didn’t speak English and I didn’t know a word of Thai.
I’m still pretty limited, but she’s so fluent people would never guess she hasn’t been speaking it all her life.
I hear the window slide up, and I turn, expecting to see her, as if I summoned her from memory. Instead, my cousin steps out onto the roof wearing a pair of bunny slippers and flannel pajamas with poodles printed on them.
“Need someone to help keep you awake?” she asks.
“That’s a myth.”
“You sure?” She totters along the roof in her ridiculous slippers that are so big I’m sure she’s going to trip over them and roll down the slanted shingles and plummet off the side.
When she reaches me, she settles herself beside me.
“I guess I should still make sure you don’t fall off.
You are all doped up on drugs now, aren’t you? ”
“I took a few,” I admit.
“Can I have the rest once you’re done?”
“Nice try.”
She grins, looking quite proud of herself. “You never know if you don’t ask.”
“Sure you’re not here to push me off?” I ask.
“I mean, it wouldn’t be a total loss,” she says. “I’m sure you have life insurance. Who’s the beneficiary?”
“Not you,” I assure her, glowering.
“We should change that,” she says, leaning back on her hands. “Think we’ll see the sunrise from up here?”
“That’s what I’m waiting for.”
We sit in silence for a while, watching the sky lighten and a pink glow rise from the east. I notice Maggie shivering and pull my coat off, handing it to her. She slides her arms into the sleeves and huddles down in it. “What are you thinking about?” she asks.
“My brilliant life choices. You?”
“Same,” she says. “Yours, not mine. I can’t believe you let Dolly go. You really must have hit your head.”
“One too many times,” I agree.
“I’m just saying, if I had Zane Wilder in my basement, no way am I letting him out.”
“You had to pick the worst one in the band, didn’t you?”
“Well, I mean, Jace is always on drugs, and I’m not fit to run a rehab down there. But I’d take Brody or Quincy if Zane wasn’t available. Point is, I wouldn’t let him drive off in a fancy car—especially not if he tried to run me over. I’d keep him chained up forever.”
“She wasn’t chained up,” I growl.
She gives me a look. “Sure. So, does this mean y’all broke up? I’m never going to see her again?”
“Probably not,” I grumble.
“Sucks to be you,” she says. “I mean, you got hit by a car and dumped on the same night. That takes talent.”
“And yet, I’m still the best option you’ve got.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t even stick around long enough for some sympathy play,” Maggie says. “That’s cold.”
“Would you?” I ask. “If you were in her place?”
“Hell fucking no,” she says, grinning. “I’d take the car and run.”
“Then you can’t blame her for doing it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t blaming her,” she says. “I was blaming you for managing to fuck it up so bad she couldn’t even wait to see if you were okay before she drove off into the sunset. Just like I blame you for fucking it up with Harper.”
“I’m going to kill Colt for telling you about that.”
“No, you won’t,” she says, giving me a smug smile. “Just like you won’t push me off this roof for the life insurance, either. You love us too much.”
“Don’t press your luck,” I say, glowering at her.
She tosses her hair out of her face and grins triumphantly.
I can’t argue with her. Family is family. If I was going to kill a Darling, it would be my grandfather, and I won’t even do that. Colt gossips like a bitch, but he’s my brother. Maggie drives me nuts, but she’s my sister. Maybe not technically, but all my cousins are that important to me.
After a bit, she lays her head on my shoulder, and we sit on the cold roof in silence and watch the sunrise together, and then we help each other back through the window because even if she won’t admit it, I’m important to this family, too.
When everyone else leaves, we stay. That’s what my father had wrong.
Most people are competition, but it should never be that way with family.
They come before everything, mean everything.
That’s why I was never mad at Devlin for leaving.
Crystal was his family. He had to take care of her, and I had to step up.
I owed him that much after what I took from him.
So I had his back, even when he was clear across the country and everyone thought he was dead. That’s what family does. We stay for each other, fight for each other, and stick together even when we can’t stand each other. We don’t take the car and leave, even when someone offers.
I thought Dolly would be my family, that I could make it happen, but I was wrong.
She has no idea what it means to be a family.
Just look at hers. They never made sacrifices.
They got divorced and married other people and moved on like the word family meant nothing to them. What else could I expect?