TWENTY-FIVE | COLTEN
Yanking my fingers through my hair in irritation, I drop my weighted head, swarming with too many thoughts, into my hands.
I need a goddamn haircut.
Squinting downward, I notice strands floating around the surface of my keyboard when my breath falls across the keys. Strands I’ve pulled out while sitting here, getting no work done. At this rate, removing each strand one by one may save me from asking Jess to carve time out of her last night at home to give me a haircut.
I could pull off being bald.
Men with bald heads have a certain sex appeal when they have tattoos. Right?
Not that it matters. The women I’ve fucked recently—or used to since I haven’t invited a woman here since Taryn observed me with Britt that night weeks ago—focus on my happy trail leading to myotherhead.
Usually, Jess is the only one Cam, Bren, and I trust near our heads with sheers, but the twins take her to the University of Washington tomorrow.
We could teach Taryn—suffer through a couple of bad cuts until she improves, but I don’t trust her near my head with anything sharp or pointy. She’d probably accidentally “slip” and implant the scissors into my neck, puncturing a vital artery.
A pang of dejection blooms in my stomach. I swallow, but the growing lump only fertilizes the hollow sensation.
It’s always only been us.
The six of us.
Over the last five years, we’ve produced a balance—an equilibrium that has allowed us to survive the destruction my father’s alcoholism caused and the gaping hole our mother left.
I’ve never wanted to admit it, but I have trust issues.
It is probably not surprising, considering…well, everything.
People’s lies and promises are more destructive to the nervous system than the sweetest poison. The difference? We expect the inevitable damage poison causes. We’re taught to read the warning labels.
On the other hand, people disguise their words impeccably. They inject their lies into each syllable that lifts off their tongue, making it impossible to see what’s below the surface because their inflection seems sincere and honest.
My mother’sbellowing voice echoes through the halls, her words unintelligible because of the walls and floors separating us.
My siblings’ frightened eyes scan my face as I stand in the doorway of Brennan’s room on the top floor. Jess has her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth on the floor. Scared tears stream down her flushed face, and my heartaches with the urge to hold her. To wrap my arms around her protectively.
Our parents have fought before. But this…
Alarm bells are bouncing around in my head.
Brennan is sitting in a chair with his arms wrapped around Tristan, my two-year-old brother’s head nestled into his chest, his blue eyes wide. Cameron paces the room, with newborn Elena sleeping peacefully in his shaking arms.
We all heard it.
Shattering glass scraped against our eardrums while we were in the living room just down the hall from their room, the sound raising the hairs on my arms in fear of what was going down between them.
I attempt to gain control of my trembling hands as I shut the door, leaving my siblings inside. My heart lurches into my throat, acid swishing in my stomach with each step I take down the four flights of stairs, their screaming tones increasing in volume the closer I get to the bottom floor.
My mother’s scream is cut off by the boom of my dad’s voice, the drunken, slurred shouts making me jolt in my skin.
Fuck. Why does this fight sound so much worse than every other one they’ve had?
I turn the corner, a sliver of soft light shining underneath their closed door at the end of the dark corridor.
Creeping closer, my mother’s hysterical voice springs a burning sensation behind my eyes.
I don’t want to go any further. Yet the thought of my terrified siblings huddling in the room upstairs injects a minor amount of determination into my bloodstream.
