Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
FADE
Erez comes out of the house and stops parallel to where I’m sitting on a lounge chair. He looks around my backyard then up at the inky sky filled with stars. I hear his deep inhale, and for a minute, he stays just like that. There are two glasses of iced tea in his hands, but he doesn’t move.
That’s okay. I enjoy looking at him. Despite focusing on uncovering the horrors in Alice’s past, Erez looks more relaxed than I’ve ever known him to be. Am I part of the reason why? My heart gives a little lurch at the thought.
He turns and offers me a glass, then sits at the edge of my lounge. There are half a dozen seating options on my back patio so can anyone blame me for grinning like an idiot when he chooses to sit with me instead?
To hide my cheesy smile, I take a sip of the tea. “Mmm. You make this?”
Erez snorts. I know he took it from my fridge. It’s the fresh tea I made yesterday afternoon before going into the Van Doren office to help where I can. Not that there’s much either of us are doing at this point. We’re waiting for Zephyr or Aven to find us something.
He sets his half-drunk glass on the ground beside him before twisting on the lounge to sit parallel with me. I scoot a little to give him more room, and he leans back, head on my shoulder, leg splayed over mine.
“I never wanted a house, but I love how quiet it is here,” Erez says.
“Why?”
He shakes his head. “I like apartment living. Maintenance isn’t my concern. There’s a pool that I don’t have to upkeep. If something breaks, it’s not my responsibility.”
“There’s no privacy. You own nothing. You can’t remodel.”
“This isn’t a debate,” Erez says, teasingly kicking my shin with the heel of his foot. “You asked why.”
“Alright, fair. I guess I was listing the reasons I never wanted an apartment. I grew up in an apartment with my brother and father, and I swore, the first chance I got, I’d purchase a house.”
He laughs. “I lived the opposite life. I grew up in a house and watched my parents always replacing appliances and remodeling rooms, upkeeping the yard. One year, there was a leak in the roof so they had to replace the entire thing. They had to rebuild the deck because of termites. Even though I have four parents, it seemed like they were always doing something to upkeep the house, and it felt exhausting.”
“Huh,” I answer. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“You don’t have that kind of upkeep?”
“The house was only six years old when I purchased it. So besides some personal touches and swapping out light fixtures and stuff like that, I haven’t had to, no.”
“Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe our house was older,” Erez says. “I honestly don’t know. My parents were already living there by the time I was born.”
“Older houses are definitely going to need more work,” I agree.
We’re quiet for a few minutes. I sip my tea and watch the sky. My house is only a few miles from the city limits, so light pollution is certainly a thing but not when I’m facing the opposite direction. Right now, all I see are the stars dotting the dark sky that stretches on for ages.
“I feel like I’ve kind of moved in,” Erez says. “Sorry.”
I haul him a little closer with the arm he’s lying back on. “If I cared, I’d have kicked you out a long time ago.”
Erez adjusts so he’s on his side and cuddles up to me. Now I can wrap my arm more securely around his back. Without thinking, I kiss the top of his head.
“I think maybe the solitude I’ve cultivated around myself isn’t healthy for me. When I’m alone, all I think about is Alice and what I should have seen or done differently. You give me more of a…”
“Distraction?” I offer. The warmth inside me from the way Erez is curled against me begins to fizzle out. It’s not like I thought this was anything else.
“Yeah, I guess. More like… You provide a life for me to live. Structure, expectation, reward, companionship.” He shrugs one shoulder. “But you also don’t get frustrated with the way I hyperfocus on Alice. You support me and help me with it.”
His words bounce around in my head, my brain trying to decide if there’s romantic inclinations in that or if it’s still only platonic. He didn’t mention intimacy or affection or anything like that. Hell, he didn’t even mention sex.
Before I can form a response, he adds, “There are times when I think I should stop looking for something that’s proven not to be there.
I’ve spent every day since Alice died looking for answers.
I’ve now taken over Zephyr’s life since he promised to help me look until I was satisfied one way or the other.
This obsession hasn’t just defined my life, I’ve now allowed it to consume Zephyr’s. And yours.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask, unsure that he’s really told me. Yes, he’s searching for the meaning of the horrors in the paintings. He’s looking for the truth. He’s looking for a suicide note. But is that all?
Not that those are small things.
“Alice was my best friend. Since finding her in that alley, I spent my entire childhood making sure she felt safe, seen, loved, and happy. I protected her from everything, including the shadows in the corners of her mind. She confided in me. She sought me out when she was frightened or sad or… when she had nightmares. Alice always told me I was her very favorite person and that I held all her secrets.”
Erez pauses there. I imagine he’s thinking that there were some very big secrets that Alice never spoke as is proving to be the case.
“I wonder if she told me but didn’t tell me,” he says quietly. “I knew she was physically abused. I’d seen it with my own eyes. But did she tell me other things without saying the words?”
I kiss the top of his head again and hug him a little more firmly to me. He sighs.
“Anyway. I can’t let go of the fact that she left and didn’t even leave me a goodbye.
She absolutely hated it when I’d leave the house without saying goodbye, Fade.
Even if I was just going to the neighbor’s or to the store.
She’d hold it against me for hours. She made it a point to always do so with me too.
If I was out already, she’d send me a text. I was her person.”
“And she didn’t leave you a goodbye note,” I finish.
His inhale is a little shaky. “Yes. Nothing. I’ve torn her room apart from top to bottom. I’ve turned her pockets inside out. I made sure my parents looked in the pockets of what she’d been wearing in the tub when they found her. I have searched that house high and low, and… There’s nothing.”
Erez’s voice hitches at the end. I roll toward him, adjusting my body so I’m nearly facing him entirely, and take him into my arms. Maybe he’s not looking for a puzzle, after all.
It’s not the question of why. She hurt him by leaving without saying goodbye.
He’s not willing to say those words because he loves her deeply.
He’s not willing to even admit it because he knows she had demons in her past that she couldn’t escape.
But that’s the truth of it. He can’t accept that she’d hurt him like that.
He doesn’t want to believe it. So he keeps looking.
I’m not sure what to say so I say the thing everyone does. “I’m sorry.”
“I keep telling myself that I need to let it go.”
“But you can’t,” I guess.
“Every few weeks, Zeph asks what my gut tells me, and when I say that I know there’s something, he says ‘then we keep looking.’ At what point do I just admit that there’s nothing there?”
“You’re wrong, though. There’s a lot here. It took you almost ten years to find her journal and paintings, Erez.”
“You’re saying I’m going to be looking for another ten years?” he asks, and I hear the pain in his tone.
“No. I’m saying that, for whatever reasons, you’re finding answers now. You’re uncovering the truth now. Every day, we learn something new, even if it’s not what you’re looking for.”
“The cops ruled it an accident,” he says, and I’m a little confused by how that fits into what we were just talking about.
“What?”
“Her death. They don’t call it suicide. They say it’s an accident. Because she was fully clothed.”
“You don’t believe that,” I guess.
“None of us believe that. Not only did Alice never take baths—she absolutely hated them—but she was fully clothed. There was no indication that she slipped and fell. She didn’t hit her head, become unconscious, and drown as a result. She was dressed and drowned in a bath.”
“That doesn’t sound accidental, then.”
“We’ve said as much, but there’s no note and nothing besides little things we say after the fact that prove we’re right.
The thing is, having the cops agree that it was suicide isn’t going to do a damn thing.
What’s it going to prove? What will we have accomplished if we change the cause of death on her death certificate? As a family, we know the truth.”
I nod, still a little unsure why he’s sharing these details—not that I don’t want to hear them. I’m just unsure how they fit into the conversation about goodbye.
“The thing is… Over the past three or four years, I’ve wondered if maybe we’re wrong and it was an accident.
I can’t accept that she left permanently without saying goodbye to me.
I just don’t think she would have done that.
But then I look at the facts we know—bath, fully clothed… Those aren’t Alice behaviors, Fade.”
“This is why you continue to search for answers.”
Erez’s body sags as he sighs. “Yeah. Maybe I need to know for certain whether it was an accident or not. My gut tells me two different things, and I need to know so I can let her rest in peace. The thing is, if she killed herself, I now know why. For certain. Her paintings and journals make it very clear that she was never able to get away from the monsters that hurt her. I have a why. That should be enough. But it’s not. ”
“She left you in a way that she’d have been furious for leaving her.”
He inhales shakily and nods. Erez turns his face into my chest, and I feel his body slowly seize as he tries not to let his emotions overtake him. I hug him fiercely, squeezing him so tightly that it’s likely painful.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to apologize again. As a society, somehow we think apologies are the fix-all for everything. It’s the ultimate show of sympathy.
Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous. It’s so freely given and rarely with any amount of compassion or sincerity that it’s meaningless.
There’s no comfort in it. So few people even find it genuine anymore.
If someone apologizes, we’re more likely to be suspicious of their motivation behind it than take it at face value.
Besides, an apology will never add anything to this conversation, nor will it bring Erez comfort.
For a long time, I don’t say anything at all.
I hold him in my arms and listen to him struggle through his emotions.
He fights them, refusing to let his tears fall.
Refusing to let his hurt come through in full force.
I wonder if he’s ever allowed himself to fully grieve. Maybe he needs to.
He eventually relaxes in my arms, and I kiss his head softly. “I’ll help you in any way I can. Promise.”
“Thanks. That’s not why I shared this.”
“I know.”
A beat passes. “I’m not even sure why I shared it.”
“Well… I think you should keep looking.”
Erez pulls back to look at me. His eyes are red, proving he struggled to keep those tears in, though I don’t think he completely succeeded. “You do?”
“I didn’t know her, obviously. You knew her best. And from what you’ve shared, which is probably only the tip of the iceberg, I know, I think you’re right.
If for no other reason than she hated baths and never took them, her running a bath is suspicious in and of itself.
That right there is probably the biggest piece of evidence that I’d say your suspicion of suicide is right.
And if goodbyes were that important to Alice, her choice to go without leaving one for you sounds like you’re missing something. ”
He sighs. “You know, Zeph says that if Alice were here right now, she’d be telling me how stupid I am for not finding her message. She probably left it in the most obvious place, and I’m just too blind to see it.”
I grin at his small smile. “Then maybe tomorrow, we need to think about what Alice would have thought the most obvious places would be. You’re concentrating in her bedroom and art, but that’s proven not to be what she considered the most obvious place.”
Erez studies my face and then smiles. “You’re right. That’s the most obvious place to me. Not to her.”
“Changing the parameters like that, can you think of other places to look?”
“Many. I’ve looked through the house already.
Several times. But I think it was half-heartedly because I was convinced that I’d find the answers in her room.
I think you’re right, though. She didn’t even paint in her room.
Her room was a safe space where she could lock her door and know she was safe.
But it wasn’t where she spent most of her time. ”
“Where did she?”
“In the studio with me. Painting. Coloring. Drawing. She loved art. She loved to express herself through art.”
“Which is why you always focused on her art.”
“Yes.”
“So tomorrow, we’ll look through the studio again.”
Erez presses his mouth to mine, and my stomach flips so violently that I nearly pull away for fear of burping bile or something else embarrassing. We’re not in the middle or leading up to sex, and he’s never kissed me outside of those parameters.
Still, I try to convince my brain that this isn’t something more than Erez being excited. Erez with hope. Erez feeling emotional because we’re talking about his sister. Thankful that I’m not telling him he needs to let it go and maybe grateful that I want to help him.
This isn’t a reason for hope!