“I can’t believe she shot you.” My mom is evil, but she does all her acts behind closed doors and a picture-perfect Christian smile.
He bends the cheap blinds and furtively peeks out the only window in the room. The small table in front of it holds my uneaten sandwich and long-grown-cold soup. Satisfied there’s nobody in the hallway, he collapses in one of the chairs next to the table and pushes my leftovers aside. He hangs his head, running his hands through his long hair.
No wonder the drive took him so long. He was supposed to be here two hours ago, and I paced the floor for every one of those minutes he was late. There wasn’t any way to get ahold of him either. We left our phones behind in our separate dorm rooms, where the police will find them when they come looking for us. It’ll also be where they ping instead of Houston when they try to figure out our location. It’s going to be a while before they get to us, though, because they have plenty of other stuff with Genevieve to figure out first. Their heads are going to be spinning for weeks trying to sift through all her lies. Maybe months.
I grab the other chair and pull it around so I can sit in front of him. “Tell me everything.” Part of me still can’t believe Brett went through with it. This was a big part to do all by himself. The rest I’ve been able to coach him through. I sat by his side through the phone call and the deliveries. Was on the phone when he grabbed her in the parking lot and spoke in his ear. I was always the one telling him what to say and what to do.
But this?
He had to carry today out on his own, and he did it. I’m so proud of him. Genevieve used to always say that if you needed something done right, then you had to do it yourself, but she was wrong about that. She was wrong about a lot of things. Including me. Especially me.
He twists around and peeks through the blinds another time. Sweat rings stain his shirt.
“Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but what else can I say?
“No, I’m not okay. I’m shot, Savannah. Your mom shot me.” He shivers like a wet dog and grips his sides. “She shot me.” He shakes his head like he’s still trying to get the reality of what happened to sink in. “The bullet just kinda bounced off my leg, I think. Maybe? I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never been shot before. I don’t know what it feels like.” He tries to take a deep breath, and it comes out in quick gasps. “But if you get shot, you’d think it’d go through the leg, and nothing came out the other side. Or maybe it’s stuck in there somewhere? Bullets can get stuck inside.” He gulps the air again, but he’s too worked up to get any inside. His anxiety strangles his words.
“You’re okay. You’re safe.” His entire body is tense, and his fingers shake as he digs into his arms. I turn my voice into soothing cough syrup and speak healing into his eyes. “Just take a minute and breathe. Get yourself together again. Okay, slow down.”
We had a plan. A good one. A solid one. But I know better than anyone else that sometimes things don’t go as planned.
Like Genevieve’s plan to kill me when I was twelve just like she killed my daddy six years ago. I never took those pills like they said I did. Never. What I did take was a great big milkshake that she made for both me and Mason that night while we were watching TV. She never included me in any of the special things the two of them did together, so I was delighted. Totally over the moon. I was still so young. So foolish and naive. I’m glad I’ve matured and grown up. It’s not good to be that attached to someone who wants nothing to do with you.
She put in lots of chocolate syrup, and we even got to use the old-fashioned vanilla ice cream that she reserved for birthdays and special occasions. I was so excited because she gave me a cheat night on my diet. She’d started restricting my calories so that I’d lose weight. She insisted that my problems with stage fright—that’s what she called it—were because I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin because I was chubby. She called it my baby fat and swore that as soon as I got it off, I’d want to get right back up onstage.
But that night she let me have a chocolate milkshake, and I licked every single drop.
I woke up in the middle of the night covered in my own vomit and urine. Everything I kept trying to tell the doctors and nurses—that I hadn’t taken any Tylenol, explaining that it had to be my mom—was only met with denial, and the more I talked and she denied it, the crazier I sounded. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself locked in the children’s psychiatric ward on a seventy-two-hour hold because they thought I was a threat to my own safety. My life was never the same.
Until I stopped playing her games and started playing my own. Back to this one.
I give Brett’s uninjured knee a squeeze. “What happened when you got there?”