17. Sticks & Stones
Sticks I’m fucking exhausted. And now that I’m standing here, all politeness removed, and just us taking up space, I can’t for the life of me remember what I’d hoped to gain.
“Of course,” he says, so reasonably. Like he wasn’t blocking the exit seconds ago. Like suddenly it’s the easiest thing in the world to let me pass. It’s nothing at all to him. Never was, despite his years of posturing otherwise. Scaring everyone away and acting like a shithead.
The scraping continues from the basement, setting my nerves on edge.
We’re halfway down the landing when a bolt of orange shoots from the darkness.
The scream I let loose is powerful enough to curdle blood.
I slam into Gideon, my nails prodding his flesh under his white dress shirt, clinging to him like he’s a raft in the ocean.
It takes my brain a few precious seconds to weed through the terror to make it back to logic.
To realize I’ve managed to slam Gideon into the wide banister of the stairs, my face pressed into his chest, clinging to his shirt so hard the top button popped.
My eyes are wide as I peek over his shoulder at the open stairs, the same orange tabby cat I run off the hood of dad’s truck nearly every morning, lapping at his paw.
“See? Just a cat, no ghosts,” Gideon offers, his head turning back to me from where he’d glanced over his shoulder; his arms banded around my waist, tugging me close. So close, so warm and tight.
So safe.
Eucalyptus and pepper.
My eyes leave the cat, dragging up his strong jawline, the five o'clock shadow there to his wire-rimmed glasses, and the pools of molten ocean behind them. His breath is leaving him in ragged puffs, dusting across the top of my head. “You used to smell like clean sheets.”
It’s a dumb thing to say, to blurt out at a time like this, but it’s all my mind supplies me with.
“Do you miss it?” The words are gruff, needy. Desperate and god… he needs it, needs to hear me say it.
I untangle myself from his arms, half hurt he lets me, half grateful he didn’t put up a fight. Casting another uneasy look toward the cat, I halfway jog down the rest of the stairs to the front door. When I reach it, I pause for a fraction of a second before I answer. “Not really.”
And I slam it behind me.
Gideon, Present Day, 1994
I stand there panting on the stairs, staring at the door still vibrating from where my little puppet slammed it.
I can’t help it when a crazed, sick smile lights my face.
My fist rising to my chest to kneed the little crescents her nails left beneath my shirt.
She’s so much like the younger version of herself that sometimes I forget there’s any difference at all.
That she’s not still sixteen and I’m eighteen, that the night in the woods with my mom never happened.
I regret it, think about how I could’ve done it smarter, differently.
It keeps me up at night, but not for the reasons society would deem understandable.
I killed my mother to ensure nothing could separate me from Audrey.
It separated us anyway.
Because I lost my cool.
Because I didn’t think things through.
All I saw was my pretty, soft-hearted, golden-haired girl and the bitch in the way of everything I wanted. Everything that I decided was mine, my gift, my girl, my responsibility at the age of nine.
That day in the rain… God, it's seared into my fucking memory.
My smile is still crazed, unhinged as hot white rage builds in my chest.
“Not really,” I mutter out loud, to no one in particular.
The cat maybe, sitting by the head of the stairs, lapping blood from the bottom of its paws. Little prints lining the carpet I now have to scrub out.
I laugh then.
But it’s not a joyful sound, rarely ever has been.
“Not really,” I repeat.
My mind is buzzing as I walk to the windows of the foyer, watching Audrey as she stomps up the steps of her porch. Her own front door faring worse than mine. Debating putting my fist through the glass, breaking off a large shard, and following her. To do what? I’m not sure exactly.
To make her admit she missed me.
To force her to say the words out loud, even if I don’t deserve to hear them from her pretty salmon-colored lips. Force her to tell me how bad it hurt so I can fix it for her.
I don’t look away, not for a good long while.
Until my mind comes back to me and my vision clears, just a bit.
The lights in her room are blaring, the curtains drawn as I turn away.
My dress shoes scrape the hardwood as I stop to pet the cat.
“Stay out of the fucking basement or I’m not feeding you.
” It purrs, content with head rubs but nothing more.
I don’t go lower onto its back. The damn thing bit me last time.
It casts me an annoyed look when I rise to my full height, heading back down the stairs.