“The diary.” I’m staring at a point just past her left ear. My brain is using every resource in my body to process Cinna’s words; I’m unable to move or even blink. “How did… you get that… in her bag? When…? When did you even…?”
“You carry that diary everywhere.” She’s hiccupping between sentences. “It was easy to take it from your bag when you weren’t looking. Aubrey and I have a class together. I slipped it into her bag when I knew you’d confront her, and…”
She rambles more, and I listen. Each detail paints a complete picture, all these loose threads I’ve been pulling for weeks weaving into a pattern. She orchestrated everything. The doubt I felt toward Vienna. The suspicion I aimed at Aubrey. The paranoia. All of it was Cinna, standing right beside me the whole time, hugging me, asking me if I was okay, listening to me vent about the very destruction she was doing herself.
This is such a massive betrayal, one that shatters every part of me, that I should be screaming right now. An explosive reaction would match the size of this. But I’ve cried so much tonight and felt so many things about Aeron that my body is running on empty. The fury is somewhere underneath, enormous enough to swallow me if I let it. But I’m standing at the bottom of a drained well and the walls are too smooth to climb.
My voice drops to a whisper. “Why would you do this?”
Cinna lowers her hands. She holds them open in front of her, palms facing me, fingers spread. “Because I hated seeing your perfect life and your perfect family.” Tears are still flowing down her puffy, red cheeks, but the words come out clear, like she’s been carrying them so long they’ve been living on her tongue, waiting to burst free. “You get everything. You get an amazing mom who loves and supports you. You have a great family with your cousin and your brother, and Dorien is always giving you attention. I got sick of seeing you have everything when I have nothing. You don’t even stop to realize how amazing your life is. You complain all the time and yet you have so much to be grateful for.”
I stand and back away from her until there are several feet between us. “Get the fuck out,” I say.
Cinna moves toward the bed instead. She takes Aeron’s hand again and the sobbing worsens, rocking her whole body, shaking the IV line. “I didn’t know he would get hurt. I didn’t know hewould do this. I only wanted to make you suffer a little in your perfect life, but it got out of hand. I thought maybe then you’d be more grateful for what you have. I didn’t want Aeron to… I wasn’t trying to truly hurt anybody.”
I find just enough energy in this empty well that every nerve ending in me ignites. It starts at the back of my skull and travels down my spine, through my arms, and into my fists. I am shaking with a force I have never felt, a feeling that has no color because it is the absence of every color that exists.
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” My voice tears through the room.
The heart monitor spikes, like Aeron’s body registered the violence. The door swings open and Dorien and Mom are standing there, frozen mid-step. Mom’s hand is gripping the doorframe. Dorien is half a step behind her. They stare at me, at Cinna, at the wreckage between us.
Cinna drops Aeron’s hand and gets to her feet. Then she turns and pushes past Dorien and Mom and runs.
Dorien crosses the room and reaches for me. He doesn’t even ask what happened because right now it doesn’t matter; he pulls me against him and I collapse.
The crying is demolition. Everything that held my life together, every person I trusted, every foundation I leaned against, is rubble. I don’t care what petty reason Cinna had for hurting me.
I care that she almost killed my brother.
Instead of remaining in Dorien’s arms, I move to the bed and take my brother’s hand. His fingers are so cold. They don’t respond to mine. The monitors beep in their steady, indifferent rhythm, and the fluorescent light bleaches his face so he’s translucent and barely there.
I press my forehead to his knuckles and cry and cry until every part of me is hollow and the place where hope used to live is only a dead space.
If I hadn’t gotten close to Dorien, this wouldn’t have happened.
The curse is real. It’s been real since we were children. Every time Dorien and I stop fighting and let ourselves become what we are, the world collects its price. Eli in the past. My brother now.
Cinna put the bullet in the chamber, but I pulled the trigger. By letting myself be happy, I did this.
I’m so sorry, Aeron.
Please wake up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
JUNE
Ilove the comfort that Dorein’s studio brings. His parents’ house is empty, the way it usually is, and we’re on the small couch tucked away in a corner. His arms are around me while a December chill presses against the windows.
I’m trying not to think. If I don’t think, I can stay here in the ochre glow, in the smell of a smokey kiln that clings to his clothes. I can pretend this is a beginning and not the end of us.
It’s been almost two weeks since Aeron overdosed. Our prayers were answered because he came out of the coma. The doctors said, “No brain damage,” which is the sentence I replay whenever my thoughts spiral. His liver took a hit, though, and there’s possibly long-term scarring if he isn’t careful. His heart needs monitoring for arrhythmia, and the cardiologist used the word “vulnerable” to describe the muscle tissue. I thought,Yes, that’s my brother right now in one word.
But he’s alive.
Thanksgiving came and nobody celebrated it. Mom made coffee that morning and sat at the kitchen island alone. I found her there, and we looked at each other, and neither of us saidanything about turkey or gratitude. Carter wasn’t home that day at all.
Somehow over the past weeks, I’ve managed to get through end-of-semester projects so now I only have a few classes left. My grades are shit, but good enough that it won’t affect my scholarship. And I submitted one of my pieces to the Alaria Prize. It’s nothing I made specifically for it, just the random piece I created during a torrent of emotion—the vague painting of an ice cream truck. I just wanted to submit something, though I’m sure I have zero chance of winning.
