I swiped away a stray tear that had escaped. I couldn’t blame Jae, not really. But it still hurt that I had been kept in the dark. Knowing about Sebastian’s theories probably wouldn’t have changed things, but knowing I was so distant from my family that I hadn’t been made aware of them stung, nonetheless.
“So what if she testified against those people? That’s a really fucking honorable, courageous thing, don’t you think?”
“No, this is much worse,” Jae said with a shake of his head. “Did you not hear her? She wasworkingwith them! I can guarantee you that she wasn’t out there selling Girl Scout cookies, Nox. God only knows what else she’s hiding about her past. We were her supposed closest friends, and we didn’t know a damn thing about any gangs. She’s been pretty fucking open about the fact that she’s not innocent and that you should stayaway from her. So, take the fucking hint, Nox. You need to let her go and move on.”
“You can’t make that decision for me. You don’t know the full story and I’m not going to just assume shit about her because you have some grudge against her for leaving us.”
“I don’t hate her for leavingus. I hate her for what she did toyou.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to center myself so I didn’t explode on Jae. I understood his anger. Hell, I was angry too, but that didn’t mean I was going to let it blind me from what was really going on here. Shiloh was seventeen, and no matter what Jae might have thought, she didn’t hang around a bunch of criminals for the hell of it. And whatever had happened to make her get involved with them, I would never judge her for those reasons.
“Whatever. I need to make sure she’s okay,” I muttered, opening my eyes and grabbing my phone from the counter.
Jae stood in my periphery for another long moment before turning and heading back downstairs.
I released a long sigh before attempting to call Shiloh. It rang and went to voicemail. I rolled my neck, trying to release the building tension and decided to wait another few minutes. She might have still been driving.
I cleaned up our unfinished food and then called her again. I audibly groaned with frustration when she didn’t answer. I continued to distract myself by cleaning the grill outside and then cleaning the kitchen.
I tried once more to call Shiloh, and it went straight to voicemail. I hung up and dialed again, only to get her voicemail once more. I wanted to throw something. I was angry at her for leaving the way she did, but I was mostly scared. Scared that she was hurting herself, scared that she would do something that shecouldn’t take back, something like what I already lived through once and refused to live through again.
I sent her a text message asking her to let me know that she was safe, but the message wouldn’t go through. My heart raced, immediately conjuring up images of her in a car wreck, her phone damaged and preventing her from getting any of my messages. It took a solid minute to touch reality and realize that she had more likely blocked my phone number.
Dammit!
I was pissed that she would treat me with such little regard to how her actions might affect me. I was pissed at myself for triggering her with all of my questions. I was pissed at Jae for believing the worst of Shiloh.
God, please keep Shiloh safe. Keep her safe and let her know that I’m worried and want her to reach out.
My leg shook with anxiety. I needed something to keep me busy, something to keep me from going insane, from spiraling.
I ran downstairs to the garage and grabbed the sledgehammer, a crowbar, and my designated shoes for housework. I connected my phone to my headphones and pulled up my favorite playlist. Then I demoed the guest bathroom.
It was extremely cathartic. Hitting, slamming, breaking. Expelling all the anger and worry felt good. As I stared at the mess I’d made, my eyes snagged on the bathroom trashcan that I’d tipped over at some point during my destruction.
My chest tightened at the sight of the Band-Aid wrappers. I was right. She had hurt herself. I wanted to be wrong, but when I saw the blood on her fingernails, I couldn’t ignore that gut feeling that something had happened in the bathroom.
I’d done that before, ignored the red flags, and I couldn’t live with myself if I did that again. Maybe that made me obsessive, but I was determined this time around not to miss anything when it came to Shiloh.
It physically hurt to know that she was in pain, that she was suffering, and that I couldn’t help her.
I tried another fruitless phone call and text before continuing to rip out the bathroom floors. It was a frustratingly tedious task of chipping away at the tiles, that unfortunately also ran up one of the bathroom walls as well. Which meant I’d be tearing down the drywall too.
After completely gutting the bathroom, minus the shower-tub combo because it looked like a recent addition and was in good condition, I drove to base. I spent an hour at the gym, despite having a home setup, just to avoid going anywhere near Jae. I knew he was going to be tracking my location anyways to make sure I wasn’t hitting up a bar.
I came home and showered with every intention of going to sleep. Instead, I was obsessively replaying our conversation in my head. Trying to pinpoint the moment she snapped and I pushed her too far.
Or maybe it was an accumulation of moments that built up until it all boiled over.
I had no idea what she went through or what kind of trauma she was reliving to talk about her past with me. And I wanted to be sensitive to that fact. But we weren’t going to get anywhere if she was going to push me away and leave me scared for her. Wondering if she was okay. If her heart was still beating.
And maybe some of that fear stemmed from my own unresolved trauma over her suicide. But anyone would worry about someone’s wellbeing if they knew they were hurting themselves.
I just needed her to answer one of my texts. To let me know that she was still alive.
I eventually gave up on sleep and found myself scrolling the internet to research the mayor’s arrest and any information about the gang Shiloh had been involved with. I wanted tofeel closer to her, to gain some sort of insight into what she might have gone through without her having to directly tell me. Because I’d never ask that of her. But there was no information online. I mean, literally,none.
When I tried reading articles about former mayor Carlos Solis, the only relevant thing to come up was the fact that he was indicted by a grand jury, arrested and detained pending trial. Nothing about a gang, or violence, or literally any list of charges. His death was reported as a suicide, with,again,next to no details.
