Chapter 5 Mackenzie #2
Glowing electric-blue eyes, the color of the Caribbean sea inches closer to me. A large figure in the dark hovers over me. There’s a faint scent that brushes my senses—something floral and powdery. Poppies, I think distantly. It’s warm and heavy, and it smells of a dream or maybe a memory.
My heart thunders in my chest as something sharp scrapes my collarbone, ripping deep into my skin, but I can’t move—I can’t even scream through the searing pain.
“Just one little taste, I want to know why he finds you so special.” Its voice whispers like rolling thunder.
‘No!’ I want to scream. ‘No! You're hurting me!’ But my voice never manifests.
“The pain is only but for a moment, relax.” My body goes limp at the command. Something warm and wet laps at my neck—the fucking thing is licking me, moaning a filthy sound that makes my pussy clench. “What are you, mortal?” it growls, a warm breath against my ear. “You taste divine."
Even if I wanted to answer the question, I couldn’t—it feels like the grips of sleep paralysis have taken hold of me. Gavin doesn’t stir next to me, which leaves me at the beast's mercy.
It licks me again, before sharp teeth that almost feel like fangs crunch into my breast, its warm mouth sucking in greedy pulls of my blood. Is this how I fucking die?
The beast pulls away with a growl. “No, this can’t be,” he whispers, a painful shock that I swear I can almost feel as if the emotions were my own. “Sleep, forget all you have heard this night.”
No matter how hard I try, no matter the questions that bloom in my head, I can’t fight the command—my eyes flutter shut.
Home is where the heart is, but in my case, it’s where all my heartache lies.
I’m barely through the front door before the familiar weight settles on my chest—heavy, suffocating.
The kind that makes me wish I’d never agreed to come home this weekend at all.
Campus is unsettling after everything that has happened, but at least the noise there has a pulse.
At home, everything feels…still. Like grief wallpapered over in suburban beige.
It’s so funny how time can change things.
Our house is nothing fancy, but it’s a lot more than some have—my parents bought it when they were newly married, just after my father enlisted but before he left for his first tour.
In that time, they had Cadence—and when he came home, three became four, then five.
We moved around at times, but Jersey has always been home.
They were living the American dream. White picket fence, two-point-five kids, a backyard for barbecues and laughter. I can’t remember the last time we were that happy.
“Mamá?” I whisper, dropping my duffel bag and two stuffed bags of groceries next to the couch before shutting the front door with a kick.
She doesn’t answer—her eyes are glossed over with that usual far-off look induced by booze and antidepressants. The sour-sweet scent of white wine evaporates from half-drunk glasses decorating the living room.
She’s in my father’s recliner, exactly where I knew she’d be, exactly where I left her the last time. Legs curled underneath her, silk robe slipping off one shoulder as a freshly opened bottle of Pinot Grigio sweats just beside her.
“Hi,” I say softly again as I move closer.
She turns her head slowly, as if it weighs too much to carry.
“Kenzie…mi amor,” she murmurs, smiling, but it’s far from the one I used to know.
My mother is beautiful—not even matted hair and dark undereyes could steal that fact.
But when my father passed, she just wasn’t herself anymore.
As she sits, clutching his hat to her chest, my heart twists.
I swallow down my own grief to attend to her.
“I’m gonna start dinner after we get you a bath,” I tell her. “I thought maybe…maybe I could make arepas reina pepiada? The way Dad liked them.”
“Mm,” she hums, nodding, but her eyes quickly drift back into her self-induced fog.
My mind wanders to the thought of what my life would be like if my father were still here as I help her from the chair.
We stagger to the bathroom, and I switch on the faucet to fill the tub, pouring a woodsy-scented bubble bath that smells like my father under the faucet —it’s the only thing that keeps her calm.
My sister, Cadence, pays for a home health aide to make sure she eats during the week, but they don’t do much else to actually take care of her properly.
After the bath fills, I screw the faucet shut and help her out of her soiled nightgown before taking her hands so she can step into the bathtub and lower herself into the warm, bubbly suds.
After washing her hair and back, I leave her to do the rest and force myself into the kitchen to pack out the groceries and start dinner. As I mix and knead the flour and cheese, the loneliness creeps in, worming through the cracks I pretend I don’t have.
But I try to shake it off and grab my phone to call my sister—my thumb hesitates, but I hit call anyway. It rings twice before her tired voice croaks through the receiver.
“Hey, Mack,” she answers, breathless—papers rustling, as voices debate in the background. She’s still at her firm. Of course she is; she lives and breathes Donahue and Lowe, the most prestigious law firm on the East Coast.
“You coming home this weekend?” I ask, keeping my tone light. Casual. Like I’m not standing in a kitchen that feels haunted.
There’s a pause long enough for me to feel stupid for asking.
“Ah… Not this weekend, okay?” Her voice is distant, as if she’s barely paying attention. “No, Carter, Jesus Christ, no the oth— Look, I have to go, okay, kiss Mamá for me.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, hard enough to taste blood. “No, no, no problem. Just wanted to see if you wanted to hang out.”
“Next time, I promise.”
“Yeah,” I breathe, but the word tastes hollow.
She hangs up quickly—too quickly—and I stare at my phone until the screen goes dark, then I place it face-down on the counter like that’ll stop the sting deep in my chest, a gaping hole where a ghost of her love lingers.
My brother, RJ, is on campus, pretending to be king of the world. Cadence is perpetually too busy. And I’m here, flipping arepas and pretending this house isn’t collapsing from the inside out.
After I stuff the last one full of a chicken and avocado mixture, I fetch my mother from the tepid water that I know she’s still sitting in.
In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself—I barely look in the mirror anymore.
I know what I’ll see there—pale skin that seems to have forgotten its heritage, gaunt, tired eyes, and a frame that is undernourished by the never-ending rat race that is my life.
I stare at myself until my mother nearly falls.
Luckily, I catch her before she hits the ground.
“Lo siento, mija.” She looks up at me, eyes weary.
“It’s okay, let’s just get you dry?” I smile at her.
In her room, it’s a struggle to find a clean nightgown, so I guess that means I’m also doing laundry. Making do with what I have, I tug one of my father’s T-shirts over her head and bring her to the living room before slipping back into the kitchen to fix two plates.
“Here,” I say, forcing cheer into my voice as I hand one to my mother. “Try to eat a little, okay?”
She blinks at it slowly, then brings it to her lip almost mechanically. “Gracias, mija.”
I take a seat on the couch across from her, and we eat in silence, while I watch her like she might vanish if I blink.
Sometimes I wish I could come home to a parent who cared, who was concerned that I had just been through one of the most nerve-racking moments of my life.
I wish that I had time to process and eat home-cooked meals like my mother used to make, then lay my head in her lap so she could massage my scalp the way she used to when I had a rough day.
Nobody ever asks how it feels to come home to a mother who truly isn’t home. I don’t think she’ll ever be again.
I take a deep breath, steadying my thoughts. “Mamá?” My voice comes out small.
And her weary eyes glance up.
“I… I think I’m gonna drop my psych minor.”
But that’s not the startling thing I want to tell her. That’s me testing the water.
Her eyes drift down to her plate again.
I grip the edge of my chair, inhale, exhale. “And… I think I’m scared to go back to campus. I—” My throat tightens. “There was a shooting where I have class. I can’t sleep. I keep hearing it over and over in my head.”
“That’s nice, dear.” There’s no concern in her eyes, no pitch in her voice to let me know that she even processed what I said.
It shatters something in me. Clean, quiet, like glass slipping off a table and breaking on carpet.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, totally.”
She nods, already drifting away again. I stare at her for a long moment, the ache in my chest blooming so wide it almost feels like relief. At least the hurt is honest.
I stand, pick up my plate, and walk it back to the kitchen before the first tear has time to fall.
Home is supposed to hold you.
But all I feel is the space where family should be, the hollow echo of a mother who can’t hear me, siblings who are too busy, and no matter how loud I scream…no one sees me.