This is different. I’m giving them space to realize they’d made a mistake. They’ll argue and maybe break up because I got in the middle of their relationship.
I’m the problem.
I’m always the problem.
Chapter Six
?Isla?
Mom won’t look at me.
She hasn’t said it, but I know she blames me for what happened and maybe she’s not wrong. Maybe I did start this. I should have stayed in my room until supper.
But that would have only upset her further, honestly. If I wanted to hide, I could have stayed home. Her house isn’t some place I can loiter.
Bet she regrets that choice now, I think as she follows Walker, helping Jacob up the front steps.
He’s taking his time, moving like every step could be his last. Mom holds the front door open the entire time it takes him to hobble up the walk, doing the very thing I would have gotten scolded for as a child — letting the heat out. Already, the front of the house has begun to match the temperature outside.
Despite the cold, I stand just inside the doorway, redressed in jeans and fluffy, purple sweater. I watch Jacob sweat as he leans heavily on his brother. The crutches click with every strenuous effort.
The sight of him strapped to a fat chunk of plaster across his left leg horrifies me.
Not because I never thought Dominic was capable of breaking a man’s leg, but because no one has ever stood up for me before. Ever. All my life, I have been responsible for my own security. I have had to deal with the unwanted advances of men. I have had to stand up to bullies in school. I have had to figureout how to avoid altercations and I have learned that running is always the best solution.
Not this time.
If I leave before Christmas, Mom will disown me. I will be banned from every future event. She will ignore me no matter how much I apologize. For days. Months even. And I won’t be able to talk to Dad about it. He’s always too busy, and Mom is no longer his problem. I’ll have to figure it out on my own and I don’t have a solution except to twist up in anxiety. I already know I’m the cause of every problem everyone has. Mom’s cold withdrawal would only heighten that knowledge.
“Mom?”
Even to my own ears, I sound pleading. A child who knows she’s fucked up. I swallow every second of her silence until the icy chill of it fills me. I drown in her disapproval, and I pick at my thumb nail. I scratch at the scab. Smear the blood across my nail.
Still, Mom stands rigid and hard set on the front porch. Her beige coat is two times too big on her slight frame. With the cold nipping pink into her cheeks and her pale curls bunched over her collar, she reminds me of a child in her mother’s clothes.
Down the walkway, Jacob milks his injury by stopping to pant. His every forced breath plumes into the air with white clouds of exaggeration.
But it tightens the lines around her mouth. Her nostrils twitch like his suffering somehow causes her pain. Even though I know she knows he’s faking it.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Mom sucks in her bottom lip like she’s bottling back the thoughts choking her.
“Perhaps you should make yourself busy,” she says at last. “I think you’ve caused enough problems for one afternoon, don’t you?”
I twist my fingers together. Pick harder on the wound until it hurts.
“I didn’t mean—”
Mom’s hard brown eyes finally jump to me, to my face. They cling like there is nowhere less she would rather look.
“You did this,” she hisses, careful to keep her voice low. “Dressing like that, what did you expect? And rather than calming the situation, you let it escalate.”
I move to my index finger. I tug at the frayed edge of the nail, tearing off chunks. Tears blur my vision. Turns Mom into a silhouette against the faint fingers of sunlight still spiking the sky. The weight of her displeasure forms a noose around my airway. Cuts the flow of blood to my brain. My head rings even as I fight to keep my voice steady.
“I’m sorry.”
Mom sucks in a breath and turns to watch Walker help his brother gingerly up the porch steps. All the hard muscles and tight lines vanish into a sympathetic purse.
