“I should’ve been watchin’ for her. Keepin’ an eye out for my friend, but I hadn’t, and now this awful thing had happened to her,” I say quietly, that old guilt still gnawin’ away at me. “I didn’t know what to do. I eventually convinced her to report what happened. But everythin’ that came after she did that was almost just as bad as what happened to her in the first place. There were brutal interviews and horrible gossip, glares, and accusations flung by strangers. I wish I could say there had been some kind of justice, but Mackenzie was told that her case wasn’t strong enough, and the prosecutor refused to pursue it.”
Flint and Alder both shake their heads in disgust, and anger fills up the car like breaths you can see when it’s cold outside.
“That bastard carved his initials into her like she was a tree, and they told her there just wasn’t enough evidence, that her case wasn’t strong because she had been drinkin’ and couldn’t recall if she saidno. They said they could try for a lesser charge, but by then, Mackenzie was done. She’d been hurt and harassed and put through hell, and she just wanted to get as far away from everythin’ as she could.
“I had been holdin’ back my anger, tryin’ to be there for her every second of every day like I should’ve been that night, but then Mackenzie got in her car, rolled down her window and told me never to contact her again. That she was leavin’ me, this place, and everythin’ that happened behind her, and then she just drove away. And I…I snapped.”
I look out the window, sunshine wrappin’ itself around the houses and buildings that are flashin’ past the window as we drive by. I wonder—just like I’ve wondered so many times before—if Mackenzie is okay, if she’s healin’, if she’s happy now, but I respect her wishes to this day, and I stay away. It’s the least I can do for her. I know that I’m just a painful reminder of that time.
Droppin’ my hold on my necklace, I clear my throat, nervous for my next words to come out. “A week after Mackenzie left, they found Channing Phillips dead, a couple counties over. His initials had been carved all over his body, and his perfectly healthy heart had just stopped, according to the coroner. On the night they suspected that he died, I was accused of beatin’ the shit out of four startin’ football players—his best friends and teammates who were there at the party and spoke against Mackenzie.”
“You did that?” Flint asks in surprise.
“Well, not meexactly. A girl who looked like me, but she had black eyes and could move faster than was humanly possible and hit harder than a heavyweight fighter. Or so the rumors say.”
Flint snorts out a laugh. “I bet they were all drug tested,” he states with a hollow chuckle.
“They were,” I confirm. “Oddly, they came out clean, but what could be done? I, of course, don’t remember anythin’, not with the football players, or why exactly I attacked them, or what happened with Channing. They couldn’t press charges because there was no evidence, but at that point, I became more of a pariah than before. Gossip swarmed, that I instigated things and encouraged Mackenzie to lie. Those boys were near celebrities in our school, and most everyone took their side, so when they were attacked and Channing ended up dead...to say I was hated is an understatement,” I say bitterly. “My grades suffered from everythin’ that happened, and it was easy for them to kick me out in an effort to clean up the mess. So I moved back home, and here we are,” I tell them with a shrug.
“If he wasn’t dead already, I’d send him to Hell myself,” Alder grumbles before meetin’ my gaze. “I’m sorry that happened to you and to your friend,” he tells me, his voice so sincere that it makes my chest squeeze.
I give him a small smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. I don’t say that there’s no point in bein’ sorry, because what’s done is done. Or out of all the times I’ve wanted to remember a tribulation, killin’ Channing is the one I wish I could recall the most. Not because I want confirmation that it was, in fact, me, but because I want to see him hurtin’ the way he hurt my precious friend. I want to watch him break, the way he broke her. That must be the demon in me.
I sigh and tamp down my dark thoughts. After everythin’ that happened, I thought there must be somethin’ seriously wrong with me that I could think that way, but now that I know what I am, those dark thoughts don’t feel so illicit anymore. I don’t feel as though I need to be ashamed of them.
Maybe this is the first step in acceptin’ what I am. I am demon, hear me roar. Or in my case, maybe more of a scrappy snarl, because that feels more my style. Yeah, if it means I can stop people like Channing from hurtin’ others, then I can definitely get on board with that.
16
“We’re here,” Alder says.
I look up with surprise. I didn’t even realize we’d pulled up to the trailer park. I blame Flint’s hair playin’.
We all shake off the seriousness of what we were just talkin’ about, but instead of draggin’ down my mood, I actually feel lighter. Like talkin’ to them about it helped lift a weight off me. I haven’t talked to anyone about it except for my parents. It was nice to have someone else to tell that deep dark secret to, and Flint and Alder didn’t judge me or even bat an eye. For that, I’m grateful.
“Okay,” I say, unbucklin’ my seatbelt. “I’ll just go in and…” My voice trails off when I look over to see my daddy sittin’ on the small square of grass beneath the oak tree, sippin’ on sweet tea with his shotgun laid across his lap and Todd amblin’ around in the yard.
The three of us watch as Todd runs over to him and drops a stick at his feet before my daddy picks it up and tosses it again.
Flint’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Is your daddy playing fetch with his pet gator?”
I sigh. “Seems so.”
“Wait a minute. Is that…” Alder squints and leans forward. “Is he throwing yourscythe?”
Now it’smyeyes buggin’ out of my head. “Oh my God.” I shove open the car door and jump out as fast as I can. “Daddy!”
He looks up at the sound of my voice and sets his drink down in the cup holder he’s jimmy-rigged into the armrest.
“Medley.”
Uh oh. He called me my given name instead of honey girl, and I have a feelin’ I know the reason. Actually,reasons, plural, because it has everythin’ to do with still wearin’ last night’s clothes and walkin’ up with two male demons behind me.
“Did you say Medley?” Mama’s voice pops out of the screen door at the same time that her head does.
The door to the trailer squeaks open when she sees me hurryin’ up, and then two hands go onto her hips as she takes me in. “Medley Bell, what in the world are you doin’? I thought you were stayin’ at AnnaMae’s last night.”
“Mama, not now,” I tell her, tryin’ to reach Todd. The bastard alligator sidesteps me like a puppy wantin’ me to play. I spin on my heel and go for the stick, tryin’ to snatch it out of Todd’s mouth, but the damn dinosaur retriever does that head shakin’ thing as soon as I get a hand around it, jerkin’ it right out of my grasp again.
