Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
KANE
The lights are on in the mansion as I pull up beside Cash’s Dodge Viper. The sun has barely set, spilling hues of deep orange and yellow through the branches of a nearby cluster of pine trees.
I turn off the engine, and the headlights go dark. I should go inside, but I don’t want to yet. I don’t want my brother to see me like this.
Usually, he’s the one who spirals, not me. I’m the strong one between us. Why? Because he needs me. Our mom needs me. Other people—people I love—depend on me to stay strong so they can fall apart.
If I break, who will be there for them? Who will keep them from fading away? But I’m not endlessly strong and this shit is tearing me up inside. What the hell is going on with me?
I used to be cold and unfeeling. I never fell apart, never cracked, never felt an ounce of remorse or guilt. But now, that’s all I feel.
I’m failing everyone.
I grit my teeth and bang my head against the headrest. It’s all too much. I can’t do this anymore.
If Jessica—no, when Jessica finds out, she’ll want nothing to do with me and she’ll leave.
Tears threaten to fall, and I squeeze my eyes shut to keep them at bay. The pain is hard to describe. It’s a deep, dull ache that presses against my ribs like a condemned man desperate to break free.
Nothing can move the reinforced steel.
Not even hope.
The only way out is up, through a narrow throat, past the thick lump that won’t go away. Ever felt it? That swelling ache? That throb?
It claws its way up as it tries to escape.
“Harder, Ravencourt. God, yes. Fuck me, puppy.”
That hollow ache floods me, and tears slip past my shut lids before trailing slow tracks down my cheeks. I swipe at them with trembling hands, but more fall.
A curse slips out, and I press the heels of my palms into my eyeballs. No, no, no. Hold it together. Goddamn it. Stop crying!
I’m strong.
I’m strong.
I’m strong.
What a fucking lie. I’m weak.
Disgusting.
Broken.
I cave in on myself and a guttural sound rips from somewhere deep within. There’s nowhere for the pain to go and nowhere for it to escape as it gnaws its way out like a parasite.
A scream tears its way out of me, but I barely hear it over the thunderous roar in my ears.
My knuckles crack against the steering wheel as I lash out, and pain splinters up my arm. The impact jars my bones, but it’s not enough, not even close.
It never is.
I brace my hands on the wheel and press with all my might as jagged breaths saw through my teeth. I push as hard as I fucking can, and my arms begin to shake as the leather creaks beneath my palms.
Violence simmers beneath my skin with every sharp exhale, every frustrated grunt, and every heavy heartbeat.
I let go, only to slam my fist into it again and again until my knuckles split open and my vision blurs with furious tears.
I want to die!
The thought snaps me out of it like a sudden lurch in rough water.
What the hell?
I frantically wipe my cheeks dry and gulp down breaths, as if I’m fighting to stay afloat, limbs flailing in roiling seas. This is not me. I don’t drown. I swim. I survive.
“Get your shit together,” I whisper to myself before taking a few deep breaths, only for the cloying stench of lilies to coat the back of my tongue.
Beverly glides her hand up my chest and digs her sharp nails into my skin. She gags as she struggles to swallow me down, and my head swims.
Once she had shut and locked the door, she held her hand out with a coy smile. Two small pills rested on her palm (one to make me hard and one to take the edge off). I swallowed them down with the champagne she offered, hoping it would take me far, far away from her and her repulsive touch.
The high ceiling comes back into focus. Her head is a bobbing blur as she chokes again, and I hiss because of the aching throb in my cock.
Those pills make me hard, sure, but there’s so much blood pumping to my erection that it’s like a steel rod.
Even in my drugged-up haze, I can feel the pressure.
My dick slips from her lips with a wet plop before she slides her warm tongue up my happy trail and then higher, across my ribs, pausing to lick a nipple.
Her demanding mouth comes down on mine, wet and possessive.
Beverly tries to kiss me, shoving her tongue past my lips.
I pull away, but she digs her sharp claws into my scruff.
“Kiss me, Kane.”
Her breath hits first… alcohol, champagne, debauchery.
Her nipples rub against my bare chest like swarming ants while she strokes her hand over my painfully engorged length and over the purple veins.
She presses her tongue into my mouth again, but I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it. The walls around us list like a ship taking on water, and I plunge into the churning waves below.
Jessica.
Jessica.
Forgive me.
A mix of cinnamon and cardamom hits me as I enter the house. The usual quiet has been replaced by the clatter of pans and Bette Midler’s raspy voice. I stop dead in my tracks as the notes of ‘The Rose’ continue playing.
It’s Mom’s favorite. She’s singing it now, her voice gripping my heart like a fist.
I clench my jaw, struggling to maintain my composure as I slowly walk toward the kitchen. Mom used to sing this song all the time when we were kids. She’d light up when she saw me.
“Dance with me, Kane,” she’d say, and take my small hand in hers. I still remember how it felt to have my fingers in her soft grip as she spun me around.
When I was ten, I was much shorter, and her joyful laugh filled the kitchen as she bent down to my level and turned in a circle under my hand when it was her turn. Now, this song brings me both happiness and dread.
Joy, because for three minutes and forty-one seconds, the piano notes take me back to those gentle moments.
Dread, because the high always comes before the fall. The higher she climbs, the harder she crashes.
Most people would think it’s a good thing when Mom emerges from her room, smiling and energized, like an excited child on Christmas morning, but I’ve seen this before.
It’s the still air before a tornado hits.
It sweeps through the house, loud and unstoppable, tearing doors off hinges, rearranging everything in its path.
It makes promises it can’t keep and dangles hope like a carrot just out of reach.
And then it’s gone, as if it was never there, and we’re left walking through the debris.
The last time clouds moved before her sun, she was hospitalized for a week after overdosing on sleeping pills.
My heart aches when she comes into view. Buttercream icing in her hair. Flour on her cheek. More on her apron. The spatula has become a microphone. I love the lightness of her step.
In her mind, she’s a young girl singing in front of a mirror. In her mind, the demons have been banished.
I lean against the doorframe and take in the sight of her radiant smile as she sings of a soul afraid of dying because it never learned to live.
The tears come back, but I don’t wipe them away this time.
I welcome this ache that twists deeper like a knife.
Without it, without the serrated blade lodged between my ribs, I’d never see the sun shine on Mom again, and I want the sun.
I want days by the lake.
Dancing in the kitchen.
Cinnamon and sugar, and messy countertops.
I want our mom back.
As I reach up to wipe away a tear with my thumb, she notices me and her smile widens.
That sun? It shines brighter.
“Come here, Kane.” She waves me over as I push off the doorframe, while she wipes her hands on her apron. The song ends, so she switches it back on. It’ll play all night, maybe even days, until the storm gathers on the horizon and she retreats inside herself and shuts the blinds.
“I’m so glad you’re home, sweetheart. I baked cinnamon buns after I found this Swedish recipe in some random cookbook in the pantry. Or was it Danish? Doesn’t matter. You need to try—”
When she turns and sees my hand outstretched, a quiet tenderness settles in her eyes as she slips her hand into mine.
Her palm feels warm like sunlight streaming through curtains.
I close my fingers around hers, pulling her into me, reminiscing about easier times as I twirl her under my arm.
Laughter plays on her lips as I draw her closer.
We dance around the kitchen, leaving footprints in the spilled flour, and for a moment, I’m that happy little boy again.
As the final note bleeds out, I notice movement by the fridge.
Leaning against the magnets and drawings we made as kids, Cash watches us. A flicker of unguarded hope crosses his eyes, a fragile hope that will soon be crushed when reality crashes down. The painful truth is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t protect the people I love. I can’t protect anyone.
I press a kiss to Mom’s head and breathe in her scent. Warmth. Love. Cinnamon buns.
Cash says my name as I let Mom go and rush past him.
He even reaches for me, but I dash upstairs to my room and lock the door before tearing off my clothes as if they’re on fire.
Centipedes crawl beneath my skin as I turn the shower to its hottest setting.
I need to wash off the scent of lilies and sex.
I need to claw at my skin and peel it away, too.
Fire scorches my skin as I step under the shower.
Still, it’s not hot enough.
I scrape my skin, dragging my nails over it repeatedly, until the water turns pink.
It’s still not enough.
I can’t get her off me.
My nails claw at the same patch of raw flesh, over the torn tissue, and I can’t stop. I need it gone.
Collapsing to the floor, I rest my head against the tiled wall and let the shower spray hit my face like darts.
My fingers tug at my hair as I bang the back of my skull against the wall. I don’t know how to make this pain stop.
Mom’s tornado is tearing through the house, and I’ve barricaded myself against the storm. I need to be stronger than this.
A sharp rap of knuckles on wood pulls me out of my spiral.
“Kane?”
It’s Cash.
He knocks again.
“Talk to me.”
He tests the door, but it’s locked. The handle rattles. Another sharp knock. Pain threads through every word when he continues, “I saw your eyes, Kane. You’re hurting. Talk to me.”
I wish I could let him in, but I’m not ready to face myself yet, let alone anyone else. There’s a reason I ghost Jessica for days after a session with the senator’s wife.
Maybe my brother finds comfort in meaningless sex, which seems to work for him, but I channel the pain in other ways. I prefer to be alone. I like to smash up my room or beat up a brick wall.
Whatever fucks me up the most.
I don’t know how long he tries to coax me out, but he eventually gives up, and a hush settles beneath the spray as water slicks my hair to my forehead. It drums against my skin, muting everything but my thoughts until the churning storm inside my chest finally loosens its grip.
And just like my mother’s tornado, it coils skyward, a dark rope pulled back into the heavens.