Spoilsport.
Boundaries.
She sends me a middle finger emoji, and I know that she’s not as traumatized as she probably should be after watching Clara shoot Smith. Which means as much as Trips and her mom tried to shield her, enough of the violence bled through for her to still be teasing me after everything that’s happened the last few weeks.
Careful, there. My girlfriend is scary, remember?
Mattie falls silent at my joke, giving me time to think about Clara’s smile, her focus, the way she looks at me and makes me feel like I’m important. Like I’m the center of her universe.
I miss her so much.
More than I thought I could miss another person.
I’m not antisocial, but I’ve never had the same drive to join the group that seems so innate to everyone else. If I felt lonely, there was always someone around, both as a kid and now. So I’ve never really missed anyone. Not like this.
But every night, when I finally collapse into bed, my vision blurry from too long spent staring at a screen, she’s all I can think about. And every morning, she’s my first thought.
It’s not just her either. It’s constant hum in the house of four other people living their lives that’s missing. The sudden interruptions from Jansen, the steady thump of Trips’ fists against his heavy bag late at night. And Clara, driftingbetween us like she knows exactly where she’s needed when. And needing us in return.
Needing me.
Mattie texts back, pulling me from my thoughts.
Right, I’m shaking in my boots.
I huff out a breath, hearing the sarcasm.
Let me know if anything changes.
Will do. Off to flirt.
Someday, when all this winds down, I’m going to have to meet Trips’ little sister in person. She seems like the kind of girl who could benefit from a whole slew of big brothers. And if we somehow find a way out of this, that’s exactly what she’s going to get.
Chapter 14
Trips
The silent walls echo. The shadows cast by the old oak outside the window are my only marker of time. My knees ache from kneeling by the panes, hoping for some stimulation for my starved brain.
White walls. A toilet and a sink. Three meals left just inside the door by a silent Mary. Clean clothes delivered with breakfast and the dirty ones removed with lunch. Toothpaste but no toothbrush. A simple bar of soap. Egg and dart crown molding that I now know intimately, as when I feel like I’m going to lose it, I count each egg, around and around, until the panic in my brain calms enough for me to actually think instead of spiral. So, 264 142-year-old ornamental wooden eggs glued to the walls are the only tether for my sanity.
That’s fucked.
I knew coming back would mess with me. Even as I told Clara I could do this. Proving to her I wouldn’t lose it seemedso easy when I was practicing during quiet desert nights, while walking through crowds of drunk tourists who wanted to pick fights, when Clara inevitably got cat-called and I did nothing more than clench my fists and breathe through the fury.
But it turns out my father has found a new type of torture, one that works even on his fully adult son.
Isolation.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been in here. I didn’t think to count at the beginning, assuming it would be a few days like normal, and then we’d be back at it. By the time I realized it would be much, much longer, I’d already lost count.
But each morning Mary leaves the tray, and Falk doesn’t show up to insist I go somewhere, anywhere with him, it burns worse than any broken bone or slice of a knife. I need to hear a voice besides my own. I need todosomething. Anything besides pushups and sit-ups until my body gives out, then trying to clean myself in the tiny sink, only to return to kneeling by the window, like a dog left home alone, waiting for his person to come back.
My person is just down the hall, and that’s part of the torture, I think. Knowing she’s so close, but wholly unreachable. Knowing that when I lose it, screaming at the bare walls, that she can probably hear me. Hoping that she’s not suffering the same fate as me, but not knowing.
It’s agony.
At least her room isn’t bare.
