“I—” I try to talk but she instantly cuts me off.
Jade jumps from her perch with a light thud, walks toward me, jerking her chin at the knife still clamped in my hand. “Gimme that.”
But she snatches it away before I can hand it over.
I kick back from my seat, standing and moving toward the single mattress that sits on top of the cold hardwood floors. I take a seat at the end, hanging my wrists over my knees, watching my sister fall into the chair I just came out of, swiftly dragging herself toward the table with a screech.
Her left hand begins to loop through the same riff, the other carving into my desk, and I’m not too sure what she’s doing but I listen carefully when she adds a high D.
And a shiver sweeps across my skin.
Then she holds the sustain, kicks back, spins around.
“Think fast!” she shouts for a second time, and I see the pocketknife—that’s still open—circle through the air, heading right toward me. The blade nicks my palm, my fingers instinctively curling around the handle. I transfer it to my opposite one, casually sucking on the bead of blood that pearls to the surface.
Jade is smiling when she comes to her feet, and I shove up from the mattress, falling back into the tattered leather seat, hitting the high D. I’m scratching at my chin when I feel her curl around my shoulders again, the same way she had when she walked in.
The two words she’d added to my desk stare back at me.
Let’s fuckingbleed.
Every blood vessel in my body cools.
“Drag us through your rubble, tough guy.” She squeezes me, then playfully shoves my head before walking out of my room.
Glazed cherries and spiced cinnamon wafts down the length of the small hallway. The sweetness crawling through the door Jade left open, tilting my stomach.
Our mother was baking again.
Andthatonly ever meant one thing.
I kick back and shove up from my broken chair, moving toward the door, following after Jade.
“Can you please grab the ice-cream?”
My mother’s soft voice carries through the hollow walls like an echoed whisper, and when I bridge the entrance of the kitchen, I see Jade’s head stuck in the freezer, rifling for said ice-cream.
My mother leans over the small rectangle, retractable table in the middle of the cramped room, flanked by mismatched wooden chairs. The top half of her long dark curls are pinned in the back with a small claw clip and her ivory apron, covered in a field of strawberries and ladybugs, brushes over the table as she works to make precise cuts into the cherry pie I knew she’d labored over for hours.
I’d overheard her share more than once with Jade that the homemade crust was her biggest challenge. She’d start at dawn, combining ingredients in what she hoped would be the start of something golden and flaky. The cherry filling would come next, and then, the delicate, intricate lines of pastry that crisscrossed the top of the sweet, blood red center. It was perfect, and whileshe looked proud of the final product, Jade and I both knew she didn’t bake for enjoyment.
Jade flashes me a side eye, dumping the container of vanilla ice-cream next to the pie, along with three electric blue plastic-handled spoons.
We drag out a chair each. The legs scrape across the mint green linoleum floors, vibrating up the slightly darker green kitchen cupboards and slithering out the open window above the rusted sink.
The air around us is dense. We are both holding onto our breaths, waiting to see who, out of the two of us, will check onherfirst.
Jade makes the decision for us when she slumps over the table, drags the plate she’d made toward her, and cuts a crescent moon into her slice, taking a bite.
I keep mine where it is, dropping both of my arms down beside it, picking at a loose thread at the corner of the tablecloth.
I knew not to ask Mom what had happened, because what happened never mattered. It’s whathedid toherthat did.“What did he do to you, Mom?”
The chair creaks when she sits across from me. My eyes watch my mother’s heavy ones. They’re identical to mine, brown with gold flecks that flash in the darkness. Although, today, I can’t see the light, only sable shadows, an empty sight.
When Mom doesn’t answer, my question hangs there, between us, cauterizing the air. She blinks repeatedly, then slides a heaping spoon of pie into her mouth and pauses before slowly guiding it out. Her thin eyebrows pinch together, the lines at her forehead rippling into a wave of concern. Her high cheekbones are sunken and hollow, and today I can make out the purple ligature marks on the side of her neck that she’d attempted to hide beneath a heavy pressing of compact powder.
My stomach turns sour, and the tightness builds in my chest. I skate my gaze back to Jade, watch her hesitantly swallow her mouthful.
