Yes, I stood up in seventh grade and I explained how I made an operating telegraph. I smiled as I explained my experiment. I stumbled over my words as I attempted to chase the thoughts in my mind, and I even experienced a slight high when I saw several classmates’ faces light up when they saw it truly worked.
My heart sinks when I recall the first insult and then nausea strikes me in the stomach when I recall the laughter. But if it’s the truth that is to be told, it’s when I walked into the house to find Clara crying alone in the kitchen over her ACT score that my life changed.
“You’ll score higher than me. You could take it now and score higher than me. I know the answers. Everyone knows that I know the answers, but I can’t focus. I lose my focus. I can remember all these things and it makes you smart and me stupid. Everyone is always better. Everyone knows that you’re better. And I’m tired. I’m so tired of never measuring up.”
It wasn’t her words that shredded me, it was Clara hovering over the kitchen sink. It was her wrist poised over the basin. It was the knife that was being held at her wrist.
I loved her. Even though she blamed me. She was my older sister and I loved her.
Clara had looked over at me with wide eyes and she pleaded. Pleaded so much that it appeared her legs were about to give. “Can you try to not be you? Can you just try to be less?” She choked on the sobs and red-hot tears began to flow over my face as they ran over hers. “Maybe then I can keep up. Maybe if you pretend to be less, it won’t be so bad.”
And then she threatened to go through with killing herself if I told anyone what I saw and her burden became my burden. Her pain was my pain.
My head falls into my hands and the same tears I cried that day threaten to spill over now. “I tried, Clara. I tried to be less. I tried to be quiet and to be someone else and I’m sorry it wasn’t enough for you, but I can’t do this anymore. I did what you asked. I never told anyone what you were going to do. I never told anyone how I spent months terrified I’d come home and find you dead and I never told anyone that the reason I stopped being me was that you asked, but I can’t do this anymore because I’m dying. I can’t continue to kill myself in order to save you.”
When I lift my head, Clara’s completely pale and she holds on to her elbows like she’s about to break. She gently rocks back and forth. “I didn’t know that still haunted you.”
Every second of every day. “There are some things I wish I could forget, but, like you, I’m cursed.”
A rumble of a motorcycle and I stand. Razor pulls in front of my house, and when his gaze meets mine, I know the answer to his silent question.
Clara steps toward me. “No, Bre.”
Unfortunately for her... “This isn’t your decision to make.”
RAZOR
BREANNA GLANCES AROUND my house. It’s the first time I’ve brought a girl home. This moment’s huge, and I’d share how much this means to me, but we don’t have time for my emotions. We have problems.
“You have a nice home.” By her slight grin, I can tell she means it.
“It’s small.” But pride leaks out. I could never be ashamed of the place Mom loved.
“Bigger isn’t better.” It’s a reference to her family, and I hate the sadness in her eyes.
I snag her hand and draw her forward. “Want to see my room?”
Breanna blushes as she threads her fingers with mine. I flip on the light, and Breanna takes in the narrow room with the Reign of Terror banner, the dresser and the mirror hanging over it. She touches the pictures taped on the wall. Most of them are of me, Chevy, Oz and Violet in various stages of life. There’s two of me and Dad and at the top is one of me and Mom.
“She didn’t commit suicide,” she says.
It’s a mixture of relief and anger. “No.” I’m grateful that Breanna doesn’t press for more, because she already knows more than she should.
“The code helped?” she asks.
“Yeah.” A sickening sensation crawls along my insides. “It helped.” And I haven’t helped her. “This stuff with Kyle—we’re going to figure it out.”
Breanna’s pursing her lips like she’s about to disagree when the sound of a motorcycle gains our attention. She twists her fingers in her hair and her eyes shoot to the closet as if she’s searching for a hiding place. “Am I allowed to be here? Holy crap, you’re cutting school. Your dad is going to freak. I did not mean to get you in trouble.”
I slip into her personal space, circle an arm around her waist and kiss the next string of worries from her lips. It startles her, and when I lick my tongue across her lips, she sucks in a breath and molds completely into me. Her sweet scent overwhelms me, and when she eases her soft curves into my body, I become very aware of the bed less than a foot from us.
A knock on the front door and I begrudgingly release her. “I’m not in trouble, you’re fine in my house and stay here. I need to talk to Pigpen alone.”
“How do you know it’s him?”
Because I asked to see him and I don’t ask anyone for anything. “I just do.”