Crew Princess (Crew Series Book 2)

by Tijan

  The guy worked out.

  And judging by the look on his face, he’d been bored out of his mind.

  He’d been sitting on a picnic table with two friends, not doing anything. He wasn’t talking or shouting or waving his arms around. He was literally just sitting with his feet resting where people would normally sit, and he’d drawn attention. His elbows had been braced on his legs, and there was an air around him. He’d exuded a nonchalant charisma.

  I wasn’t the type of girl to notice a guy and stalk him from afar. No, no, I was the type to notice a guy and then notice the hot dog stand beyond him. Willow would go for the guy, and I would go for the hot dog.

  Priorities, right?

  But even though I hadn’t talked to Ryan earlier, I knew he was popular. A person just knew, and my hunch was confirmed when two girls walked past him. They’d paused, hands in front of their faces, and whispered to each other. One of Ryan’s friends had tapped his leg and gestured to the girls. He’d looked, and the girls had erupted in giggles before running away, their faces flaming red.

  Meanwhile, Willow refused to come so I was on my own, sitting at my own table, feeling like a loser while I stared at all the other kids there.

  They’d all seemed beautiful or remarkable in some way. And they’d all managed to find each other, like with my little brother. He’d been at a table with two other boys and a girl. All were focused on their iPads. I was pretty sure they were speaking nerd language, and if I’d walked over, the conversation between the eleven-year-olds would’ve gone over my head.

  Again, I was the slacker of the family. I should be able to communicate with an eleven-year-old, but no. I’d been to other outings with Robbie. I knew the routine. He’d found his crowd, and I could tell he was happy.

  Then again, Robbie never endured what another genius eleven-year-old might.

  He was never bullied because he was smart. He was almost worshiped. People thought he was going to be the next Steve Jobs, and his classmates had caught on, already sucking up to him. Yeah, maybe there was a jealous kid every once in a while, but Robbie never talked about it. If he was picked on, I wondered if he was even aware of it.

  I wondered how things would be for him . . . after. Robbie had always seemed happy. Would some of that be gone? I hoped not—stop.

  Mind, back up here. Mental reverse, and back to Ryan again.

  I should’ve known something was different from the minute my head hit the pillow in his room. I felt warm, at ease, and my body relaxed. It shouldn’t have. I should’ve remained awake like I had been while I was in Peach’s bed. They said I’d be ‘better off’ not being alone that night so I’d been in a stranger’s bed. I was tense and gripping the sheet with white-knuckled hands, replaying in my head what had happened at my new house earlier over and over and over.

  But not in Ryan’s bed.

  He was as surprised as I was when we woke the next morning.

  He jerked upright. “What?” he asked, his mouth gaping open at me.

  I grabbed for the covers, made sure they were pulled tightly over me, and I gawked back at him. That was it, really. My body was still relaxed. Only my mind was alarmed, but then my mind lost the battle. There was other shit up there that I didn’t want to stir and think about, so I gave in and let my eyelids droop again.

  “I must’ve gotten lost,” I murmured.

  Ryan and I hadn’t talked—not at the picnic earlier when our parents greeted each other, and not when Robbie and I were ushered into their home that night. Everything was hush-hush when we got there. Mrs. Jensen had whispered something to Peach, and she gasped, her hand covering her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

  I looked away at that point. My chin had started to tremble, and I didn’t want to start. If I started, I didn’t know if I could stop.

  So there in the darkness was the first time Ryan and I talked, and it wasn’t really a conversation. He looked to the door like he should tell someone, but I said, “Please don’t. I couldn’t sleep until I came in here. I don’t know why, but I can now. I just want to sleep.”

  His eyebrows pinched together. His dimple disappeared, and slowly he lay back down. He didn’t say anything. A minute passed, and I realized he wasn’t going to. He was going to let me sleep, and thankfully, that was exactly what happened.

  I slept.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I woke up and she was there.”

  I could hear Ryan on the other side of the door.

  “Well, I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either,” he grumbled.

  “I thought it was weird when she didn’t come back last night.”

  A sigh.

  I recognized Peach’s voice, but I couldn’t place where it came from. Then it didn’t matter. I was asleep again.

  The bed shifted under me, and I heard a whispered, “Mackenzie.” A hand touched my arm and shook. “Hey. Are you awake?”

  It was Robbie. I rolled over and opened one eye. “What?”

  He’d been crying. The tears were dried on his face, and I could see two fresh ones clinging to his eyelashes.

  He wiped at one, embarrassed. “Are you going to sleep all day?”

  “If I’m lucky.”

  He frowned and then glanced to the door. “I don’t want to be out there alone. I don’t know these people.”

  I scooted back until I felt the wall, flipped back the bedcover, and patted the place next to me. “Scootch in.”

  He looked to the door again, indecision on his face, and then let out a small breath. His tiny shoulders slumped as if he’d lost what little fight he had. He sank into the bed, clasping the covers tight over his shoulder, and looked at me, lying on his side. I moved closer, mirroring him so our foreheads almost touched.

  We didn’t talk, but a fresh tear welled, pooling on the bridge of his nose. I reached over and smoothed it away.

  “Mom and Dad are going to be gone all day today. I checked their phone calendar.”

  How Robbie could do that, I had no idea, but I wasn’t surprised.

  “Why aren’t you crying?” he whispered.

  “I can’t.”

  He nodded as if this made perfect sense. “I wish I were like you sometimes. You’re the strong one, Kenz.”

  Strong? Was that my role in the family?

  I tried to muster a smile, but I knew I failed. I probably looked like the Joker instead. “Can you sleep?”

  “I’ll try. Can we stay here all day?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  That seemed okay with him. He closed his eyes and a settled look came over him, one that resembled peace. But I knew it was a lie. There was no peace. Not anymore.

  “Hey, Kenz,” he whispered a minute later.

  “Yeah?”

  “Happy birthday.”

  It was dark when I woke again, and Robbie was gone. The door was open, and I could hear the sound of silverware scraping against plates. The smell of food must’ve woken me, and for a moment, I was cross.

  They could’ve closed the door. But then the fog left my brain, and I realized it was probably Robbie who’d left it open. He had a habit of doing that, and it always annoyed Willow.

  Willow . . .

  The small grin that had tugged at the corner of my mouth fell away.

  God.

  I drew in a rasping breath, and this time, I knew I couldn’t keep the thoughts at bay.

  It had been a weird smell. A rich, rusty smell, like wet metal. It made my stomach cramp, and I’d been biting my lip even before I opened the bathroom door. Willow’s arm had gotten scraped earlier when we were moving boxes around the house. If she’d opened her bandage and dumped it onto the counter, I was going to be pissed. She was always yelling at me for leaving my toothbrush and paste on the counter. Everything had a place in her world, and for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why I didn’t remember that.

  My answer was always the same: because I wasn’t an anal, obsessive control freak. That usual
ly angered her, but this time, I was going to be the one to explode. Willow wouldn’t know what was coming her way. I was going to wave my arms in the air, stomp my feet, and yell like I just didn’t care.

  She knew how much I hated blood.

  But then I was there, pushing the door open.

  I don’t remember when I realized what I was seeing. I suppose I felt something, because they told me later that I went into shock. My body shut down, and I left it. They said this could happen when a person experienced a traumatic event, but all I knew was that I watched from the doorway as my body fell to its knees.

  My hand covered my mouth, and my shoulders jerked like I was throwing up. I learned later I’d been screaming.

  Then I was shaking her, sliding on the blood on the floor, because it was everywhere. Thinking about it, I could feel it on my hands again. Warm. Liquids were supposed to be refreshing and cool. This was heavy. It felt no different from my own body temperature. I didn’t like that. It should’ve felt different. Because it was Willow’s, it should’ve felt perfect.

  I stood in the doorway as I watched myself. And I kept screaming, until suddenly, I stopped. I choked on a sob, and like that, I was back in my body.

  My face: dark eyes, golden blonde hair, heart-shaped chin.

  My body: slender arms, long legs, and petite frame.

  My heart: beautiful, broken, bleeding.

  All of it on the bathroom floor in a bloodied pile.

  Feeling a weird serenity, I gasped on a breath and moved next to Willow. I sat on the tile the blood hadn’t touched yet. But it would. It was seeping out of her.

  I knew she was already gone. Her eyes were vacant, but I wanted one more moment. My sister and me.

  I lay down, just like her.

  On my stomach.

  My face turned toward hers.

  My hand on the floor, palm up, mirroring her.

  I watched over my sister one last time before we were discovered.

  There was a flash of light. Someone was coming in through my bedroom—Mom. I didn’t look up at her. I couldn’t hear much. A dense cloud came over me, dulling my senses, but I heard her screaming, as if she were far away.

  She was shaking Willow.

  Time sped ahead. Time slowed to a crawl. Time was all over the place, in patches.

  When I noticed the sirens, the flash of red and white outside my bedroom window, I reached over and held Willow’s hand.

  My face. My body. My heart—it all went with her, because she was me.

  My twin sister killed herself on June twenty-ninth.

  We would’ve been eighteen the next day.

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