Chapter 23 The Past
THE PAST
AMELIA’S brEAKING POINT
My skull throbbed like a war drum, each pulse matching the frantic beat in my chest as consciousness crept back in. Warm weight pressed against me.
Dante, sprawled on his side, his steady snores a low rumble in the hush.
Pale morning light snuck through the gaps in the curtains, painting gold streaks across the rumpled sheets. A twinge of shame flickered in my gut, but I shoved it down.
Caiden needed this lesson in pain. He had to learn, the way I’d learned, how heartbreak carves hollows into your bones. All I craved was for him to taste the emptiness I’d carried since Lillian died.
Her absence loomed behind my eyelids, a velvet shadow that wouldn’t lift. Lillian’s laughter was buried six feet under, her bright eyes cold in the earth. Revenge was the only fuel left in me.
I wanted Caiden to writhe in hurt. Would she nod, proud of my fury, or turn away in disappointment? I’d never know. The ache in my chest gnawed like a starving beast, hollowing me out from the inside.
A rap at the door shattered the quiet. Footsteps down the hall. A grin slithered over my lips.
Last night, while Dante drifted into dreams, I’d rifled through his phone and sent Caiden a text: Come by in the morning.
And he marched right into my trap.
“Dante! Wake up, man!” The voice thundered down the hall. My heart hammered as the footsteps thundered closer, pausing at the door. It swung open on creaking hinges, and there he stood.
Caiden, face pale, eyes blazing.
Dante shifted beside me, hair tousled, cheeks sunken with sleep. He yawned, stretching an arm overhead. “Hey, Caiden… What’s up?” His words were soft, drowsy.
Caiden’s voice cut the air like shattered glass. “What the fuck, dude?” He strode in, shoulders rigid, nostrils flaring. The room felt smaller all of a sudden, air thickening with his anger.
A sliver of doubt slashed through me. My sister was dead. And I was baiting someone for sport. What would Lillian say if she saw this? A stubborn fly of guilt buzzed at my temples, but I kept it locked down.
Dante rubbed his eyes, sliding off the mattress and tugging on boxers. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Amelia just needed company. She’s been through hell.”
His voice was calm, too calm.
Caiden’s lips curled with contempt. “I don’t give a shit about what Amelia needs. She can rot for all I care. I can’t believe you’d sleep with that thing.”
The word “thing” landed harshly. Apparently I’m not even a human in his eyes.
Cold rage pooled inside of me.
Dante’s jaw clenched. “Chill out, Caiden. That’s fucked up. Amelia’s not a thing, she’s a person. A victim.” His tone was sharp, protective.
Caiden turned his glare on me, eyes black as tar. “And you? You’ve got nothing to say? Poor little Amelia too weak to fight back? You’re a coward, just like your whore of a sister.” His words slashed into me, each syllable coated in venom.
Lillian lay under the ground—murdered—and here he was, mocking her.
Tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t hold his hateful stare.
My throat tightened, every breath tasting like ash. I wanted to scream, to throw myself at him, to make him feel my sorrow.
Then came the crack. Dante’s fist snapped forward, meeting Caiden’s jaw with a brutal pop. Caiden sagged to the floor, his hand pressed to his cheek, shock flickering across his features. Dante stood over him, knuckles red, chest heaving.
“What the fuck, Dante!” Caiden shrieked, half-crouched, panic in his tone.
“Don’t you ever talk to her that way,” Dante snarled, spine rigid with fury.
Caiden leapt at him, and they crashed down in a tangle of limbs. Muffled grunts and scuffling sounds filled the room.
I lurched forward, heart hammering. “Stop it! Just stop!” I threw my arms between them, pulling at their torsos, tears blurring the scene.
Dante paused, chest heaving, but Caiden lunged again, forcing me to wedge myself between them, arms trembling.
Dante finally released his grip and rose, bruises blossoming across his skin. He glared down at Caiden. “We’re done here.”
Breath ragged, Caiden met my eyes one last time—hatred twisted in his gaze—and stumbled from the room, wounded and defeated.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, hands shaking. “I’m sorry, Dante. I… I need to go.” In a blur I yanked on clothes, my voice cracking. He opened his mouth to stop me, but I bolted, racing into the day.
The engine’s roar soothed my frayed nerves as I slammed the door shut.
I’d broken Caiden’s heart; at least now he knew what loss tasted like.
Days passed in a haunted blur.
Dust motes drifted in sunbeams, and every corner whispered Lillian’s name. Her perfume, soft jasmine and vanilla, still clung to the air, a ghost’s lingering kiss. I avoided her bedroom; the door stayed shut, dust gathering along the frame like a forgotten tomb.
Silence weighed on me, heavy as lead. Mom moved through the halls like a wraith, lost in her own grief. The image of her in the fog-choked graveyard haunted me. Her head bowed, fingers tracing my sister’s name on the stone. I’d watched from a distance, too raw to approach.
Grief burrowed into my marrow, a parasite that hollowed me out, leaving agony in its wake. It was a hurricane, smashing me against memories until I gasped for sanity.
Grief was a ruthless storm. Silent, creeping, capable of shattering the strongest minds. It crashed over you in waves, savage and unrelenting, stripping you bare until only twitching ruins remain. Rising from its wreckage demands a strength I feared I’d never muster.
I’ve wrestled with this grief my whole life. Loss knocking me flat like a freight train. Even now, I feel it coil around my throat, pressing tight, each heartbeat a pull toward darkness. I’m left a cold vessel, an empty shell shaped by pain. Waiting to see if I can breathe again.
I wandered my house, unanchored, circling from room to room. The kitchen reeked of sour milk and spilled liquor; the living room was a mausoleum of dead plants and dust.
I skirted Lillian’s bedroom, the door sealed like a tombstone, its silence denser than lead. I wanted to press my forehead to the wood and beg for a sound—her laughter, her voice, even her anger—but I couldn’t.
I drifted instead to my own room, flopping onto the mattress and staring at the ceiling until the lines blurred and strange patterns swam in my vision.
Hours passed, time warping and folding in on itself. I thought about texting Dante. I thought about driving to the cemetery, digging my fingers into the cold dirt above Lillian’s coffin just to prove she was real and down there.
Instead, I did nothing. I lay on my back and let the walls close in.
Sometime after dark, a sound split the quiet. Glass shattered. A bottle, maybe two, and then a crash so violent it rattled the pictures in the hallway.
I snapped to, heart thumping, and crept out. The kitchen light flickered, casting a jaundiced pallor on the scene.
Mom was on the floor, half-submerged in a tide of whiskey and orange soda. The bottle was in shards, sticky liquid pooling around her like an ooze.
She wore Lillian’s old hoodie, sleeves bunched at her elbows, and her hair was matted to her face as if it had rained indoors. Her feet were bare, toes black with dust.
“Mom.” I knelt next to the sticky lake, glass biting into my knees. Her head lolled up, eyes swimming, and for a second, she smiled, wide, grotesque, teeth rimmed in orange.
“I did it, kiddo. I finally out-drank the pain.” She made a show of raising a bloody knuckle in victory, then slumped, arm trailing the detritus.
“Let’s get you up,” I muttered, grabbing her under the armpits. Her body was limp.
She fought me, nails raking my forearm. “Don’t touch me,” she slurred, then exhaled a sob.
“You think you’re so much better, judging me from your fucking high horse.
But you’re just like her, just like Lillian.
Think you’re special. Think you’re too good for this world.
” She tried to shove me off, but her arms were useless.
I dragged her to the couch. The liquor on her breath was sharp enough to make my eyes water.
She slumped into the cushions, head lolling. “Why’d she do it?” Her voice was small, almost childlike. “Why’d she leave me here with you?”
Before I could respond, she lurched upright, feet skidding through the sticky mess, and pointed at me with a trembling finger.
“You!” she hissed, eyes rolling back and then forward again, dilated wide as dimes.
“You did this. You killed her. You can’t even look at me because you know you’re rotten.
You’re the reason nobody stays. I hate you. I hate you.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Not even a squeak. She advanced, half-stumbling, half-floating, like a marionette whose strings had been slashed but not fully severed.
I wanted to back up, but my feet had become part of the floor.
She lunged, caught my wrist in a grip that was all bone and desperation. Her eyes—god, her eyes—were pure blacked out, a bottomless nothing that terrified me.
“You always wanted her gone. Don’t lie.” Her nails dug into my flesh. “You never loved her like I did. You just want to be the only one left, so you can finally get all the attention you think you deserve.”
The words spilled out in a slurry, slaughtering anything in me that still felt like a daughter.
I tried to twist away, to pull free, but she just clamped down harder, breathing through her teeth. “I see you. Don’t think I don’t see you. You and your fucking secrets.”
My vision shimmered; for a second, I thought she might try to bite me. She shook my arm, wild, like she was hoping to rattle Lillian’s ghost out of my skin.
“Mom, stop.” I meant it to sound forceful, but it came out pathetic. An afterthought. The house echoed the panic in my voice, every surface reflecting back a more frightened version of myself.
She let go suddenly, sending me sprawling. I caught myself on the edge of the coffee table, breath punched out of me, pain jarring up my arm. She stumbled backward, arms flailing, nearly fell into the shards of glass on the kitchen tile.
She collapsed, boneless, at my feet, sobbing into the spilled whiskey. The wetness on her face was equal parts liquor and tears.
I stood over her, body vibrating with the shock of her words, her violence, the living ghost she’d become.
For a long moment, I wanted to leave her there, let her drown in her own mess, let the loneliness finish what Lillian had started.
But the sight of her, crumpled and weeping, twisted something inside me. I crouched, ignoring the sting in my cheek, and stroked her hair.
It was the same color as Lillian’s since she dyed it, and for a second I could almost believe I was comforting my sister instead of the monster who’d made us both this way.
She whimpered, curling in on herself. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.” The words were wet and hoarse, her lips grazing my wrist.
I pressed my hand to the back of her head, willing myself to mean it. “I’m not going anywhere,” I lied, the words slipping out effortlessly with a sting of bitterness.
She was already snoring, shallow and wet, before I’d finished the sentence. I waited until her breathing settled, then peeled her off the floor and dragged her to her room, half-carrying, half-hauling.
She muttered something about Lillian, about how “she was always the pretty one,” and then laughed, a thin and colorless sound that scraped my insides raw.
I stripped the stained hoodie from her shoulders and rolled her into bed, then stood there for a long minute, just watching her sleep.
I wondered when the transformation had happened. When the mother I remembered had been peeled away and this broken, venomous thing left in her place.
I imagined her body decomposing right there in the sheets, sinking into the mattress one cell at a time until she merged with the house itself. I would find her one morning as a crumpled outline, a greasy silhouette on the sheets.
Maybe then I could finally say goodbye.
I left the room and shut the door quietly, careful not to disturb her. In the hallway, the air was rank with sweat and rotting fruit.
My hands shook as I scrubbed them under hot water at the kitchen sink, trying to scour away the touch of her, the sound of her voice, the words that had fused themselves to my bones.