16. Sixteen
Sixteen
Sara
Every creak of my footsteps on the floor echoes with a trail of judgement as I follow the familiar path to Joe’s room.
I step into the soft, sunlit room, and everything smells like Joe.
The room holds him as if he’s stepped out for a moment and will return any second to take a nap or offer some popcorn and watch a movie. Impermanence is so, so cruel.
Fiasco now struggles in my arms, so I set him on the mattress, where he promptly circles Joe’s pillow and collapses, sighing with the relief of something like finding home.
I drop onto the end of the bed and sit, the weight of the pain too heavy to hold on to.
I pull my knees to my chest and try to picture him, his faint cologne invading my senses while I conjure the version of Joe that belongs only to me.
I can almost feel his arms, the scratch of his jaw against my neck, the infuriating way he blows air into my ear just to make me laugh.
He would hate this. He would curl his body around mine until the sadness drained out of me, until the pain lessened.
I put my face in my hands and let myself break, until the light shifts from gold to blue, until I eventually drift to sleep.
When I wake, it’s dark with a few shadows across the wall from the blazing moon. I roll off the bed and manage to stand, legs trembling and my hands aching from blisters, but the room tilts when I try to walk. I feel so disoriented from crying for too long and clumsily jab my foot onto something.
Hard.
I yelp, hop, and look down.
A sharp edge protrudes from under the bed, and I crouch as my fingers land on a black leather briefcase. When I tug it out, I hesitate and my breath slows, every sense narrowing, thinking that perhaps I wasn’t supposed to find this.
I sit back on the floor and flick the latches open. Inside is money—stacks and stacks of it, the kind I’ve seen in movies. I blink, convinced I’m hallucinating.
I rattle the cash, and underneath are poker chips. I stare at all of it, dumbfounded. This is too much in one day; one brother is a cold-blooded killer and the other… a gambler? Does Liam know about this? Joe has mentioned nothing about poker games…
Have I loved a liar, a thief, or something worse?
What kind of life pushes two brothers to shape their existence into something as deceiving as it is dangerous, especially in a world already drowning in suffering?
Yet I can't shake the thought that perhaps they've simply survived in a world that has made them suffer too much.
My hands shake so hard I drop the briefcase, the chips dispersing on the floor like a roulette ball. No, no, no.
I rush to put everything back in the briefcase with my already painful hands. I squeeze my eyes against the immediate, aggressive images of today catapulting me; the man bleeding out, running away from Liam, the abandoned house, the fear… oh, God, the fear I felt…
My breath comes shallow, sharp, too quick. I claw at my throat, sure I’m choking.
The walls are closing in more and more, and the pressure in my head builds until I think I’ll pass out.
The puppy yaps, but it all sounds so far away.
I try to compose myself, but my hands feel clammy, and that alone gives me a rush of anxiety, convincing me I’m losing control, and the haunting, weightless feeling of my body slipping away overpowers my senses and terrifies me.
I’m not dying, I’m not dying.
I try to lie down, but I’m having a panic attack. I feel like I’m going to sink myself into the mattress and never come out of its claws.
I have sworn I’d never do this again.
But I can’t dissuade my brain otherwise, I need the relief. I stagger to my feet, nearly tripping over Fiasco as I fumble for the door. The room turns upside down, but I keep my steps going as the hallway stretches too long, dragging me deeper into a fog.
My hand skims the wall, the picture frames with blinks of Joe’s smile, and sweat forms on my forehead. Desperate to hold myself upright as my pulse roars in my ears, I pray Liam won’t hear or see me like this.
The bathroom door creaks as I shove inside and quietly close it with shaking fingers.
The lock doesn’t work. Shit. I twist the bathtub faucet on, and the rush of water swallows the sound of my contained sobs.
Stripping the sweatshirt off, I almost drop to my knees.
I tear through the counter drawers, frantic, scattering useless bottles and combs, searching for — God, anything.
My vision blurs, I need release, need the storm inside me to bleed out before it eats me alive. My fingers finally close on something cold, small, sharp. I steady myself and slide one leg after the other into the bathtub, letting my body envelop in the warm, soothing water.
For a second, it feels like this could be enough to soothe me, but it isn’t. It never is enough. The panic roars again, and my ears ring with my mother’s screams when she found out my brother had died, Joe kissing me, the newspaper with his motorcycle engulfed in flames.
I need it to stop. Please, stop.
I press the blade to my arm, my breath catching, tears streaming hot down my face and my body tingles from the release, dizzying me. It is the only thing that has helped, and no one knows, not even Joe. How can I ever explain…
The first cut splits through my skin, and relief slams into me like a tide, terrible, shameful, but immediate.
The cries stuck in my chest break free, as crimson wells up in the water.
My pain, my blood in the water and there is something horribly messed up yet equally addictive that makes me feel alive, that makes me want to fight.
Fight for me, fight for this woman inside who desperately wants to escape the hurt but doesn’t know how.
I know that one day I will be the version the old me runs to for protection but today is not that day.
As the voices dissipate, and I feel my breath calming in the steam filling the bathroom, fogging the mirror, I freeze at the sound of his voice.
“Sara.”
My head snaps up, and my heart stops. He is in the doorway, shadows stretching long across the tiles.
No knock. No warning. Just Liam, filling the room with too much presence, his icy blue eyes locking on me in the tub, and I feel mortified, then his eyes on the razor and on the streak of red dissolving in the water.
I stay frozen, unable to form a single sound, staring at him and waiting for a reaction.
I imagine disgust and hate in his eyes as I’ve gotten used to. Disappointment, shock, something! But none of these come. He is a reflection in a house of mirrors, looking back at me, unmoved and stoic. The blade slips from my hand, clattering against porcelain before sinking out of sight.
My arms fold across myself, but there’s nowhere to hide. I’m dreading each step closer as he pulls up his sleeve and fishes out the blade, setting it on the counter, giving me a glimpse of his eyes that have darkened and his jaw clenches.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Anger fills his voice, and… His eyes sear into the line across my arm, his thumb brushing the blood. “You think this makes it stop? You think bleeding out brings him back?”
Tears blur everything, and I ache all over, trying so hard to hold on to the last strings of dignity I have left, but everything slips away from me like water between my fingers.
I shake my head, choking. “I just—I can’t—I don’t know how else—”
“Jesus Christ.” Tightening his grip, his gaze flicks down my body, then jerks away, a muscle in his jaw spasming with all the hate and disgust that finally hits him. He shuts off the water, his eyes burning down at me.
My voice cracks. “The cuts will not kill me, Liam. It’s just like breathing. Breathing out the pain that’s been eating me alive. I don’t know how else to make it stop. I’m sorry.” I don’t even know why I’m apologizing.
Something in his face shifts, like I’ve split open a seam he doesn’t want touched. When he finally speaks, the words are nothing like I expect.
“What do you need?” My eyes snap to his, wide, stunned.
“What?” I ask, but he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink, looks at me with… empathy?
“Tell me what you need,” he asks, louder but caring. My voice trembles, and I don’t know what to ask for.
“I d-don’t know…”
And then he doesn’t hesitate. Fully dressed in his white shirt and grey sweatpants, Liam steps behind me and lowers himself to sit in the bath with me.
“The water—” I choke. “It’s bloody—” His strong arms wrap around me, hauling me against his chest, and the relief shocks me to my core.
I curl my whole body in on itself; he’s not even the one I need holding from, but there’s a point in life when any arms that could anchor around you would feel like a million words you need to hear to keep you from sinking.
He cups my face and pulls me close to his neck. “Don’t worry. It’s not the first blood on my hands.” His words, almost a whisper, electrifies the air we share.
Although it should scare me, they don’t.
I want to hide in him. I want to hide from the world and let someone carry and take this ache from me, even if it’s for a minute, even if it’s from someone who hates me.
In this moment, it isn’t Sara and Liam who want to hurt each other; in this moment, we are two humans offering relief.
His hold is unbreakable, nurturing, and I didn’t know how much I needed it until I’m folded into his armor.
His lips brush my hair, his voice low. “Fuck, don’t do this yourself.”
My heart cracks wide on every ounce of grief I’ve buried, every wound I’ve hidden, and my tears spill hot.