I say back, over my shoulder, “You’re such a little shithead. Go away. Stop following me.”
“Reese, please.”
No one cares that Wyatt is provoking me. They only care about what I said.
I go out onto the porch because, even though it’s the last place in the world I want to be, it’s the only place where no one is.
I stand at the screen, looking out, wondering if Daniel is out there somewhere, watching me.
It’s not dark yet, though the darkness is coming. It will be here soon.
Emily comes to stand on the porch with me. “We have people over, you know? You can’t just behave like that. Do you want everyone to think you’re—”
“What?” I ask, spinning around to look at her, cutting her off but then wondering what she was going to say. That I’m out of control? That I’m a freak? “Am I embarrassing you?” I ask.
She pulls the door shut because I am. I am embarrassing her. She cares more about what other people think than that I’m upset. She doesn’t even ask what’s wrong, why I’m mad, what Wyatt did.
Instead: “You can’t speak to your bother like that, Reese. Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean that it’s okay to call him names.”
“Do you even care why I’m upset? You don’t,” I say, answering for her. “All you care about is that I called him a shitheadand that I embarrassed you in front of Uncle Elliott and Aunt Courtney. You care about everyone else but me.”
She crosses her arms and says, “I don’t know what happened upstairs, but I’m sure whatever it was, that your brother doesn’t deserve to be called names like that.”
My hands curl into fists. Sad, angry tears fill my eyes.
“You really are so gullible. You think Wyatt is the perfect child. You have no idea that he’s been selling Grandma’s antique silverware right under your nose for money to gamble with.”
She pulls back, upset not that Wyatt would do something like that but that I’d tell more lies about him. “Wyatt wouldn’t do that,” she says. “He knows how much Grandma’s things mean to me.”
The door opens and Wyatt comes out. The look on his face tells me he heard what I said. He knows I was talking about him, that I told on him.
Emily’s eyes flick to him. “She’s lying,” he says, all innocent-like, and I can already tell she believes him over me, that she genuinely thinks he would never do any of those things.
He can do no wrong in her eyes.
I go on. I tell her, “Not only that, but he’s been selling drugs right here while we’re on vacation. He meets random people in the woods and sells them actual drugs.”
She laughs. “You don’t expect me to believe that Wyatt is adrug dealer. He’s fourteen. Where would he even get drugs?” Before I can tell her, she says, “It’s not nice to tell lies, Reese.”
Wyatt sneers like it’s funny.
I throw my hands up in the air. “This is unbelievable. This is genuinely unbelievable. Why don’t you just take his phone? Justlook athis phone. You’ll find everything there. Betting apps. Probably texts and Venmo payments from hiscustomers.”
On the other side of her, Wyatt’s gaze is intense. His armshang long. As I watch, he flexes his fingers and then curls them into a ball. Flex and then curl. “It’s not true,” he says, his voice toady, sucking up to her, and I wonder what he’ll do to get back at me for telling. “You know I would never do something like that, Mom. I don’t know why, but she’s making it all up. I don’t know what I did to upset her.”
I push past both of them for the door. I walk out of the room. I go into the living room, moving with such momentum that everyone in the room stops dead and watches. Emily follows me in, muttering something under her breath about how this isn’t done and how we’ll talk about this later, as if I’m the guilty one, as if I deserve to be punished for telling the truth.
I spin around. I look her right in the eye and say, “I hate you. I wish you’d die.”
Emily grimaces. She draws physically back from my words. She takes a deep breath to try to get a hold of her emotions, because people are here, people are watching. I turn away. I go running up the stairs, my feet pounding. I go into the bedroom and slam the door. It doesn’t stay shut. It bounces back open and so I slam it again.
I stand in the room at the foot of the bed, shaking, taking slow, uneven breaths.
I meant what I said. Idohate her. I hate all of them. I wish they all would die.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, heart pounding, and imagine it.
Courtney
