It’s there in black and white:October 19, 2019, Aubrey Taylor Jr. dies in a school shooting.
I’m aware that some part of me should be disgusted, that some part of me should be outraged. Those parts are eerily quiet right now, though, if they even exist at all, and the only thing I am is curious.
I look up, meeting the expectant gazes of the only three people in the world I think truly understand me, and ask the only question that matters at the moment.
“Will it work?”
27
SELENE
Vomit splashes in the kitchen sink.
Hot, rancid chunks of a meal I can’t remember consuming stare back at me from the bottom of a stainless steel sink that, seconds ago, was spotless. I cleaned it myself, and if I look past the mess, I can remember what it looked like before it was ruined.
Just like I can recall what I looked like, what Ifeltlike, before I found out the truth behind my son’s death. Before my grief was restructured, before the pain that runs like currents in the marrow of my bones was reshaped with Jordan’s words, made over by the dark verity of Aubrey’s soul.
A monster.
I married a monster. I made him a father. I bore him a child he turned into a sacrificial lamb, and I missed every sign that he was a butcher, that our home was a slaughter house.
My nails scrape against the underside of the marble encasing the sink. Strands of my hair cling to the faucet, caught in the fine grooves while I heave once again, spilling what little is left inside of my stomach.
It’s the only sound in the room.
No one moves or speaks, and I don’t know if I’m thankful for the silence or bothered by it. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters because my son is dead and his father, the man I loved, the man I married, the manIchose, killed him.
Killed him.
Our baby.
My baby.
My blood. My flesh. My bone.
A life that started with our love ended by his obsession with power. A body I built from scratch—hands, feet, fingers, toes, a precious face and my father’s nose—rotting in a grave and for what? For money? For dominion? For influence and notoriety? How could any of it be worth our son’s life?
The questions I mean to keep to myself flow out of my mouth. They are met with nothing but silence, which is fine because I don’t want anyone interrupting me. I don’t need a single voice or word of compassion getting in the way of the scream that builds inside of me, beating the bile up my throat and splitting the air.
It’s not enough.
I spin, feeling strands of hair pull and snap as I go, and, still screaming, grab the closest thing to me and launch it at the wall. It’s a glass vase filled with hydrangeas, and I watch the lovely purple petals explode into the air, raining down in a cloud of glass and water that lands at my feet.
Jordan flinches, and Sam steps between us, shielding her from me because I’m still screaming and looking for another thing to destroy. He’s right to be concerned that the next thing might be her because she’s the closest thing to Aubrey in this room. Glass crunches under my feet as I cross the space between the island and dining area, dragging water and crushed petals along with me. The scream is nothing more than a low whine in the back of my throat by the time I’m in Sam’s face.
“Move.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Get the fuck out of her way,” Cal barks.
I can’t look at him. I can’t meet the eyes of any of the people I love in this room because I don’t want to see. The judgment. The confusion. The questions about all the things I must have missed.
Sam looks at him though, and whatever he sees must be enough to scare him because he shifts out of my way, revealing Jordan’s sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. She’s so thin, fragile almost, but it doesn’t stop me from drawing my hand back and bringing it down across her face. My palm stings, but there’s no satisfaction in the pain. I have this horrible, sinking suspicion that nothing will ever satisfy me again.
To her credit, Jordan takes the blow like a champ. She covers the imprint of my splayed fingers with her hand and glares at me as she turns her head back in my direction.
“I understand that you’re upset,” she rasps.
