by Nicole Thorn
I laid back again, letting the wind and the rain and the petals make me feel something other than sadness for once in too damn long. It only lasted a moment or two.
My own tears mixed with the rain. I always felt too much when I wanted to feel nothing at all. I wanted to be alone, all alone in the world. I wanted a field, a valley, a moor. I wanted a stretch of nothing so that I could have a shot at being nothing.
Nothing didn’t hurt.
This hurt. This life.
“Kizzy,” Zander called out to me. He was standing on the back porch, safe from the rain. “What are you doing?”
My hands were flat on my stomach. “Nothing.”
He looked at the mess I made. It wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t the last time. He should just be happy Zeus wasn’t my parent. Imagine the destruction I could cause with the sky under my control.
“Honey,” he said. “What happened?”
I sat up again and I stared at my lap. I sniffled and I couldn’t keep my voice free of sorrow. “He didn’t care.”
“What?” Zander took a step into the rain as it started letting up. The second his foot touched the ground, in fact. There was a break in the sky where a thin shaft of light shown through. He sat beside me, clearing my face of tears and rain that were both still coming.
I forced the words out and they sounded strangled. “He said nothing changed.”
Zander’s face shifted to some other expression that I couldn’t place. “He had to be trying to make you feel better. There’s no way it meant nothing to him. Trust me.”
I shook my head, because I didn’t. “He wasn’t looking at me any different. He didn’t try and touch me. He didn’t want to. Jasper doesn’t want me.”
Zander held my arms. “Listen to me, Kezia. This isn’t about him. At the moment, I couldn’t care less about what Jasper wants. I care about you. The fact that you have feelings for someone is amazing and wonderful. I don’t want you to ignore how important that is just because you’re misreading things.”
I stared hard at him. “I’m not misreading anything.”
He ignored me. “I can’t know if any of this is gonna work out. What I do know is that even if you don’t think you want it, you’re starting to heal. I can’t put into words how happy that makes me.”
“What’s the point of healing if the reason it started is moot?”
He smiled. “Because, this is about you,” he said. “Be happy that you’re feeling what you’re feeling, even if it’s not the same for him. If you have feelings for him, that means you’re able to have feelings for other people.”
Sadness hit me again. “But I want him.”
“I know you do. But he’s being a little difficult. I don’t know if he plans on wising up. If he doesn’t, then at least you know you can do this. You can be healthy and happy. You can be open to someone else if Jasper is willing to let you slip through his fingers.”
He was, obviously. Jasper didn’t want me and that wasn’t his fault. He was just smart enough to not want a mess like me. He used to love Celeste. She was an awful bitch, but at least she was enough of a person to care about things.
Then my heart ached in my chest. Jasper used to be in love with her. That wretched girl. He could love her, but he couldn’t love me. It was enough to make me not wanna try all together. If I was worth less to him than she was, then what was I worth at all?
Nothing.
Zander held me to his chest, picking the petals out of my hair. I was really covered in them. Soaked to the bone. I could have just made the petals melt away back into the ether. I just didn’t want to.
“Zander,” I said. “We need to get out of this house and away from these people. We’re only putting them in danger anyway. I don’t know if I can be around Jasper anymore.”
My brother eyed me. “It would make you miserable if you weren’t.”
“I know. But I’m miserable anyway. Maybe if I don’t see him anymore, I can feel a little better.” It sounded like a lie.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
God, everything just hurt. I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy who hurt my heart. I thought about sitting next to him, making him lunch, seeing him covered in clay as he walked into a room. Smiling at me. I thought about the sounds he made when he was rubbing against me. The feeling it gave me that I thought would be too much in the best possible way. I missed the feeling I only had for a little while. The feeling of pure safety I had when I was with him. The little bit of a haven I had when I was hugging him and he hugged me back.
Too bad none of it meant a damn thing.
I heard the backdoor open again and a yawning Jasmine stepped through, looking a mess. She scratched her head and looked at her back yard with half open eyes. “Whoa. What the hell happened here?”
The sky was still opening and the shaft was wider. The sun was breaking through the clouds. There was mist like rain in the air. I could see it in the beam of sun, looking like it was dancing in the wind.
The next bit was subtle. So subtle that I wasn’t sure anyone else saw it. Within the light and the rain was the smallest rainbow I’d ever seen. Just a sheet of colors that hit the grass and the petals and the water.
“Well?” Jasmine said. “What’s going on?”
I looked up as the wind swirled around me, pushing up more petals. “Nothing.”
19: Wrong
Jasper
I came out of my studio when Juniper rushed in in a panic. She flitted about the studio for several minutes, while I tried futilely to get her to calm down and tell me what happened now. Perhaps unfair of me, since my problems were the smallest we had at the moment, but I felt exhausted.
Finally, Juniper plopped down on the stool across from mine and put her face in her hands. “Dad called,” she said. “Apparently he ran out of money and is hoping one of us will be willing to stop by with a check. He said he probably wouldn’t be home, but who the hell knows if that’s accurate.” She sighed. “And Kizzy is making a mess of the backyard. I’m trying really hard to keep my cool, because Jasmine went out there to tell her to stop, but she hasn’t stopped…”
Well, damn. Both of those were serious problems, even if Kezia didn’t realize one of them was. She knew my sister didn’t like messes, but I don’t think she had any idea how serious it could get when things went wrong. I rubbed my eyes and hung my head. I didn’t want to make Kezia uncomfortable. Nothing had to change between us, she didn’t have to get scared and everything could just be normal. Safe and normal and right. But I knew I’d have to talk with her about this, for Juniper’s sake.
I stood up, setting all my things down. I was covered in clay, so I knew I’d have to change, but I wasn’t about to let either of my sisters deal with Dad in their current state. “All right, Juni, it’ll be fine. I’ll ask Kezia not to destroy the yard and I’ll deal with Dad, okay?”
She looked up at me, her heart in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jasp. Thanks.” She got up and put her arms around me. I hugged her back, my arms going tightly around her. “You deserve better.”
“I already have it pretty good,” I told her.
She just shook her head.
Once we were in the house, she pulled the vacuum cleaner out and hauled it upstairs. She needed everything to be neat. When she asked if she could work on my room, I gave her permission, because it would distract her. My room wasn’t a mess, but I didn’t bother putting everything away either. She would find peace in making order of my things.
I headed out to the backyard. Whoa. Juniper wasn’t wrong. The backyard was seriously messy and I couldn’t stop picturing Juniper hyperventilating. I rubbed my eyes, which were feeling dry and scratchy for some reason. Jasmine was back there, asking what was going on, but the demigods were mostly ignoring her for each other.
My sister looked up at me and smiled. If you ignored her eyes, it almost looked genuine. There was a palm shaped black bruise on her shoulder that she kept trying to hide with
her shirt, but it was too big for her and kept falling down. I touched the bruise and wished that I could make it go away. Not just the bruise, but everything.
Jasmine tugged the shirt up, to cover it, but the sleeve fell right back down. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked, because I needed to know. I needed to know if I had to go and kill someone. It didn’t matter that I’ve never done anything so harsh before and it didn’t matter that my sister wouldn’t want to put me through that. I would kill them. They wouldn’t even be hard to find, considering they probably ended up in the hospital last night after that wonderful lady beat them with a baseball bat.
My sister gave me a smile, beautiful for how broken it was. “Yeah, I promise that nothing happened.”
We needed to work on her definition of ‘nothing’.
Instead of saying that, I nodded. “Juniper’s inside, cleaning the house from top to bottom again. She’ll work herself into exhaustion. I promised her that I would talk to Kezia about the mess.” I gestured towards the yard, “And that I would handle Dad, okay? You two don’t have to worry about anything.”
Jasmine hid her relief, but not well enough that I couldn’t see it. The sleeve of her shirt fell again and a second bruise was revealed. “All right. Thanks, Jasp… and… I’m sorry.” She shrugged. “For everything. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll work out. We have to make it work out.”
She glanced at the demigods, who were suddenly paying attention to us. Zander’s eyes were locked onto Jasmine’s shoulder. She pulled the shirt back up and scurried into the house. It was a clear command not to ask, but if it were that easy, something told me Kezia would be walking all over Zander.
He turned back to Kezia and then looked after my sister, clearly torn. I didn’t want him crowding her, so I called out, “Everything’s fine, Zander. Don’t worry about us.”
He looked at Kezia and she nodded so slightly that I almost missed it. Zander took off for the house. If I thought there was a chance in hell of stopping him, I would have. Instead, I let him slip past me and into the house, so that he could pester my sisters. It wouldn’t be simple, getting them to talk, so I knew they were safe.
Then it was just me and Kezia and my heart felt like it was being squeezed into pulp. She shifted her feet, looking at the ground. “Um. Guess I should go in.”
“Wait,” I said.
She froze and looked up at me. Her eyes were sad, but I couldn’t fathom how to make that go away, so I did the only thing I could. Focused on the problem at hand. “You need to fix this,” I said.
“What?” she asked, eyes wide. She stammered for a second and that’s what clued me in. She thought I was talking about the two of us. Well, if I could figure out a way to fix it, I would. Since that was unlikely, I wasn’t about to put the burden onto her shoulders.
I shook my head, “No, the yard.” She blinked, understanding dawning and looked around herself. “If Juniper sees this, she’s going to…” I couldn’t bring myself to say breakdown. Even if that was accurate, I couldn’t make the words leave my mouth. “Be unhappy. That’s why we got you the giant pots. So that you could play with them, without Juniper… being unhappy.”
Kezia blinked and then looked mortified. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I mean, I wouldn’t have done this if I had thought—”
“It’s fine,” I rushed to say. “And I’m sorry, but I do need you to put everything back together.”
Still with that mortified expression, Kezia nodded. All the flowers that were scattered over our yard started to decay rapidly. The smell was atrocious, but mostly I was content knowing my sister wouldn’t freak out. When the ground swallowed up the petals once again, I sighed in relief. “Thanks,” I said, rubbing my eyes once more.
“Are you okay?” Kezia blurted. “You look a little…”
“Like crap?” I asked. “I usually do. Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked around the yard again, where all the missing petals had been. Swallowed. “I’m sorry if I upset you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. I… had a bad night. And no, not because you kissed me. That wasn’t anything you have to be ashamed about, Kezia.” Before she could respond, I turned around and went inside.
Upstairs, Jasmine was ignoring Zander, who was talking at her. She had managed to pull Juniper out of my bedroom and get the vacuum turned off. She dragged our sister into Juniper’s bedroom and closed the door in Zander’s face when he would have walked in after them. He glared at it and then turned that glare back on me. “What happened?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, stepping into my room and closing the door. Ten minutes later, I was dressed in fresh clothes and looked about as presentable as I ever got. Zander had vanished when I stepped outside, so I took a guess that he managed to get into Juniper’s room and could only hope she was okay with that.
“Where is everyone?” Kezia asked from her doorway, making me jump. I turned around. She was pulling on the hem of her shirt, like she was hoping to make the thing bigger.
“I think they’re in Juniper’s room, if you want to join them,” I said, making my way towards the stairs. I could hear her quiet footsteps right behind me.
“Aren’t you going to join them?”
Why was she following me? After everything, I kind of assumed she wouldn’t want anything to do with me, yet she was right on my heels. I looked back at her and her eyes were so worried and she kept ringing the hem of that shirt. I stopped and she nearly collided with me.
“Fuck,” I said, putting my face in my hands. “We aren’t being normal, huh?” I asked.
“What?” she squeaked. I wondered how often I actually cursed in front of her. It seemed to throw her off.
“No, I’m not joining them,” I finally said. “My father needs some money, so I’m dropping by his house and dropping this off.” I held up a check that Juniper had left on my dresser so that Kezia could see it. “But I’ll be back in an hour or so, if you want to do something then.”
Kezia chewed on her lip, her eyes on the check. I assumed she’d say okay and leave it at that and then later we’d end up doing nothing while she tried to avoid me. So it was a surprise when she said, “Can I come with you?”
I stared at her. “Why?” I asked. She flinched and I said, “No, no, you can come, I just… Why? You don’t like my father. Why would you risk running into him again?” Matter of fact, I wasn’t sure I should bring her around him, for his own safety.
Kezia smiled, but it came off weird and shrugged with one shoulder. “One day you’ll get it.”
There was nothing to say to that, so we left instead. The car ride was… unpleasant. Tense to say the least. We didn’t talk the entire drive, but I caught Kezia watching me from the corner of her eye several times. Red lights were the worst. Just sitting there, waiting for the light to turn and hoping the other person doesn’t realize how awkward it was, while suspecting they were fully aware.
Then I pulled up to my father’s house. It was a one story, with half dead plants out front. He kept them alive so that the neighbors wouldn’t complain, but otherwise he didn’t care. I parked on the street and got out. Kezia looked up at the house and then at me. “This is where you grew up?”
I nodded. “Yeah. C’mon. His motorcycle isn’t it he driveway, so I doubt he’s home.”
“Your dad drives a motorcycle?” She asked.
I shrugged. “He’s got the car he drove to our house, the motorcycle and a convertible, for the sunny days. He likes to go out according to his mood,” I explained, ringing the doorbell.
“And uses your money to do it,” Kezia said. She spoke so quietly, that I think I wasn’t meant to hear it.
We waited almost three minutes before it became apparent that I was correct in assuming he wasn’t home. Since the rain dried up, he probably decided to take the bike out when he still could. I took my keys out and flipped to the one that allowed me to open his house up. Kezia followed me in, her eyes roaming the place curiously.
“He hasn’t changed anything since we moved out,” I told her, for reasons I couldn’t fathom. “He said he wanted to make sure we had a place to stay when we couldn’t handle it anymore.”
Kezia frowned at me. “That’s fucked up,” she said.
I shrugged. “He’s just doing what he thinks is best for us.”
“No, Jasper,” Kezia said. “He’s not doing that for you. He’s doing that so that you feel obligated to him and that’s fucked up. Almost as bad as the fact that you don’t seem to understand that.”
I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time that day. “It isn’t like that, Kezia,” I said, but it sounded false, even to my own ears, so I moved away from her. Too many things were happening and for once I couldn’t shove it all back into the dark hole where it came from.
In the living room, I set the check down on the coffee table and put an egg shaped knickknack over it, ignoring the way the egg whispered in Juniper’s voice. Begging to be touched. I straightened up and saw that Kezia had wandered down the hall. I chased after her, but it was too late. She had walked past the room my sisters and I used to share and stiffened. I came to a stop next to her, looking out the window she was ignoring, hoping she didn’t notice what was outside.
“Did all of you share this room?” She asked, looking at me. There were two twin beds, on either wall and a pile of blankets in the corner. I used to sleep on the blankets, because there wasn’t enough room for all of us in a bed and I wanted my sisters comfortable more than I wanted to be comfortable.
“Uh, yeah.”
“What are in these rooms?” She asked, pointing to the three other doors in the hallway.
“Uh, that’s my dad’s room,” I said, pointing to it. “That’s the bathroom. And that’s the guest room.”
She stared at me for a long time. Long enough that I started to squirm under her scrutiny. I looked away from her. Something about her expression made it too hard to maintain eye contact. I was so studiously trying to stay off her radar, that I didn’t notice when she actually stepped into my old bedroom until she asked, “What’s that?”