I had to smile and nod stupidly. My sister was making a liar out of me.
The longer I watched, the more dread I felt. I knew I should have been feeling betrayed, angry, or at least disappointed, and I did. I felt all of those things. But, they all took a backseat to the growing sense of dread that I had eating away at my gut.
I’d been watching Eva more closely the last few days, trying to make sure she took her pills as prescribed. She complied, but I wondered if it was too little too late. Had she already hindered her healing so much that she couldn’t fully recover? The worst part was not being able to say anything to anybody about my suspicions.
I couldn’t tell mom and dad. They’d go off the deep end. I couldn’t tell her doctors; she would feel like I betrayed her. I didn’t have anybody who I could trust with this secret anymore. Come to think about it, the only people in my life I’d ever trusted wholeheartedly were Eva and Anna. Eva, I knew I couldn’t trust anymore. And Anna…well, she wanted nothing to do with me. And even if she did, she fucking lied to me, so it’s not like our trust meter was where it once was.
“Adam, can you take this upstairs and put it in your sister’s room for me?”
Mom handed me a stack of freshly folded laundry.
“Sure thing,” I said and took the still-warm clothes from her hands and ran upstairs. I hesitated before entering her room. It was a habit I developed when we were twelve years old and I was forced to recognize that Eva was actually a girl and even though she was my twin, there were parts of us that weren’t the same. Now the hesitation was tinged with something else.
Unease?
I felt like I was walking into a stranger’s bedroom. The Eva who lived here was a girl I didn’t think I really knew. She was a girl with secrets.
Quickly, I dared myself to enter and dropped the clothes on her dresser. When I turned to leave, all that distrust came rushing into me at once. I wasn’t the kind of guy to sneak around and invade someone’s personal space. Not before now.
There was a jewelry box on the corner of her vanity. It was the first thing that caught my eye. Deep down, I knew I shouldn’t have. But the war I was fighting with myself was one I’d quickly lost.
The jewelry box was in my hands now. Lots of tiny compartments begging me to pry them open. And so I did. With little effort, a pile of blue and white pills spilled out onto the floor. I made a quick estimation in my head. How many pills were there? Days, weeks, maybe a month’s worth of medicine sitting, unused? My head swam.
Were these in addition to the ones I had found in her makeup bag? How long had she been doing this? And most importantly, why?
I took a picture of the pills like a true millennial as if it wasn’t real unless I had a social media-ready photo of it.
Mindlessly, I began gathering up the jewelry and putting them back in the loose compartments. I swept the pills to one side, still unsure how to handle this situation.
Do I show them to my parents?
Hadn’t this whole thing gone far enough? Or maybe too far?
Maybe what Eva needed right now was counseling. Maybe I could convince her to see a shrink.
I was so engrossed in my task that I didn’t hear her make her way up the stairs and down the hall. I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting on the floor, mindlessly sorting cheap rings from blue and white pills until I heard her muffled cry and saw her standing in the doorway.
A light sheen of sweat was on her brow. She must have been moving as fast as she could, hoping I wouldn’t discover her secret. Now she looked at me with wide, frightened eyes and it was clear that neither of us knew what to do.
“Why?”
It’s the one question that I couldn’t seem to answer.
Why would she do this when she had everything going for her and such a bright future ahead of her?
Why would she do this knowing how hard everybody was working to make her well again?
Why, after the surgeries and the hours spent in physical therapy?
Why would she choose a life trapped in a disabled body when she could have avoided it?
Tears slipped down her cheeks and I felt my heart go cold.
“Answer me,” I hissed.
She took two steps forward and closed the door behind her. She fell to the ground and began to gather the pills together, stuffing them into her pockets.
“Eva!” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until she looked up at me. Eyes wide with panic, she looked at me and moved her mouth like a fish on a hook, but no sound came out. Instead, her fingers continued to grasp for the precious drugs that she had so diligently stockpiled in her room.
“Talk to me, or I’m going to mom.”
“No! No, no, Adam, you can’t. Don’t tell mom,” she begged.
“Then talk.”
“I had to,” she squeaked.
“You had to? Why?”
“Because, I was losing,” she moaned, pulling up a fresh set of tears. I watched as her facade began to crumble. Instead of the sweet girl I knew, a desperate and bitter face emerged from behind her features.
“Losing what, Eva?”
“You, Damon, everything.”
“Me? How could you lose me? I’m your brother, you can’t ever lose me. We’re family!”
She looked up at me with a light in her eyes that was unsettling. I’d never seen this expression on her face before. It was greedy and malevolent. Maybe on somebody else it wouldn’t have been so shocking, but on Eva….
“Are we? You were MY brother, Adam. We were a team until you started dating that girl. Then you forgot all about me.”
The malice in her voice as she spoke was painful to hear, but I didn’t run away. This was the real secret she had been keeping. Not the pills. It was never about the pills.
“What the hell are you talking about, Eva? I never forgot about you! How many times did we all hang out? All three of us!”
“Oh yeah, it was so much fun being the third wheel.”
“I never treated you like that! And neither did Anna. And when you started dating Damon, you’re the one who decided that you didn’t want to hang out anymore. I invited you everywhere I went and as soon as Damon came along you went your own way.”
“If you hadn’t abandoned me, I would never have even given him the time of day. I was lonely. I didn’t realize I was picking up a loser to fill the void you left.”
“Bullshit, Eva! You liked him. You knew who he was and what he was about before you started dating him. He wasn’t the best boyfriend. He’s an asshole, I know, but you knew that. You picked him because you liked him.”
She sneered at me and sat back on her knees, straightening her clothes. Except for the lumps in her pockets, she looked like the Eva I had always known. Intelligent, astute, composed and innocent. The transformation was nearly instantaneous.
“So what if I did? You’re my big brother. You’re supposed to tell me not to go out with bad guys. You’re supposed to protect me. Where were you when I needed you?”
Her words hurt, but not the way they would have only a few short minutes ago.
“You’re trying to blame me for things that I didn’t do, Eva. You had a bad breakup with a bad guy. It happens all the time to everybody. Why should you get to skip all the shitty parts of life?”
“Of course you don’t get it.”
She was right about that. None of what she was saying made even a lick of sense. I tried to steady my nerves.
“What does any of that have to do with you not taking your pills?”
“How else was I supposed to get you back?” she sneered, and I knew by the look in her eyes that she meant it. Just as much as she knew, by the look in mine that I thought this was nothing short of crazy.
Eva rolled her eyes at me and sighed. “You didn’t give a damn about me until I was injured. When I was in the hospital it was like we’d gone back to the way we were. Just you and me. No Damon, no Anna, just you and me against the world. Don’t you miss t
hat, Adam?”
I shook my head.
“No. Because I never thought we lost it. Not until now.”
I got up, stunned by what I was hearing. Nothing seemed solid anymore and I felt ill.
“So what are you going to do now? You caught me! Are you going to tell mom?”
I looked at her, but I didn’t recognize the person I was seeing.
“What’s it going to take to keep you quiet?”
“Are you really trying to negotiate with me right now?”
“Adam...what do you want?”
“I want my sister to get better and I want her to go see a goddamned shrink.”
She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“A shrink?”
“Yes, Eva, a shrink! This,” I tossed a fist full of pills at her. “This isn’t normal. Blaming me for your breakup isn’t normal. Claiming that Anna stole me from you, isn’t normal. Thinking I was yours, isn’t normal. You’re my sister, Eva. And I love you to death, I fucking do. But something is very wrong here. You need help. More help than I can give to you.”
“That’s the same damn thing as blabbing to mom.”
“It’s not the same fucking thing,” I hissed and hammered my fist against the dresser. “A therapist will keep your secrets. Tell mom and dad that you’re having a hard time adjusting. They won’t ask too many questions. You know dad, he doesn’t care how the problem gets solved as long as it’s done quietly. But whatever you do, Eva, please just get some fucking help.”
She glared at me, the look in her eyes cold.
“Is that your bottom line? Go to therapy.”
“And take your meds,” I said, trying hard to calm myself. Eva was hurting. She was hurting. None of this made sense, but…I had to remember that she was hurting. “I want you to focus on getting well, Eva. I want you to go back to being the way you were before all of this. I want you to be happy.”
She plastered a sugar sweet smile on her face, wiping every other emotion away.
“Agreed. I go to therapy and you keep your mouth shut.”
“I’ll give you a week to make something happen, otherwise -” I took out my phone and showed her the picture of the pills.
She swallowed hard and looked at me with a quivering lip.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
“If you do this, I will never forgive you.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “But, you’ll be healthy and happy, even if you hate me.”
I opened the door to leave, but didn’t get a foot out the door before a fist full of pills pelted against my back. I turned around to face Eva’s trembling fury.
“You’re always so goddamn high and mighty,” she spat. “You’ve never been afraid of losing anything. But that’s because you’ve never lost a damn thing in your life.”
I couldn’t answer her. Because I was afraid it would break her even more than she was already broken. But Eva was wrong. When I lost Anna, I lost the center of my fucking world.
“Get better, Eva,” I whispered and closed the door behind me. The sounds of her sobs, her wails, her screams, they traveled the extent of the halls, piercing not only my ears, but also my heart.
I closed my bedroom door behind me and dropped to the floor. But I didn’t cry. I was a little too numb for that.
Chapter 26
NOW
Me: We should meet. I’m ready to talk.
McFury: Are you okay?
Me: Can you meet me after school?
McFury: I have to work. I’ll be free after five on Saturday.
Me: I’ll meet you at the ice cream shop. I still owe you one.
McFury: okay
I felt like such a fool. The longer I thought about what Damon said, the angrier I got. Eva was up to something and I was both terrified and livid when I thought about just what her plans were.
Eva was the reason my toxicology report went missing – the reason my innocence was in question. Who knew what exactly her plan was? Who knew whether or not in place of the clean toxicology report, another one would reappear? I didn’t doubt that the guys she’d hired to get rid of the electronic evidence could hack into the system and make it seem like I’d consumed more than my body weight in alcohol. The question was, why hadn’t she done it already? And was that her end game?
One thing remained true in all of this, Eva had to go down.
She.
Had.
To.
Go.
Down.
It sucked that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was going to be the one to do it. And even more than it sucked, it pained me because I knew Adam was going to get hurt in the process.
I’d been nice this whole time while she played the victim.
I’d been nice while she ruined my life and from a distance.
I’d been nice while on the verge of losing my sanity.
The worst part was that she was one of the last people I had blamed. After all, she didn’t light my chemistry experiments on fire. Didn’t push me down a flight of stairs. Didn’t hack my phone or post photoshopped pictures of me all of the internet. But still, she was to blame for every damn thing that happened to me.
I started planning. The more I thought about it, the more elaborate my plan became. I didn’t just want her to know that I was onto her, I wanted the whole world to catch on too. I wanted to unmask her, publicly.
I dreamed about it; imagined dumping her out of her wheelchair and into a pool just to see her swim to the edge to save herself. I reveled in the idea of her standing in front of a crowd, her customary fairy-like appearance reduced to a trembling wet rat in a translucent dress.
By Saturday I was pretty sure that I’d crossed some ethical line when it came to scheming on the sister of your ex-boyfriend. I needed perspective, but there was nobody for me to talk to. I was going crazy. Seeing Damon walk into the ice cream shop was almost a relief. He gave me another one of his easy smiles and slid into the booth where I’d been waiting.
“Hey Harps, you look buzzed,” he said, using the nickname I’d chosen for myself. “What’s up?”
“I think I know what I want to do.” I tapped the composition notebook I’d brought along with my fingertips.
“About what?”
“About that bitch!”
“Whoa.” He reached across the table, eyes wide as he covered my hands with his. “If you’re talking about Eva, give it up. She’s not just crazy. She’s crazy smart and if she sees you coming she’ll ruin whatever you have left of your life without breaking a sweat.”
“That’s just it. She’ll never see me coming. I’ve got a pretty air tight plan. And for the record, I’m smarter than she is, I just don’t usually take pride in ruining people with my intelligence.”
He nodded and leaned back in his seat.
“So tell me your secret plan and what do you need from me?”
I balked. I wasn’t planning on involving anybody else. I just wanted somebody to listen to my ideas and tell me I wasn’t crazy. Or maybe I wanted him to tell me that I was crazy. I wasn’t sure.
“You didn’t think I would let you do this alone, did you? You’re not the only one with a bone to pick with the ice princess. Besides, we’re friends, right?” He snagged the notebook off of the table and flipped through the pages. “Friends back each other up, especially when they come up with elaborate plans for revenge written in tiny serial killer handwriting.”
I snatched my book away from him.
“It’s not serial killer handwriting. I have good penmanship,” I argued.
“Yeah, sure, so do all of the best mass murderers. You want your suicide note and your crazy manifesto to be legible for the forensic team,” he nodded emphatically.
“Shut up!” I found myself laughing despite the seriousness of the moment.
“But seriously, I want in. You can’t do this all alone and I’ve got a score to settle with little miss Eva.”
His gaze turn
ed cold and I finally felt like I wasn’t losing my mind. If Eva could push Damon to the point of wanting to join me on my crazy revenge plot, then she was truly out of control.
“So, tell me where we start. I would read it for myself but just looking at all of this tiny print makes my eyes hurt,” he said, setting the open book in front of me and coming around to my side of the booth.
As soon as he slid in beside me, I became self-conscious.
“People can see us, you know?”
“So what?”
“So, people might get the wrong idea.”
He leaned in so close that I could smell the soda on his breath.
“And what’s the wrong idea?” he asked and now, I couldn’t just smell him. I could taste him. Tiny goosebumps rose on my arms and I pulled back.
“That you and me are a thing. I know you don’t care but, I don’t want to give Angelique a reason to hate me.”
The mention of Angelique’s name seemed to break whatever spell he was casting, and he leaned back. I exhaled and silently thanked my stars that his feelings for Angelique weren’t completely cleared up yet.
“Keeping her happy is Adam’s job now,” he said.
“Sorry. That was insensitive,” I said.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He waved it away and turned his attention back to the notebook on the table.
“Okay, I know I may sound a little anal, but the devil is in the details, so I’m trying to keep track of all of the players and their assignments. The point is to make it so that nobody knows what anybody else is doing or why.”
“So you’re the hive brain. Each unit functions independently, but only you know how it all fits together,” he said and nodded, clearly impressed by my idea.
“Exactly.”
“Beauty and brains, I may have to give Adam a little competition.”
We both chuckled and then put our heads together and got down to business. We ordered ice cream sundaes and root beer floats. Once again I was surprised by Damon. He wasn’t really into books, but he had a mind like an iron vice.
Once I explained something to him, he could make the connections all by himself. He even caught a few things that I’d missed. Critical mistakes that could cost us our victory in the end. It was easy to talk to him, and we found ourselves venturing off into tangents several times.
Filthy Pride: Dark Bully Romance Page 17