Lip trembling, I say, “Why . . . why are you so angry with me?”
“Why am I angry with you?” she asks on a sardonic laugh, the type of laugh I’ve never heard my mom use. She was a sweet, loving woman. “Are you really that dense, Halsey?”
Her words cut through me, one at a time, and I steel myself, trying to stay strong, but I can feel this dark, ominous cloud looming over me. “Maybe I am,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “We lost Holden, and we haven’t—”
“You lost Holden,” my mom says.
I pause and ask, “What?”
“You’re the one who lost Holden. You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention. You’re the one who let this happen. You’re the reason he drove home drunk. You, Halsey. You are the reason.”
I feel all the blood drain from my body as her words swirl around in my head.
She can’t possibly think that. I wasn’t even there that night. He was the one who got drunk. He was the one who decided to drive home. He was the one who drove into a tree.
That was on him. Not me.
“He made the choice to drive,” I say.
“Do not start on that with me. I asked you to watch out for him. I told you he was going to be wild. And it was your responsibility to guide him down the right road when you both left the house. You promised me and you broke that promise.”Hurt and anger pervade her every word. “You are the reason he died.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Do you know what’s not fair?” Mom asks. “That the wrong twin died.”
The air is completely knocked out of my lungs as I feel the room, the world melt into nothing around me.
Th-there’s no way she meant that.
She couldn’t possibly be that cruel.
“Mom . . .” I croak out.
“Please don’t use this phone number again. I consider you dead to me as well.” And then she hangs up, leaving me in a state of shock.
I drop my phone to the bed and curl into a ball as panic seizes me. And then I see it all again. The same horror.
The smashed, mangled car.
The bent, broken tree.
The gnarled limb that had penetrated the windshield.
The blood.
And then . . . the smells.
The dank soil.
The acrid yet sweet smell of gasoline.
The officer’s gum to hide the cigarette smell.
The blood and metal maliciously fused together.
She hates me. Not only does she place all the blame on my shoulders, but she despises me. Her son.
My stomach roils. Nausea pulses through me.
