A Sociopath’s Rules for Living
A SOCIOPATH’S RULES FOR LIVING
Flynn
The silence is sudden as I stop under a tree in the parking lot and cut off my bike engine.
Graveyards are always like that, no one ever seems to visit at the same time. It’s just you, the quiet, and a load of dead people buried under the ground.
I used to like cutting through the cemetery on my way home from school. I’d sit against one of the headstones with my sketchpad or camera and watch the people as they came to visit their loved ones.
I got obsessive and admittedly a little morbid about it, drawing people in their grief. Like if only I could capture every detail, then I could figure out how to feel that emotion for myself.
I didn’t cry when Hope died but I felt it. The pressure in my head built worse than it had ever been before and it didn’t go away until I choked the life out of the first man in that video.
Are you going to visit me or what, Flynny?
“Yeah, yeah.” I kick the stand down and climb off my bike. The roses I bought are squished a little from being in the top box, but I take them anyway.
Hope’s grave is in the far corner of the churchyard, under a willow tree. I haven’t visited since I got arrested but Lachlan must have been coming by because the grass around the modest headstone is neatly trimmed.
I crouch down and lay the flowers against the mottled gray stone.
“Sorry I haven’t visited in a while,” I say, “I got myself arrested. Turns out Dad was right.” I laugh. “Fucker always had to be right.”
In a lot of ways Hope was the complete opposite of me. Sunshine to my lightning. Calm to my chaos. But we both had a complicated relationship with our father. It’s probably why we were so close. Trauma bonding and all that.
Technically Hope is my half-sister. Her issues with dear old dad stemmed from the fact he left her mother when she was six to marry mine and Lachlan’s.
Mine stem from the fact I overheard him telling my mother I was a freak of nature that belonged behind bars, which you know, frankly, is just rude.
In his defense, I was seven and had just tried to strangle my cousin.
I didn’t see what the problem was because I let go way before any damage would have been caused, but apparently that didn’t make it any better.
Hope wasn’t mad at me when I told her about the strangling incident, she just went up to her bedroom and got one of her notebooks. I watched her use a shimmery blue gel pen to write Flynn’s rules for living on the front of the book and then together we started filling it out.
Rule #1: No hurting good people because Hope likes them and they’ve done nothing wrong.
I was okay with the rule because I didn’t really have any desire to hurt my cousin in the first place. I just wanted to do it because I knew I shouldn’t.
Maybe that’s why I’m so hooked on Hazel, because she is exactly the type of girl I shouldn’t be anywhere near.
I’ve been living off the memory of her falling apart in my arms. The way her lips parted as her climax arched through her.
The heady, glazed look in her eyes as I played with her pleasure like it was mine and mine alone.
She was so soft in my arms after, her hands still clinging around my neck.
It was the most alive I’ve ever felt and I want more.
“I met someone,” I tell Hope, crouched in front of her grave. I imagine us sitting on the couch, a grin on her face and her braids whipping as she spins to face me.
Tell me everything. Is she pretty? What’s she called? You can’t stalk her, Flynny. You have to actually ask her out.
I sit back against the willow tree, the slightly damp grass seeping into my jeans. “Lach thinks I’m going to get her hurt.”
Lach’s a worry-wort. What do you think?
“I think I’d cut off my own hands before I hurt her.”
Gross but also cute.
“She makes the world go quiet.”
I close my eyes and Hope is right there, fingers twisting the end of her dark brown braid as she tilts her head and looks at me like only she could. Like she understood my mind. It’s not against the rules for you to fall in love, Flynn.
No, but maybe it should be because I’m not exactly Prince Charming material.
As if to prove my point, my phone pings with an alert telling me Hazel’s leaving her house.
I open the exterior cameras just to check she gets into her car alright, but my brow creases when I see what she’s wearing.
Flynn
Coat, Hazel. It’s 35 degrees out.
I watch her as she stops on the porch and reads the message. She looks up from her phone, a tornado in her eyes as she spins to face the house. There’s no way she can see the camera, but she finds the angle with surprising accuracy as she holds up her middle finger and scowls at me.
I chuckle but then she turns back around without getting her damn coat and my humor drains away.
Flynn
One more step without a coat, Lilac, and I’ll come over there and put it on you myself.
She goes still and I watch her debate whether or not to read the text I just sent. The satisfaction I get when she caves and looks at her phone hums through me.
She disappears inside the house, and I mourn the loss of her until my phone buzzes.
Lilac
You said you’d turn the cameras off.
Flynn
And I did, but the outside one stays on.
I may be willing to adapt to make Hazel happy but I’m not risking her safety, not even for her.
Lilac
You’re insane and ridiculous and impossible.
Flynn
You’re beautiful and smart and devastating.
Three words are not enough to describe her. Can’t possibly capture the softness in her gaze when she looks at me, the vibrant life in her eyes, and how even her anger is adorable. They’ll have to do for now though.
She comes back outside, this time bundled up in a light purple puffer jacket. She’s so small she’s more coat than person and I can’t help the curve to my lips.
Lilac
Happy?
Flynn
More than you know.
Pretty sure cameras count as stalking, Flynny.
“Shh you,” I say to Hope’s grave. Besides, it’s not stalking if I’m doing it to keep her safe and clearly she needs someone to look out for her. Going outside without a coat in this weather is a recipe for hypothermia.
I watch Hazel until she gets into the old Buick she drives, making a mental note to get the car looked at because it’s honestly a miracle that thing still starts. Once she’s pulled out of the drive, I tuck my phone away and stand up.
I press three fingers to the top of Hope’s gravestone and close my eyes. Depending on how things go down this might be the last time I get to visit her here.
“See you later, alligator,” I murmur.
In a while crocodile.
The graveyard is still empty as I make my way back to my bike and the roads stay quiet through the suburbs.
I’m pretty sure the place I’m heading isn’t even on the police’s radar but I park a few streets down just in case and walk the rest of the way.
The doorbell rings under my gloved finger and then a middle-aged woman with eyes just like Hope’s opens the door.
“Carly,” I say.
She gasps and tugs me inside, pulling me into a hug. Normally, I avoid physical contact because I never know what to do when people hug me, but I will always let Carly hold me for as long as she likes.
“What are you doing here?” she asks when she finally pulls back. She wipes her cheek and fixes her loose ponytail. “I tried calling the number you gave me, but it didn’t work.”
It’s warm in the house and I take off my jacket, hanging it on one of the hooks by the door. “It’s not been activated yet.”
I look around the small hallway, my gaze lingering on the photos of Hope. Right at the bottom of the stairs there’s one of me and her, wrestling on the couch. I’m about nine in that photo, which makes Hope fifteen.
Behind me, Carly fidgets with the cuffs of her checked shirt. “Something went wrong.”
I turn to face her. “Not exactly.” The lines around Carly’s eyes crease and I let myself relax into being here.
Hope’s house was my safe haven growing up.
Carly worked long hours as a nurse so Hope would spend most of the vacations with us but during the school year I’d come here after class pretty much every day.
Partly to see Hope and partly to avoid my father.
Carly became like a second mother to me.
“I just came from the cemetery,” I tell her.
Sadness pools in her eyes but she reaches out and squeezes my fingers. “Come on, I’ll make us coffee.”
We walk through the living room to the kitchen. Carly switches off the TV on the way through, but not before I see my mug shot plastered on the news. Her gaze darts back to mine. “They’re looking for you everywhere.”
“Have the police been here?”
She shakes her head, a few strands of her mousy brown hair falling loose.
“Good.” Hope took her mom’s surname. That, along with the fact that she died five years ago, seems to have so far kept the police from making the connection between us.
I follow Carly over to the kitchen and take a seat at the small round dining table.
It always feels weird being here without Hope. She would sit in the seat to my right and Carly would take the one opposite. Everything about this house reminds me of my sister, right down to the artwork still stuck to the refrigerator.
Carly catches me looking at the drawings and puts on a face that I’m pretty sure is supposed to be nonchalant. “Have you taken any photos lately?”
I give her a look right back. “No.” Technically, I’ve taken plenty of photos, but I’m pretty sure surveillance shots aren’t what Carly means.
She finishes brewing the coffee. “Hope’s gallery is holding a memorial showing in her honor next month.”
“That’s nice,” I say, because life has taught me that’s what you’re supposed to say.
“It was Sarah’s idea.”
Sarah was Hope’s best friend. The two of them opened the gallery together after finishing college. Hope was the one who encouraged me to study art. The one who gave me my first exhibition.
I’m pretty sure Sarah took all my photos down after I was arrested, not because it was bad for business but because people were fighting to buy them. The world is full of people who get a thrill out of owning art by a murderer but apparently, I’m the fucked up one. Make it make sense.
Carly sits down and takes a sip of her coffee. “You’re not just here to visit, are you? You were supposed to be gone by now but you’re still here, which means something went wrong.”
I curl my hand around the mug, holding on even when it starts to burn. “There was another person there that night. Behind the camera.”
Carly’s throat bobs. She stares at the wooden kitchen cupboards, her gaze drifting to the pencil marks on the wall where she used to measure Hope’s height. Her fingers dig into her arm. “Who?”
I shake my head. “No names, remember?”
Carly drags in a breath. She rests her elbows on the table and buries her face in her hands. “She wouldn’t want you doing this. She wouldn’t want you killing for her.”
“And what do you want?”
Carly’s stony gaze drills into me from between her fingers. “I want you to end the fuckers who dared hurt my baby.”
That makes two of us then. Three if you include Lachlan.
“I need Hope’s diary,” I say, and Carly’s face crumbles.
“She didn’t like anyone looking at that.”
I know she didn’t and Hope’s privacy is one of the few boundaries I ever cared to respect but so far, neither Lachlan nor I have found anything on Claren.
Hope had to have come onto his radar at some point and if she knew him at college then maybe there’s some clue in her diary as to who he hung out with, where he spent his time. All I need is a starting point, somewhere to dig for the dirt that is undoubtedly hiding under Claren’s shiny surface.
Carly looks up to the ceiling then shakes her head. “I’ll go get it.”
I wait downstairs, taking a look around while she’s gone. The place is tidy but there are too many empty wine bottles by the trashcan and the living room curtains are still drawn.
Carly never remarried after my father left her. Her daughter was all she had. We should have realized something was wrong sooner but Hope hid everything so well, even from me.
It’s taking too long for Carly to grab the diary, so I go upstairs. I find her sitting on Hope’s bed, the rose patterned comforter crushed under her weight. She wipes her face when she sees me and runs her hand over the drawings decorating Hope’s diary.
The walls are covered in her art too. Sketches of her favorite characters, posters of Andy Warhol’s pop art, bookshelves stacked with Anime.
I can see her sitting on her bed, peering over my shoulder as I draw in one of her sketchpads.
“Woah, Flynny. That’s good.”
“It is?”
“No, like seriously, that’s insanely good.”
Drawing and photography became my refuge.
Something I could narrow my focus on when the pressure became too much and all I wanted to do was break and burn.
I owe Hope a lot. She understood me in a way no one else did and in return I failed her.
I didn’t see that she was breaking until it was too late.
Carly blinks away her tears and stands up. She holds the diary out to me, settling her hand on mine when I go to take it. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Flynn. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’ll get Lachlan to tell you when it’s done.”
Her eyes crease, a sad smile on her lips. “That’s not a promise.” Carly cups my cheek, running her thumb over my cheek bone before letting her hand fall and brushing past me out into the hall.
I take a look around Hope’s room, a memory caught in time. Her desk is still cluttered with paints and school notebooks. A lilac bottle of nail polish sits on the edge of her bookshelf. It’s the same shade as Hazel’s phone case and I pocket it before leaving the room.
After saying goodbye to Carly, I walk back over to where I parked my bike.
My phone pings, letting me know Hazel’s on the move again. I frown because according to her schedule, she should be at work for another five hours. Pulling up the tracking app I installed on her phone, I lean against my bike as I watch the little green dot leave the dispatch center.
“What are you up to, Lilac?” I mutter. The dot continues moving and I keep half an eye on it as I tuck Hope’s diary safely away in the top box. I’ll read through the diary later. Right now, I have some stalking to do.