Translucent engine fumes lick around my ankles, ascending to the opening of my nose and I suck back a lungful when I feel the latch release, the door open for me.
“Hospital for Souls” by Bring Me The Horizon plays low and cool through the speakers, and Harlen falls back into the seat behind the wheel. He doesn’t look at me. He stares ahead.
I climb in, keeping my seatbelt off, and spread my legs. I notice how my right knee has begun bouncing to the same rhythm as my chattering teeth.
We don’t say anything.
My eyes are dry now, and blinking feels like my lids are closing over shards of glass.
I try to swallow, try to dislodge the tightness in my throat when a tap to my bicep comes.
Harlen holds a bottle of water toward me, and shakily, my blood-crusted fingers reach out, taking it. I press it to my lips.
Tires crunch rock, then rubber meets asphalt when Harlen peels onto the road, spinning the wheel and adjusting the shifter.
Both of our windows are down, cool wind slapping our faces as he shifts again and pushes harder on the gas. Harlen takes thequiet roads toward Rusty’s, nestled deep in the solitude of the woods, and I allow my head to fall to the headrest behind me, squeezing my eyes closed, exhaling through my nose.
Rage and pain and hatred rise from deep inside, sizzling across my chest.
I knew my father hated women. I also knew he disdained Jade. My mother once told me that when Jade was a baby, he’d refused to hold her. It’s why I’d never left her in the house alone.What father didn’t hold their own child?I just hadn’t known that a hatred like that could extend to not caring about what had happened to her, to believing she deserved to be killed.
My stomach rolls at the thought and I slam my hand against the beat-up dash in front of me, my insides pushing to my throat.
“Pull over, man.”
I’m coughing, and Harlen is already off the road, pressing on the brakes.
I pop the door and I don’t have enough time to hike myself out before I’m turning sideways in my seat and retching onto the dry leaves beneath. And when my stomach is empty and my throat burns, I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth, then rub it down the front of my jeans.
My arms are trembling. I place both elbows to my knees, threading my hands through the top of my hair, sucking back a lungful of air.
Could he have done it?
Could he have…
At the vile thought, I’m stumbling out of the car, arms looped around my stomach as I cradle it through another bout of sickness. I’m dry heaving, struggling to catch my breath, to fucking see in front of me.
I spit the leftover sick from my tongue and stand up, turning and slamming both palms against the truck.
“Fuck!” I shout and it echoes off the trees around us. I’m sucking on my front teeth when I realize that I have started to cry again. Ramming my forehead into the back window and squeezing my eyes closed, I temper down each whimper, only my body betrays me. Every harbored cry has me spasming harder, my shoulders shaking.
It’s excruciating, and I don’t think I can do this.IknowI can’t do this. It’s why I wanted to send a bullet to the back of my throat.
“Why!” I cry, spittle spraying to the glass in front of me, rolling down my chin.
Why was my sister raped and murdered?
Why was I the one that shot the gun that killed my mother?
Why did my father hold such hatred toward my mother? And why did he have the same disdain for my sister?
Why was Laiken lying in a hospital bed cradling a gunshot wound?
Why weretheytargeted? And why did he lethergo?
I push my forehead harder against the glass.
Why was I too weak to squeeze the trigger when the gun was in my mouth?
