But I turn the handle and they don’t come out. Their doors stay shut, the air stays heavy and still, and I push the door open. His room is exactly as he left it. I should leave now, leave it undisturbed for him so when he comes home—
When he comes home
When he comes home
When he comes home
—it will be exactly as he remembers it and we can all pick up where we left off. With Marcus being the perfect child, the perfect brother, as perfect as the little gold man on the trophies all over his room, as unchangeable, incorruptible.
He’s coming home, he’s going to come home and he’s going to be so mad that I was in his room.
He’s left his window open and the sky outside is a violent violet and the air smells like thunderstorms. I breathe deeply, smelling the storm, the boy smell of his room, the deodorant and the cologne and … incense?
On Marcus’s nightstand there’s a small incense holder. The ends are burnt; he’s lit these before.
I have a sharp, unkind thought: Did he smoke and drink in here? Secretly? Light incense to hide the smell?
Marcus isn’t who I thought he was, and I’m starting to wonder if I knew him at all.
Fear and anxiety and anger race through me, each one trying to make it to the finish line and dominate my feelings. It makes me spin. My breath catches and I realize I’m crying, not making a sound, but crying so hard that it’s taking all my energy. My legs give way as I sit on the edge of his bed and then curl up on my side, not trying to stop the tears, because I know I can’t stop them, letting them leak onto his pillow until it’s as soggy and waterlogged as my insides. But my tears keep coming.
These aren’t the kind of tears that give you a sense of relief or wash the pain away. These tears hurt. Each and every one has made the perilous journey from my heart to my eyes. I feel like with every tear I’m losing a little bit more of who I thought my brother was, but I can’t stop them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.
But then I do. They slow to a trickle, each one still as painful as the last, and I am left carved out and drained. I take a deep shuddering breath, letting the air whistle around my empty insides.
I am so tired. So very, very tired. I’ll close my eyes just for a second, give them a rest.
Just for a second.
CHAPTER 10
Something is nudging me. No, not nudging me, headbutting me. I open my eyes and gasp.
My lioness is gently pressing her head against mine. Purring as she does. I can feel her hot breath on my cheek.
And I can sense something else behind me. Slowly, so slowly, I turn my head until I’m looking at my dragon. Her eyes are glowing amber almonds, slit pupils, green lightning snaking through the fire. My lioness’s eyes are round and yellow as the sun, with warm brown pupils. She blinks at me and I swear her mouth turns up in a smile.
I sit up and the lioness repositions herself so she is lying under my arm, supporting me, keeping me up. Her purr rumbles through her, warming me. I tentatively rest my palm on her back, feeling her fur, simultaneously coarse and soft, under my fingers.
The dragon is staring at me, and I stare back. She isn’t smiling.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” I say. Because I haven’t, not even a shadow or a glimpse, since my daddy died. They were there that first night, and again at his funeral, but they didn’t come this close. They didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night.
My dragon tilts her head and bends her long neck so her face is close to mine. She doesn’t answer, but raises a dragon eyebrow.
I don’t know if it’s the weight of my lioness or the hot breath of my dragon, but I’m suddenly overwhelmed with heat. So hot. The air in the room is so thick and heavy I can taste it.
“Why are you here?” My voice comes out in a ragged whisper, like old cloth being ripped down the middle.
The lioness growls, low in her throat, for just a second, and then pulls away from me. She pads over to the closed door of Marcus’s room.
I shouldn’t be in here, that’s what they’re telling me. I stand up and follow the lioness, feeling the dragon right behind me, hearing her claws crunching into the carpet. I pull open the door as quietly as I can, but still it creaks, the sound screaming in the empty hall. I wait a second, and another, before exhaling.
It’s just as hot out in the hall as it was in my brother’s room. I need air. Fresh air. I can’t breathe. I need to get outside.
It seems my dragon and my lioness have the same idea. The lioness is pacing back and forth next to the front door, and the dragon – she’s too big for our little kitchen – is trying to fold in on herself to make herself smaller but she can’t and that makes me smile because I’m always trying and failing to make myself smaller too.
“Move,” I whisper to the lioness, adding a belated “please” as I tug open the front door. The lioness squeezes past me and dashes down the porch into the street, then rolls around on the asphalt like a kitten.