We stayed in touch throughout the years, and when I decided to follow Reverie to Colorado, Olive had just found out she was pregnant by a man who raped her at a party.
She was a single, broke, twenty-one-year-old working a shit job at a call center, absolutely terrified of having a baby but insistent on keeping it. There was nothing left in California for her but trauma, so I convinced her to follow me to Colorado for a fresh start. Brand deals were rolling in, so I had the means to set her up in a modest house in Hollow Canyon.
When Olive gave birth to Junie only a month after moving here, she chose Kelly as her middle name to honor me and asked me to be the godfather.
I fucking cried.
Olive exhales heavily, calming herself and bringing me back to the conversation.
Then, she says evenly, “You two have been going at this for four years now, and she always kicks your ass right back. Is this the kind of example you want to set for Junie?”
I groan long and loud, not having the mental capacity to deal with another one of her lectures.
She snorts. “You’re such a child.”
“Whatever. She desherves it.”
Olive releases another soft sigh, this one laden with sadness.
“I don’t know if she does, Kellan,” she says softly.
But I don’t hear her, not really. In this moment, the only things I can think about are murdering Reverie and sleep.
But sleep first.
ThenI’ll get my revenge.
CHAPTER 6
REVERIE
One hundred eighty-three…
One hundred eighty-four…
One hundred eighty-five…
The burning in my lungs mixed with the panic shooting straight through my chest has me stepping out of the stream of water just as my lungs are about to burst. I instinctively go through the motions my old therapist taught me.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
It’s only oxygen going into your lungs, not water.
Except it’s not my therapist's voice ringing through my mind, but my father's.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing it out of my head. It used to bring me comfort. At one time, he was the only parent who made me feel safe. Protected.
My mom was twenty-eight weeks pregnant when I spilledmy apple juice on the floor, causing her to slip and fall.
She landed on her stomach.
Placental abruption is what the doctor called it, but all Regina heard was that she lost my baby brother. Completely preventable, had I not spilled that juice.
It sent her into a spiral of grief, rage, and severe postpartum psychosis.
Mostly because it was my fault.
