Now he was quieter. More cautious. I could see it in the way his eyes moved around a room. Just like Ash, he was constantly looking for an exit, a threat. What would that be like, always watching for the next fight? It couldn’t be very conducive to relaxation.
Not that I cared. He was the one who ran away to join the Army. He was the one who disappeared when everyone was still reeling from losing Joshua. He was the one who was a coward and couldn’t face what it was he’d done.
My head was pounding. I sat up and the movement made the room spin a little. But when it settled down, I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I needed a shower. I needed to get the smell of that damn hospital off my skin.
It reminded me too much of that day. It reminded me of the last time I spoke to Donovan.
“He’s dead!” I screamed as I approached him in the hallway of the hospital, just outside the ICU where my brother had spent the last twenty-four hours fighting for his life. I kissed my brother’s lifeless cheek goodbye and left the room, stepped out into the waiting room, and his was the first face I saw.
“He’s dead.”
I saw the grief in Donovan’s eyes, saw the pain slice his expression in half. But it didn’t really register through the shock that held me prisoner.
“Katie,” he said, reaching for me, “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be,” I said, allowing him to pull me close for a minute. “If you had been there, if we hadn’t…”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled again.
“He’s dead. They did this to him.” I shuttered, as my imagination showed me a picture that was probably not far from the truth. Those boys, the same boys who’d confronted Donovan on the last day of school just after they found out that they wouldn’t be able to walk the stage at graduation because of a prank on the football coach that had gone wrong. Those boys who told Donovan they’d come for him, that he better watch his back. The same boys who wanted to hurt Donovan but killed my brother instead.
“It’s your fault.”
I felt every muscle in his body stiffen. I pulled back and looked up at him; I saw the guilt and the pain in his eyes.
“It’s your fault. If you hadn’t pulled that prank, if you hadn’t made it look like they did it—”
“Katie, that’s not—”
“You did this. You gave them reason to go after Joshua. And you weren’t there to protect him. You left him to this.”
“No, Kate.”
“You did. You’re the reason he’s on his way to the morgue, why my Daddy has to bury a child, why I have to live the rest of my life without my twin. It’s your fault.”
And then I hit him because I needed to hit something. I buried my fist in his chest over and over again. He never once tried to stop me, never made an attempt to grab my wrists. He just stood there, the most pain a human being is capable of feeling rushing through me, mirrored in his eyes. And when exhaustion caused me to fall to the floor, he knelt beside me and tried to help me to my feet.
“Don’t touch me!” I turned and looked at him. “I never want to see you again. Stay away from me, stay away from my dad. Disappear, Donovan.”
My last words to him were to order him to disappear. And he did. Not immediately. I saw him at the funeral; I saw my dad stop and talk to him. He didn’t even try to talk to me. And then he was gone. I didn’t even know where he’d gone until a mutual friend told me months later that he’d joined the Army, went off to be G.I. Joe. And that pissed me off. He didn’t even try. He just ran away, escaped the nightmare that I had to live every second of every day. It wasn’t bad enough that I lost my mom and then my brother. I also had to lose…
Anyway.
I stood in the shower and let the hot water wash over me, loving the way calming stream washed away some of the pain in my head. I just needed to get back to work. I needed to have a purpose. I’d learned a long time ago that a purpose helps make even the darkest days a little brighter. I needed Donovan not to be in my house. I needed to not be enveloped in all these memories that refused to go away.
My dad sure seemed happy to have Donovan back. Had he known he’d been back all this time? I knew Donovan had come back to Santa Monica. A mutual friend ran into him at a party about a year ago. Said he was quiet, distant. I laughed and said that Donovan was never quiet. And then I waited for him to show up, maybe stop by the house to see my dad. But he didn’t.
If this hadn’t happened, would Donovan have sought me out at all? Probably not. And I don’t suppose I would have either—if I were in his shoes. Who wants to face the reality of their own actions? But it still pissed me off for reasons I couldn’t even begin to explain.