“It’s all my fault she died. I killed her.” I shake my head and close my eyes tight as the emotions swell through my system again. I hate this. I hate retelling the story. I hate the way it makes me feel. I don’t have control over myself, and it makes me feel weak.
“You didn’t kill her,” she says, grabbing my face in her hand to force me to look at her. “It was an accident. You were a child, and you were acting the way children act. Don’t blame yourself.”
“My parents think it’s my fault too. I could always tell they blamed me. When I would tell them I felt guilty, that I was upset because it was my fault, they never denied it.” I lean back on the couch and let out a long exhale. “As soon as I left the house, they stopped reaching out. They lost two children that day.”
When I finally look back at Sage, tears are streaming down her face, and I wrinkle my eyebrows at her. I don’t understand how someone could cry so easily at someone else’s pain. I don’t even cry at my own.
After the accident, I remember being heartbroken. The crash was scary enough, but the memory of Leah’s death haunts me. I remember my father rushing out the driver’s-side door to pull her broken body from the car before he collapsed on the ground with her in his arms. He screamed and cried, and he begged God to bring her back. I stood there in shock, watching. When it finally registered, I started crying too. I didn’t stop crying for days. Eventually my father kicked the door to my room open and told me I didn’t get to cry. I didn’t have any business crying because I didn’t get hurt in the accident. I didn’t lose what he lost.
I haven’t shed a tear since then.
Looking back, I know that’s why I’m the way I am now. I couldn’t control my anger before the accident, and I couldn’t control my tears before he told me to stop. Now everything in my life is rigorously controlled. There’s no room for outlying emotions. And I can’t get hurt if I don’t let anyone in.
“Why are you crying?” I ask Sage when I shake off the remnants of the memory.
She shakes her head and dries her eyes before taking a few deep breaths. “I just can’t imagine letting a child feel that way. They should have told you it wasn’t your fault. They shouldn’t have let you bear that weight for so long, and I’m so sorry for all the pain you’ve experienced.” More tears fall from her face as she tries to choke back sobs. “I wish I could take it all away from you.”
This is the first time anyone has said anything like that to me. I realize now I’ve almost been waiting for an apology from my parents that will never come. This is new, and I don’t know how to react.
Sage climbs into my lap, and I hold my arms out, not knowing how to react to her sudden proximity. Her arms wrap around me, and I feel my defenses waning. She kisses my cheek and runs her fingers through my hair, burrowing her face in my neck as she tries to stifle her tears.
I hesitate for a moment, but I wrap my arms around her, too, completely enveloping her. This is strange. I haven’t hugged anyone since I was a child. It’s not something I’ve thought about, but looking back, the last person I hugged was probably Leah.
My entire body is tense as she holds me, and as the memory fades, I relax into it. Maybe this isn’t so bad. Two weeks ago, the idea of somebody hugging me would have sent chills down my spine, but now things are different. Sage is different.
I don’t know how much time passes, but the two of us sit on the couch together, letting our bodies meld as we hold each other. I have to admit, I kind of like it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sage
I don’t remember going to the bedroom last night, but I wake up with a hand zip-tied to Travis’s headboard. Travis has been doing that to keep an eye on me, but normally I’m zip-tied to his own wrist. He’s not in bed beside me, and I start feeling like I did something wrong.
With a huff, I close my eyes again. While I wait for Travis to come and get me, I daydream about starting a fashion line for bedazzled zip ties. Maybe there is a market out there. I should find a support group for women who’ve been held hostage by a hot guy.
I try to sit up, and the headboard rattles against the wall as I move. Travis must have ultrasonic hearing, because he storms into the room mere moments later with his arms crossed in front of him and a scowl on his face.
Yep. I should have predicted this would happen, but I didn’t.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Travis asks, standing at the foot of the bed while I wiggle my arm. “You can’t just go around drugging people without their consent.”
My mind is a little foggy because the pot brownies were much stronger than I intended them to be. I shake my head and try to recall the memory of the night before. It all comes flooding back to me as Ithink about Travis sitting on the couch and telling me about his sister’s death. I still feel awful for him.
I did what I did because I needed him to open up to me. Now that he has, we’re closer than we’ve ever been. It was a good thing, but he doesn’t see it that way. I know he might come around in the future, and I can hardly wait for that.
“Come on, you never would have loosened up if it weren’t for the brownie,” I say, arguing my piece.
He just shakes his head with a disgusted look on his face. “I didn’t want to tell you those things. They’re my private memories that I chose to keep from you. You can’t just make a decision like that for me. I shared that information unwillingly.” Travis raises his voice as he speaks, and I shrink away from him. He lost control last night when he was telling me about his past while high, and he’s losing control right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hoping to placate him. Honestly, I’m not sorry at all. Travis needed that—we needed that for our relationship.
Speaking of ...My wrist is still zip-tied to the headboard, so I casually ask, “Are we, like ... in a relationship now, or is this just your weird version of a sleepover?”
He just shakes his head and walks over to me, pulling a pocketknife out of his jeans and opening it. For most people, a serial killer approaching them with a knife might be a bad thing, but believe it or not, I trust Travis.
He cuts through the zip tie and frees my hand from the bedpost. I immediately reach for the waistband of his pants and look up at him with an eager smile.
“Let me make it up to you,” I say, then bite my lower lip. Travis doesn’t hesitate when he pushes my hand aside and walks over to the door.
