Everett lifts his eyebrows, entirely unconvinced. “I ask you so much because you lie and say you’re fine when you’re clearly”—he waves his hand in my direction—“not fine.”
“I don’t want to talk about it today.” I glance down at my feet because I don’t like the guilt that shoots through me when I look at his face.
“You don’t want to talk about it ever, but you need to. Today, especially.”
What the fuck is there to talk about? I loved someone. He broke my heart. I said terrible, horrible things to him that I can never take back. He died. The end.
“Good morning,” a tired voice sounds from behind me as Dahlia hops off the bottom stair and strolls into the kitchen, smiling.
Everett gives me a look that says he’s not done with this conversation, but when his eyes flit to his girlfriend, they turn molten, his face so bright, it’s like I’m not even in the room. He smiles at her, and it’s like the world goes from darkness to daylight.
I never thought I’d see my brother in love like this. I never thought I’d see him in love at all. It was weird to leave Pacific Shores knowing him as an emotionally unavailable playboy who loved to party, and come home nearly four years later to find him not only in a committed relationship, but also giving total dad energy to his girlfriend’s daughter.
Wild.
Watching them together is borderline repulsive, but I still can’t stop myself from smiling as he pulls her against his chest and drops his mouth to her lips. The soft moan that escapes Dahlia is definitely my cue to leave.
“Okay, well, you two have a good day. I’ll see you this evening.”
“Good night, Elena,” Dahlia sings, laughing into my brother’s neck.
I turn the corner, heading up the stairs just as Everett calls out, “Elena?” I pause halfway up, waiting for him to continue. “Do not get upset with Mom and Dad, or with Leo, if they come to check on you today.”
I don’t respond as I continue to my room, shutting off my lamp and drenching myself in darkness, crawling into bed and letting it swallow me whole.
2
VIOLET
“I ALWAYS WANNA DIE (SOMETIMES)” - THE 1975
Sometimes,I daydream about killing myself.
Not even because I want to. I don’t think I ever would. Maybe I should and I’m a coward, or maybe deep down I still believe there is something to live for, but regardless, I think about it.
I dream about it because I’d like to know that my last act was perpetual torment on my father. I’d get satisfaction knowing that it’d likely destroy him, that maybe he’d follow me into the depths of hell too. I’d hope that he would feel the pain, guilt, and hopelessness that he’s been causing me for the last four years.
Not that I don’t deserve it. I do.
But I fucking hate my father anyway.
Though, killing myself in spite of him would destroy my mother in all the same ways. It’d destroy my friends—the few people left in this world who still give a shit about me. And I love them more than I hate my dad. So, I won’t kill myself.
I can’t pretend I don’t sometimes think about it simply because I yearn for her reaction. There are parts of me convinced she’d celebrate, other parts of me that think she’d curl up right beside me and die, too, because that’s how I feel about her. The biggest fear I have—arguably the thing truly stopping me—is the undiluted fear that my death wouldn’t ruin her the way his did.
What a fucked up thing to envy.
If I died, I’d be freed from the shackles attached to her affections. It wouldn’t fucking matter who she loved most at the end of the day, because I’d be swallowed up by the darkness that I can’t help but sometimes feel would be a reprieve.
Yet, that fear pricks at my skin all the same. I can’t live with the possibility of confirmation that I meant nothing to her, even though she’s been confirming that sentiment herself with each passing day of silence since the morning she left my bed.
One thousand three hundred and sixty days of silence, to be exact.
Despite the fact that she’s been living four blocks from me the past six months, or that I have dinner with her family every Sunday. Dinners she never joins.
That day felt odd. Operations at work were normal. The weather was fine. But something was rattling my bones; something didn’t feel right. Or maybe it did, for the first time in a while, and that’s what felt wrong.
Nobody told me that Everett left town. I was none the wiser. Yet, somehow, when my two childhood friends showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, I wasn’t surprised. When Everett told me she’d returned to Pacific Shores, I wasn’t taken aback.
