50. Ambrose—present day
Ambrose—present day
A rush of shower water washes the groggy feeling off me. I let it slip into my mouth, which has gotten drier and drier since the nightmare. The screaming scratched my throat, and now, hours later, as the sun rises beyond the frosted window, it still hurts.
I stay below the pouring shower, the water a little cooler than I like, to ease the swelling in my throat as I stretch back.
There should be no easing how I feel.
I did something awful last night, the worst thing I’ve ever done.
The guilt is still there and clinging to me tighter than the towel I wrap around my waist as I step out of the shower.
I hurt Dollie.
All I saw were clowns here in our house, hurting her, touching her, but I was the one who had my fingers around her throat when my eyes opened.
The look of fear she had in her wide eyes when she gazed up at my unpredictability will haunt me forever.
I’ll never find peace, not even standing here in the doorway, watching her sleep.
She looks somewhat peaceful, her pink hair fanning out on my satin pillow as she sprawls in the center of my bed, hogging it.
Duggan’s newly stuffed center dents where she holds him so tight under her arm, her fingers weaved in the tie she’s already frayed.
The hoodie I picked out for her yesterday is the same color as that tie, and it makes me smile because I feel like I got something right.
Forcing my eyes to look away from her, I shift to my dresser and pull out a hoodie of my own. It isn’t cold today, and if I were in my room alone, I’d probably linger in my towel until my work hour rolled around.
Assuming I still have a job, I’m on an early shift today, probably covering a late one, too, for bowing out yesterday.
I still haven’t replied to Valaria, and my phone flashes on my bedside table with even more messages. It sits on the envelope from Mrs. Bannadosi that I still haven’t opened.
I shove that thought out of my head as I push my head into the hole of my hoodie, my arms quickly following because I can’t let Dollie spy my lucky clover tattoo if she wakes up.
The matching sweatpants complete my black set today, and when I return from dumping my towel in the hamper, Dollie is sitting up on my bed.
Her face is ghostly pale, aside from the blush on her cheeks that matches her hair, as she stares at me.
You okay, I mouth.
She looks anything but okay, sucking in big breaths through her parted lips.
I wish I could see the thoughts rushing through her mind right now. They keep her quiet—and that’s not Dollie. The dark color of my hoodie takes her somewhere else, it seems.
Eventually, she breaks the silence.
“Yeah, but I just saw a hint of your butt. Good thing you were facing away.”
Good thing.
“Did I fall asleep?” She sits on my bed, but her voice still seems miles away.
Yes, in my arms, while I rocked us to take your worries away because I couldn’t get rid of my own.
I nod, stepping toward her and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
It’s morning , I tell her through sign language.
Another thing needs to be told.
Her eyes follow my movements cautiously as my hand balls into a fist. She scoots back, moving my pillows up against the wooden headboard and away from their perfect position.
Her low-cast eyes soften as I put my fist against my chest and draw a circle.
I cringe because of that. I fucking hate circles, but I need her to know I’m sorry.
“For last night?” Her fingers move faster on Duggan’s tie.
I nod again. My Adam’s apple bobs as I swallow down the taste of self-hatred. She’s stressed. I can feel it in the air between us.
“Anything else?” Those words creep out of her mouth.
I sign again, telling her that I’m sorry for so many things, and I continue my silent conversation by adding, your eyes look puffy.
It takes her a minute to answer.
The longest minute of my life, where I take in how her hair wraps around her petite shoulders. And how her cute little toes curl and her nails glitter in the morning light peeping through a crack in my curtains.
The scent of roses and chocolate fills my nose and the air in my room as I breathe her in.
God, I could love you forever.
My face scrunches as I ridicule myself for that thought.
Mom’s voice blurs into my head.
You’re a little too close, and you need some distance. It’ll get confusing as you get older. You shouldn’t be sharing a bed.
I can only imagine what she’d have thought about us last night—fully grown adult siblings sharing a bed. My little sister sleeping in my arms.
I almost see the disappointment on her face as I stare at Dollie and the features they share.
I have to pull back. Standing, I shift away, moving to the window and blocking out the light that helps her nails enchant me.
“My eyes do feel a little sore,” she finally says. Her gaze drops to Duggan, her fingers still moving on that little tie but slower now. “So does everything else, actually. Every joint is aching right now. Maybe it’s from last night with the femme thugs, or maybe it’s just UC. Who knows.”
I snap my fingers to bring her eyes back to me, and my moving hands ask, Can I get you anything?
“I’ll be fine.” After a short pause, where we stare off at different parts of the room, rather than face the awkwardness between us, she asks, “Are you okay? That nightmare was intense.”
With my stare locked on the vacant wall, the only one in here without a single worn poster, I take a breath.
“Clowns, huh?”
My head snaps back to her. Her hand taps the bed, welcoming me back over.
Create some distance with your sister for me, please.
The sad smile on Dollie’s face makes it easy to ignore Mom’s voice replaying in my memories.
“They still terrify me, too.” Her hand moves in time for me to dent the bed at her side. “People do, too. Thank you again for coming for me last night.”
Right place, right time , I sign.
“Well, whatever it was, I’m grateful for you playing my protector again.”
A slow smile creeps onto my face, and it grows a little when I notice that she watches it grow, staring at me differently today. “Can I ask you something personal?”
My squinted eyes and side smile give her my answer. Really?
“If you live up here, why have you not pulled up the hallway carpet? Does it not bother you, the blood? I wasn’t even sure I’d make it across the hallway last night.”
It does bother me, but —my signing stops as her eyes shift to the window.
“Do you hear a car?”
I step away from the bed and pull the curtains back, revealing a nice morning with a sun-kissed sky that makes me squint.
My shoulders drop to the image of a shiny gray Mercedes glimmering below it.
My head bobs.
“Is it Shane?” Can she tell from my demeanor?
Another nod.
“Shit. What is he doing here?”
He trots from his car, his phone getting all his attention as he walks to the front door, bubble tea in hand. Dollie launches herself from my bed and yanks open the door.
I follow her giant steps to the corner of the tatty hallway. Abuse toward me stands out against the walls in need of painting. Accusations for us both lay scattered around each insult.
Reaching her, she’s frozen, eyes not on the words but on the blood that she just questioned me about.
Whipping around, her hair encapsulates her like a safety blanket. “Last night, I was focused on you. I had to pass, even though it hurt. I can’t today. I really don’t think I can.”
The bloody mess ahead brings a haunting image of Mom into my mind. I kneel before her, her bloody fingers on my face. Her eyes apologizing for the smears she left on my face. Dad is at my side, lying on the floor. Big hands hold together his gaping stomach as I drop the blade.
Blinking back to reality, a tear falls, landing on Dollie’s cheeks to join her own.
“Where’d you go?” Dollie’s voice is soft and caring, just like it was last night. Her eyebrows slightly dipped in the center, showing the same concern.
Back in time. To a night I wish never happened.
Shaking away those thoughts, feelings of hurt and guilt, and the memories I struggle to outrun, I offer Dollie my hand.
There’s only a minor reluctance before she takes it, and we both step onto the carpet. Her sweaty palm sticks to mine.
She grips me tighter, and I barely breathe as we approach the blood. Both of us edge in toward the banister that looks down on the first floor, avoiding it. Dollie’s movements are a little more rigid than my own.
This is a small but hard journey for us both. Dollie avoids upstairs, and I haven’t walked this way in daylight since returning home. I haven’t had to look bad memories right in the face.
Sweat binds us together, but it doesn’t bother me because it’s her.
Another step challenges us both, and I’m close to offering her an alternate route. The one I use daily to avoid this walk through time, but Bubbles spots us. She starts pouncing on the bottom step and screaming like a maniac, and that keeps us moving.
The key turns as we near the first of the gargoyles, and my back straightens because why did Dollie never think to take this guy’s key.
Shane’s squeaky shoes move through the foyer, his eyes on Bubbles before us, standing at the top of the stairs.
Squinting, he sees my towel-dried hair and the glossy look in both of our eyes and mistakes it for something else.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing.” Dollie shrugs, the movement lifting my hand that’s still joined with hers.
It’s clear Shane spots it from the disgust that hikes up his lip.
Noticing, Dollie breaks away from me and puts a foot of space between us, then another. She continues edging away from this staircase and the bloodstains surrounding it until she makes it to the next one.
I feel the distance instantly, and I follow her steps.
“Where did you go last night?” she asks Shane, pausing on the top step. Her fingers clutch the gargoyle and tremble slightly.
“Nowhere. I was in the right place. You were the one somewhere else,” he replies with an attitude.