I felt bad for forcing him out of his bed to sleep on a hard hallway floor, but after I gave him an extremely brief rundown of what I'd just learned, he made no complaints.
He's watching over her today while I figure out where the fuck my head is at.
And right now, I'm just… pissed.
At fucking everyone. Reverie, Lionel, Regina, the copycat, whoever her stalker is, Roxi—fuck,myself.
However, at this moment, I’m currently inundated with fury because of everything Reverie’s parents did to her. She was adamant about not demonizing Regina for her actions when she had postpartum psychosis, and I know enough about it to understand why. However, it doesn’t make me any less furious. It doesn’t make me any less sick to my stomach that she experienced something so horrific. It doesn’t make me hate Regina any less for continuing to blame Rev for it.
And what she witnessed from Lionel… to see something as brutal as she did, only for the sole parent she felt safe with threaten to make her watch him do the same to her mother?
My fists curl tightly, and the yearning to make Lionel suffer is a scream that never quietens.
Fuck, I want to kill him so fucking badly. But first, I want to torture him so fucking slowly, so painfully, he’ll beg me to end it. And I won’t. I fucking won’t for as long as I can.
But then, a voice in the back of my mind will softly whisper to me,Lionel would’ve never taken your mother’s life had Reverie just said something. None of this would exist if not for her silence.
It’s not fucking fair of me—I know that.
It’s irrational to think a six-year-old who had experienced more trauma than most do in an entire lifetime should’ve spoken up after witnessing the horror she did.
Butfuck, it doesn’t make it any easier not to feel that way, anyway.
It doesn’t make it any easier accepting so many women would be alive today had she done it.
However, my anger doesn’t end there. What hurts is that she watched the world rip me to pieces and didnothing, even after Lionel could no longer make good on his promise. I can rationalize her silence at first, but I can’t do the same with her silence after Lionel’s arrest. I can’t, not when she was silent after the copycat invalidated me to the public.
She was a kid, but I fucking was, too. I stood on that stand for two days, one of them under constant interrogation, while the entire world sneered and called me a liar. But I told them the fucking truth. Despite my fear, the death threats and relentless bullying, I did it, anyway.
So I can't help but question why she couldn’t have saidsomethingtoanyone. I mean, I know why. She was fucking terrified. But I wish she just did…fucking something. Even if it was to make people suspicious of Lionel. If she had, he might’ve never gotten out of prison. Because regardless of Lionel’s good deeds behind bars, what truly led to his release was their belief in his innocence.
Is it so selfish to wish that, at the very least, she spared me some goddamn torment? Even if it changed nothing but the way people treated me, is it so wrong to resent not having that?
I shake my head and force myself to shower quickly and then exit the pool, where people stand outside the windows in the center's hallway to watch me.
Excitement and appreciation light up their faces as I pass, but my thunderous expression must be severe enough for them to bite theirtongues.
By the time I’m slamming open the door to the gym and charging into the cool February air, my head aches from all the back and forth.
There’s only one place I can think to go that might clear it.
I knock on the red-painted door, my porous bones soaking up my anxiety until I'm vibrating with restlessness.
Instantly, quick little taps come running toward me, followed by a feminine voice yelling out, “Juniper Kelly! You know not to answer the door without Mommy.”
Her giggles bring a smile to my face. She’s been a hellion since the day she was born.
The door opens, and I only make it to three seconds before Junie launches herself at me. I crouch down in just enough time before she’s leaping into my arms.
“Kelly!” she exclaims excitedly, nearly bursting an eardrum.
“Oh no, she’s gotten too heavy!” I shout before dramatically falling backward, my arm banded tightly around her.
She cackles loudly, and her hair gets caught in my mouth as I teeter onto my back. She doesn’t even give me the chance to spit it out before she’s scrambling out of my arms.
“Do it again!” she demands, going to run back into the house so she can launch at me a second time.
“No, no, Junie. Let him get in the door,” Olive says, catching Junie just in time before she jumps into the air.
