Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Lainey
Fifteen Years Ago
C old.
That was how I felt. The hot water of a shower couldn’t warm me. The blasting heat from the vent on the passenger side of the car couldn’t dent my temperature.
And numb.
I couldn’t feel a knife if it stabbed straight through my heart.
It wasn’t just my skin that was frozen.
It was my insides.
My blood.
Organs.
Muscles.
As though I’d been dipped in water and placed in the ice chest of a garage. A forgotten place where I didn’t know when hours passed. When days moved from one to the next.
What I saw was darkness.
In my room with the blinds shut.
In my bed with the comforter over my head.
In the hallway when I paced from my bedroom to the bathroom and back.
Even when I ran outside.
But out here, when I glanced up, raindrops hit my forehead. The drips cascaded down my cheeks and inside my open mouth, my lungs releasing every sound I could scream.
The rain couldn’t warm me.
It tried.
Everything tried.
Wet hair was plastered against my skin. My clothes stuck to me. The feelings of wetness and confinement were present, and I did nothing to stop it.
Because I couldn’t.
Because I was ice.
Because I was hoping the rain would bring me back. It would rewind time. It would wash away the memories—not all, just the recent ones.
Like when I had walked out of my hair appointment and my phone rang.
Like when I threw up outside my car.
Like when I left my car running in front of the hospital so I could run inside.
Like every moment that had followed.
Even now.
Oh God , especially now.
The ground looked soft from all the rain. The grass squishy. The smell of white flowers was so thick in the air. The white ones had a different aroma from the red and purple and yellow.
All I saw was white.
I hated them.
Every stem.
Every petal.
A hand was holding mine. I could feel the dryness of their skin.
But I was too cold to know if they were as freezing as me or if their warmth couldn’t soothe my chill.
On the other side, an arm was looped through mine. I felt fabric instead of skin. Thick, stiff, uncomfortable material.
And there were words—spoken by a man, in an attempt to fill my ears.
But I heard nothing he said.
I wanted him to be quiet.
I wanted … to forget.
I wanted the hand and the arm off me.
I wanted out of my skin.
I wanted out of this body.
I wanted to stop feeling so cold.
I pulled my fingers away from the hand that held them and wiggled my arm free.
I was on my own.
Alone.
Still cold.
Still unbelievably numb.
My legs were loose. Unstable. The earth was moving, and so was I.
My knees hit the grass.
I felt nothing.
There was a gasp, followed by, “Oh, honey,” that didn’t come from me.
Hands were suddenly on my shoulder. Under my armpits. On my back.
I waved them away. “Leave me alone.” And when that didn’t make the hands retreat, I added, “Don’t touch me.”
I couldn’t hear myself.
I couldn’t remember the words I’d just spoken.
I didn’t care if there was a single set of eyes on me.
I was so cold.
The grass stuck to my palms as I lifted my hands and lowered them, inching forward, the pointy toes of my heels pushing against the mud.
The murmuring around me sounded like raindrops hitting a windshield.
The statement, “Lainey, baby, come back,” went ignored.
I didn’t try to walk, I couldn’t. Crawling would get me there just as fast.
My destination was only a couple of feet away, and when I reached it, I took in the wood. Even that felt cold. Hard and unforgiving. Shiny and difficult to grasp with all the grass and mud stuck to me.
I held on as if the surface were squeezing me back.
As if I could wrap my arms around it like it was a set of shoulders.
As if I could press my cheek against it as though it were another cheek.
My hands balled into fists, and I pounded the wood. “No!” I hit it again. “No! No!”
I know you’re in there.
I can feel you.
I hit the back of my hands against the box. “No!”
You’re so cold.
I wish you weren’t so cold.
I wanted someone to wake me up.
I wanted someone to pull me out of this nightmare.
“Pen!” My voice startled me. I could hear it for the first time in a while, and I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud. “Pen!” Something was on my lips. Rain? Spit? Tears? “Come back to me, Pen!”
I wanted her to hold me. I wanted her to clench my fingers. I wanted her to tell me how much she loved me.
My sister.
I wanted to look at my beautiful twin, an almost-mirror image of myself, and say one last thing to her.
Just one more moment.
One more minute.
“Pen!”
Arms wrapped around me and hugged me from behind. “Baby, it’s okay! It’s going to be okay!”
But they couldn’t drag me away.
Because I wouldn’t leave Penelope.
I couldn’t let her be all by herself in this cold.
Alone in a box that would now be her home.
Lowered into a hole that had been dug just for her.
A spot within the hills of a cemetery on Murphy Drive, where she’d spend the rest of eternity.
Far away from me.
“Pen,” I whispered. I glanced up at the sky, and another raindrop hit my face. I tasted it. A small explosion of salt on my tongue, telling me it was a tear as I pleaded with the dark sky. “Please, Pen. Please don’t leave me.”