CHAPTER ONE #2
Yeah, probably. I’d finished my speech and most of my physical therapy, both of which had been an ugly necessity. Oddly enough, getting smacked around by a full-grown man fueled by the grief of losing his only son wasn’t too good for one’s health.
The coma I’d landed in, followed by a series of seizures and stroke-like events during my recovery —which, come on, doctors, if it walks like a stroke and talks like a stroke, could we just call it a stroke—kept pushing off my coveted all-clear prognosis.
It took the saying, “One step forward, two steps back,” to a new level.
Now, here we were, a full two months into a senior year I hadn’t even stepped foot in.
I combed my fingers through the short locks again.
Mom, a veteran of rocking the pixie cut, had mostly been able to save my hack job. She’d left it shorter on the back where they’d had to shave to make the keyhole incision behind my ear, but there was still hair to style on top.
I rolled over to sit on the edge of the bed. “It made more sense to wait until after fall break.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nick waved me off. “Anyway, dinner’s ready.”
My gaze cut to the window once more, assessing the deep orange hue of the sunlight. “This early?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, Dad wanted to make sure it was ready before Mom left.”
My brows furrowed. “She’s working a… double shift tonight. Right?”
Nick’s shoulders stiffened a fraction, as if the reminder of my faulty memory told him to don the kid gloves once more. “Yes, sis. You were there when she mentioned it at breakfast. The other night shift nurse canceled, and the hospital is understaffed right now.”
I bobbed my head. “Right. I remember.”
His doubtful look screamed, “Do you?” but he didn’t question the working power of my brain out loud, thank goodness.
He hovered, unsure how to act around me, and that hurt.
We’d shared a room since he’d graduated from co-sleeping in Mom and Dad’s bed.
Even when we were most antagonistic toward each other, I’d always taken my role as big sister seriously, and he’d returned that in kind.
The chasm of awkwardness stung.
“I’ll be down in a second.”
He hesitated before nodding. “Don’t be too long. I’m not your personal messenger,” he quipped, but it lacked any real annoyance.
The urge to rage and scream at the glass castle treatment rose and died in the same breath.
They are just worried about you, Willa, after all the touch-and-go moments. You almost died—more than once. Granted, they only knew a version of the one that sent you to the hospital. Imagine how bad they’d hover if they found out the truth.
I checked my phone for the time. It was four in the afternoon.
Dad really wanted us to have dinner together.
Some morbid curiosity drew my gaze to the left.
Forty-three text message notifications and—I clicked open the phone log—five missed calls.
That had to be a record.
The guys grew more insistent every day. They had questions.
A simultaneous surge of guilt and warm affection crashed through me, which I did my best to suppress.
There was enough happening in my life without piling on more.
I couldn’t give them answers to the questions they had, not when there were so many things left unanswered, even for me at the epicenter.
They got answers from the police in the local news like the rest of the town. It was a kindness to let them take those lies at face value and let our short-lived friendship die a quick death.
They’d move on, right?
I turned off the screen, catching sight of my wan expression in the blackened reflection.
Would they get the hint tomorrow when I showed up for school?
With one last sigh, I tossed my phone on the bed and made my way downstairs, hearing the argument well before I spotted Nick sitting three stairs up with his shoulders hunched, his head tilted in the direction of the kitchen.
“—but we can’t do that, Anneliese.”
“Don’t you ‘Anneliese’ me, Rob-ert!” Mom volleyed in response to Dad’s comment.
I sighed and finished descending the steps, taking a seat next to Nick. He didn’t even look up as I joined him. My head canted as I attempted to decipher what our parents were fighting about.
“Consider what’s best for our family,” Dad countered as a pot gave a metallic clang in the sink.
“I am!” Mom all but screamed. It held a helpless, desperate note that lingered in the air.
“No, you aren’t, because if you were, you would tell your boss where to shove it. We’re all still healing. You should be home more. My website makes enough—”
At that point, I tuned their words out because I’d witnessed this dog and pony show one too many times. “How long have they been at it?”
Nick sighed. “Since Mom woke up.”
I didn’t need to ask how long ago that’d been. Based on the weariness in my brother’s tone, it’d been a while. It was a miracle their argument hadn’t woken me.
In a small voice, Nick whispered, “They never used to fight like this.”
The unspoken “before” hung over me, a guillotine of guilt.
The finished sentence might have ended with before I got arrested, before I got institutionalized in a psychiatric ward, before I escaped and got hunted down by search and rescuers, and before the chief of police accused me of killing my boyfriend…
Before, before, before.
My throat clogged with tears. “I’m sorry.”
Nick shrugged, neither accusing nor absolving me of my responsibility in wrecking our home.
“Come on,” he said at length. “We’ll starve to death on the steps if we wait for them to stop on their own.”
Sure enough, the second we entered the kitchen, our parents’ words halted.
Dad stood with one hand on the salad bowl he’d prepared for dinner as he towered over my mom. She was already dressed in her scrubs.
Mom’s eyes, green and heavy with some dark emotion, landed on then flicked away from my face almost simultaneously.
She’d been unable to meet my eyes since she’d agreed to send me to the psychiatric ward at the juvenile detention center.
She crossed to the sideboard to collect her purse.
“Sorry, I can’t eat dinner with you. It smells delicious. ”
Dad banged the bowl on the island hard enough to rattle the juicy red array of tomatoes, sliced and arranged so lovingly atop the leafy greens. “Yes, say goodbye to your mom, kids. She has to go.”
Mom gave him a look at his tone but otherwise let it go. “Willa?” She didn’t wait for me to meet her gaze. “I won’t be back before you leave for school tomorrow, so good luck on your first day.” She blew an air kiss. “Bye. Love you.”
“Love you, Mom,” Nick called, his words uncertain.
I just watched her.
Coat, scarf, hat—since her short pixie cut did little to protect her scalp from the biting autumn wind—and then she was out the door.
Dad plastered on a smile, shattering the silence. “Come on, guys. What do you say we take this feast to the living room and binge watch whatever we can find?”
He didn’t wait for an answer either.