“Bingo,” I murmured.
Not only was there an article with supposed quotes from Joseph and my sister, but there were pictures. Pictures of the mangled Audi convertible, which was very obviously a Ryker sort of vehicle. There were pictures of the scene, where tire skid marks and broken glass littered the roadside. There were even pictures of my sister and JoJo at the scene, but something looked off.
While my sister was crouched down and looked to be crying into her knees on the side of the road, JoJo seemed practically unscathed.
“That can’t be right,” I murmured.
I closed my internet browser on my phone and pulled up Google Drive. I had an email account specifically so I could store old photos that I never wanted to lose, no matter what phone I had. And as I dug back into my archives, I found family photos from a few days after the accident that sent us flying to the hospital in the middle of the night. It didn’t take me long to dig up pictures of my sister looking all banged up and tired, with a bruise across her cheek, a scab cutting through her lower lip, and stitches just above her left eyebrow.
It looked like she had been pummeled with softballs or something.
The accident isn’t what struck me as odd, however. What struck me as odd, among many things, is why JoJo looked just fine and my sister looked like she had been shoved headfirst into a deploying airbag. And the more I scrutinized that part of my life, the more I found things that made absolutely no sense.
Like, the lack of punishment my parents put my sister through over that evening.
Or the lack of restrictions they brought down upon her head after sneaking out and getting into a wreck.
I remembered none of that shit taking place, and even though I wanted to blame my mind for the blank—since it was the middle of the night—my gut told me there was something more to this.
That I was on the right track.
Maybe that’s why they hate each other.
Part of me wanted to call Maggie and ask her what the hell was up with that night. As a teenager, it didn’t strike me as odd that my parents hadn’t punished her. I mean, a hospital visit and a near-death experience, practically, was punishment enough in my opinion. But, with this bullshit between her and JoJo, I wondered if there was more to all of this.
I wondered if the accident had something to do with why they hate one another.
I tried to dig deeper into the issue, but the only source that held any sort of proof of the car accident was the blog. So, I tried to backtrack to find out who owned the blog. Their last post happened all the way back in 2015, and my rudimentary I.T. skills didn’t yield a name or an email address to contact the owner of the domain.
Which left me stuck.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
I knew that the accident was at the root of this issue. Or, at the very least, the catalyst. I had no idea how to obtain the information, though. In the pictures from the accident, there was only one car. The Audi. There wasn’t another banged-up car, or downed power pole in the background, or even a guard rail that had been mangled in the process. No matter how much I brightened my phone or tried to enhance the pictures, there were no clues as to what caused the accident in the first place.
Then, a thought occurred to me.
“Mikey,” I hissed.
I hopped over to social media and quickly found him on Facebook. I rarely got on in the first place. My social media accounts were things to keep me entertained whenever I couldn’t sleep, versus my sister who posed in practically every outfit she donned during her day. She excelled in thirst traps and trends, while I was content with stealing everyone’s memes and accepting book recommendations from people I’d never meet.
And when I found Mikey’s page, I shot him a message.
Hey there, Mikey.
I don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Becks, Maggie’s sister. I was wondering if I could pick your brain about the car accident my sister was in? Please don’t tell anyone; she’d kill me if you knew this. But she’s starting to struggle a bit physically and while she keeps denying it, I think it has something to do with the car accident she and JoJo were in all those years ago. Do you remember it?
If so, do you have any info about that accident that the newspapers don’t already have? She’s not talking about it, and at this point her doctor is desperate.
Thank you for any help you can provide for us. I just want my sister to be okay.
I sent the message and didn’t expect anything to come of it, but almost immediately Mikey read the message. I held my breath and chewed on my lower lip as I waited for his response. He typed and then stopped typing. He’d do it again, then stop. I knew he was considering his words, and I wondered why he felt the need to do that in the first place.
Please, don’t let him see through the lie.
Mikey: Hey, girl! Long time no fuckin see. Hate it about your sister. Anything I can do?
Panic and hope gripped my soul as I quickly messaged back.
