Chapter 1 #2
I realized that I didn’t need therapy to tell me that I’m forever damaged from watching people I loved being carted off as corpses; one of the faint evocations I do remember.
And I definitely don’t need to be told to go back to the place that is riddled with death just to recall something I’m probably better off not knowing.
Besides, I think I’m doing fine thanks to my discrete thieving; purloining a few of my dad’s anxiety pills over the years.
I don’t take much, maybe a few a week. In fact, I have three of them stuffed in my pocket right now.
I only take them when the few memories that I have of that night start to overwhelm me.
I know that I’ll need them more than ever this weekend, regardless of what I decide to do.
I reach for my car cover and start to unfold it, attempting to put my mind somewhere else for a second.
Part of the reason why I started to work on this car was for this exact reason.
And even though I’ve done as much as I can do on it, I still come out to the shop to admire what I’ve done to the Bronco.
I can feel his presence when I’m here; Declan.
And the memory of him doesn’t hit me in a crippling way when I work on the car.
Not like it does other times. There’s a joy I feel when I’m in this garage so I come here to find solace. And I know he’d be proud of me.
And even in the midst of imagining him proud and happy and smiling at me as I reveal the final version of the Bronco restoration to him, I still get those sour feelings of knowing that he’s gone and I can’t remember why.
Declan Winters. The celebrated quarterback of the Marauders’ football team.
And my big brother.
Who would have known that the weekend he helped plan four years ago would be the one that took his life?
For years, I’ve accepted the fact that my brain has been protecting me from something I probably wouldn’t be able to handle otherwise.
Maybe even a truth I don’t want to uncover.
I barely even remember having to sit through the few interviews with police officers and detectives as it is.
But what I can remember, clear as day, is being forced to relive the horror of the night over and over again for weeks after as I tried to recall any details from that weekend.
All I can remember are the very few remnants that still haunt me.
The unmistakable mark of death. The sight of blood, the feeling of pain, and the sound of cries—whose, I don’t know.
But it’s the essence of that night that plagues me, everything else is a disturbing void.
I close my eyes and try to squeeze the faded memory from my brain, but it's sewn into the edges, like it's the very thing that is keeping me together when really, it's swallowing me whole. Trapping me with no hope of escape all while keeping the other dark truths at bay.
"You know,” my father speaks up and pulls me from my thoughts, “that flyer is just the college boys being . . . well, boys, right? Don't pay any attention to it," he says to me as he walks over to help me lift the cover over my Bronco.
I take a deep breath, focusing on getting it secure. Once that's done, I turn to my dad whose eyes are trying to find a way to reassure me, but it's not his reassurance I want. It's his acceptance that he's got to let me go.
Whether he likes it or not, I am leaving this town behind the moment I get this car finished.
And I think he’s trying everything he can to keep me here as long as possible.
But forcing me into the town's imprint in the form of a tradition is not going to stop me from getting the hell out of Indigo Pines.
"It's the principle, Dad,” I respond. “The person responsible for that night was never caught. To this day, you still don't have a single clue as to who it could have been.” I let myself live in that thought for a moment. “Not a damn lead,” I add.
The funerals came and went of those who died on the mountain that night, and there was no break in their cases.
No evidence. No clues. So to this day, the families of the ones we lost have had no closure, yet here we are still celebrating this weekend like it’s meant to be a chance to be closer to them. To celebrate their short-lived lives.
My father takes a step forward, only one hand on his belt this time. "I know you might be nervous or scared but if you do decide to go, you might be able to come to terms with-”
"I'm not leaving this town in a body bag, Dad. Not like Deck.”
Shit. I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Even though they came in a calm tone, they were still distasteful at the least.
He dips his head in a display of frustration. I can tell I’m not making this easy for him but at the same time, it’s not easy for me either.
“How come no one talks about it? How come the whole town acts like that weekend never really happened? How come no one will just tell me what happened?” I ask as I lean against the covered car with my arms crossed at my chest.
“It’s not that we don’t want to tell you what happened, Liv.
It’s that no one knows what happened. No one saw anything and there were no leads as you said.
No one knows how to explain that night to anyone, whether they remember it or not.
Someone killed four innocent teens and not a single person offered up any piece of information. There really is nothing to tell.”
“Well, why me?” I ask, trying not to sound as broken as I realize I am; asking an impossible question that I know he doesn’t have the answer to.
I knew it would hit me a lot harder the closer the weekend got, and it’s clear in my voice and the way my body seems to shake when I try to pull the memories from the locked up corner of my brain.
“Why am I the only one who can’t seem to remember anything from that night? ”
“I know it's hard-”
“Hard? What’s hard is knowing that you miss someone, knowing that they're dead and that something happened to them. Knowing that someone murdered them but not knowing why. Not knowing who. What’s hard is grieving someone without any recollection of the night they died all while the town moves on to partake in some shitty celebration like nothing happened. ”
Defeat covers my father's features, and it breaks my heart. I don’t mean to come off insensitive to his own experience of Declan’s death, but just because I don’t remember doesn’t mean it doesn’t haunt me.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse to not remember.
But right now it feels as if my brain is also battling with whether or not it’s safe to set those memories free.
“It’s not to dismiss their deaths, Liv. Some things continue even after tragedy strikes.
You don't have to go. I’m not trying to pressure you one way or the other.
But if you do want to go, that’s okay too.
I do think it might do you some good. Sometimes we don't know how to swallow our own grief before it swallows us. And the last thing I’d want for you is to leave this town with that unresolved grief. That's all I'm trying to say."
He’s trying, but I can tell he doesn't even know how to navigate his own pain, let alone mine.
We both lost someone we loved that night.
But unlike me, he's had to get over it a lot quicker than I have, knowing that his job wouldn't allow him the grace of mourning forever.
He signed up for the role he was given; being the sheriff of this small town.
He's had to forgive an unseen killer and turn to medication in order to move on for the sake of the people in this town, for his own sanity, and for me.
But at least he had a choice to move on. I’m stuck in this limbo of grieving a loss that I can’t even remember losing, thus forced to just move on. But part of me can’t, I don’t want to. Which is probably another reason why my mind is on the precipice of a conflicting battle.
To go or not to go.
I can’t deny it though; there’s a fascination in the idea of going up to the Pines this weekend.
I won’t admit it to my father or to anyone else that I secretly do want to go.
I can’t even be too sure myself why the idea is calling to me like a siren in the sea; the Pines quite literally beckoning me with the haunted curl of her finger.
Talk about magnetized captivity. But maybe it’s a sign.
Maybe it’s why my asinine brain is urging me to follow everyone up tomorrow night.
Maybe I’m ready to face the reality of what has been keeping that night hidden from me for the past four years.
Maybe it’s because I’m finally ready to remember, to relive that horror and the fear.
I can feel it this year, the beginning of the end.
And maybe I can be the one to truly end it all.
Maybe I know something the others don’t know.
Maybe I can lead them to the person or responsible.
But what if the truth is darker than I can handle? Then again, I have to trust that if there was anyone else who might know what happened that weekend, that they’d come forward. So then why has it been four years and radio silence; a killer still at large.
My dad’s dispatcher walkie goes off but he ignores it by turning the volume knob down a notch before taking another step closer to me.
"That morning, Deck came zooming down to the house from the college.
He was so excited to go to the Pines that weekend.
He was proud of the work that he and the team had done and he wanted to make the best of it.
Back then, you had to get a physical invitation selected by the football team, remember that?
" My dad attempts a warming smile while recalling that morning, but I can't do anything but let the anguish that I've held onto hover over me like a storm cloud at the old memory he's bringing up; one that I do remember seeing as it happened before my decided blackout.
I nod my head. "Yeah, I remember."
I remember it like it was yesterday, oddly enough.
"At first, he was confused as to why you also had gotten an invite, though it wasn’t rare for high schoolers to get an invite based on who they knew from MCU.
Regardless, I told him he had to be the one to drive you up there and he didn't even hesitate to agree.
Though, you almost declined the invitation.
It took you a minute, but after thinking it through, you changed your mind because you said-"
"That I wanted to spend my last weekend with him before I left for school." I let my words fall in a ripple of sorrow, recalling the only reason why I agreed to go up that weekend.
The whole situation is tragically sardonic, really.
I was supposed to be moving out of state with my best friend the following weekend.
She was simply fleeing the clutches of this small town and I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity to tag along.
When she asked me, I said yes. We didn't have it all figured out, but we had the deposit down on the apartment and that was enough to push us onward.
All we had to do was wait it out another week and then we were gone.
It was going to be my last weekend with him.
On my terms.
By my choice.
But he's the one who ended up leaving me.
That night changed me forever and I don't know if I'll ever be the same because of it. Nothing will. And I can’t even remember my last moments with him. Not my true last moments anyway. I can recall nearly everything up until Halloween night.
I shake my head, hating the feeling like I was there in that moment, but knowing everything else after feels like a fever dream. A nightmare.
I walk toward the doors of the auto shop and start turning all the locks.
"Help me close shop? Riff will kill me if I don't get to the bar soon.
" I decide to leave the conversation where my father left it, opting to change the subject so as not to dampen the mood any further.
Or not to bring up any more unwanted thoughts than I can handle in one day.
He looks hopeless, but he accepts that I need to focus on something else and decides to help me anyway.
I flip the last set of switches and check all the drawers to make sure the tools are locked away safely. Before I can find my way to exit out the door, my dad stops me with a hand on the back of my shoulder.
"I love you, kiddo. You know that, right?" His quiet voice echoes from behind me and I can't convince myself to turn and face him.
When Deck was around, it was like all of the light in the world couldn't be dimmed by anything.
Even after Mom had passed. We had spent every second of every day with her, loving her and sharing memories with her until the vile disease that riddled her body took her away.
But even after it all, we still held on to each other. Me, Dad, and Declan.
But when Deck died, that all stopped. And then, there was nothing but absolute darkness.
Darkness that drowned me even deeper than I already was.
The light was stolen from us, and it's been impossible to turn it back on since. Sometimes it feels like Deck was the only one who understood me, saw me for me. He was the closest thing I had to home. I had my best friend, but even she and I didn’t always see eye to eye on everything.
And I love my parents, of course, but my big brother never treated me like fragile China.
He never doubted me, always encouraged me.
And he gave me as good as he got from me, never failing to stand up to me or for me.
He truly was one of my closest allies and the one I wish I could trade fates with.
He had dreams and a future ahead of him.
Something I can’t say I had any inclination of myself.
But he had it all, and now he’s nothing but ash.
Guilt washes over me. Is it really a good idea to leave my dad in this insufferable town all alone?
First Mom. Then Deck. Now me.
Am I doing the right thing by wanting to leave? But why would I stay when I can’t even remember the reason I belong here. Without my brother, I really have nothing left.
I close my eyes, let out a soft sigh and whisper, "I know dad, I love you too."
And then, I walk away.