by Lily White
“If you’re serious about wanting to help me for the next week or two, then I’d prefer it to tying you up. I want to trust you’re not screwing me. But when it comes time for me to go, do not tell them you volunteered to stay here. It’ll only get you in trouble, too.”
The slow trail of tears down her cheek shimmered beneath the light. “Are you asking me to claim you held me against my will?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking you.”
Her jaw tightened, her lips pulling into a thin line. “Can I get my shower now?”
“Will you tell them that, Michaela?”
An angry gaze shot to mine. “I’d like to think about it.”
Remembering what she’d said about other people always telling her what to do, I didn’t want to be like the rest of the assholes who barked commands at her. I didn’t want to be another Jack. Giving her this time wouldn’t hurt me, even if it would drive me up a wall not to know. Nodding my head once, I answered, “Yeah, you think about it. But I’d like an answer by tomorrow.”
Michaela inclined her head, her eyes staring at my arm in silent request for me to let her pass. Slowly, I pulled it away, watching her move further into the bathroom and close the door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Michaela
There was no way in hell I was thinking about it. Holden may have already accepted the fact that he was going to jail for what happened, but I wouldn’t. There had to be a way to fix this, had to be a way to make the police understand that Jack was the aggressor, the bully, the person that should have been locked up a long time ago for all the crimes he’d committed since we were sophomores in high school.
The fights.
The drugs.
The parties...
Jack Thorne was never a good person. Since the moment he learned what he could take from the world, he took, and he took and he took. Never giving back. Never caring who was hurt in the process.
I was one of Jack’s victims. Not at first, not when he still felt the need to don a mask of concern when it came to me. But after the accident with Holden, Jack’s mask had fallen aside, and if I said anything he didn’t like, if I questioned him, if I didn’t mindlessly follow him, he hurt me as much as he hurt the others.
Never more than Holden, but then pain doesn’t always come in degrees, at least not the kind that rips your feet out from under you and leaves you tumbling through a life you never asked for.
If any crimes had been committed last night, Jack had been the criminal. For the drugs. For stalking Holden. For starting the fight. For what he’d done to me in the car while we waited.
Finishing my shower, I dried off, wrapped the towel around my body and wiped the steam from the small mirror above the sink. My face was swollen on one side where Jack had struck me. Bringing my fingers to the skin that was deepening in color, I pressed softly along the length of the bone. It wasn’t broken, but the bruise would take weeks to heal. The examination of my face also revealed that my lip was split. Not enough to bleed heavily, but enough to cause the skin to swell, to look fuller than the rest of my mouth.
It was an odd feeling to be the person who was abused, and yet to also be the person who felt shame for the beating. Jack should have been the one carrying the burden of shame, and yet here I was, the victim, carrying it for him.
Perhaps I could have forgiven myself for the pain inflicted without my permission, but the shame, that was something I took on myself, and I wouldn’t carry it any longer.
Helping Holden wouldn’t just be what was right for him, it would be what was right for me.
Smiling despite the bruises, I reached for my dirty clothes when a knock sounded at the door. “I left some clothes for you on the bed, Michaela. They’re Deli’s, but I think they should fit. I’ll be in the living room so you have privacy to get dressed.”
My head turned toward the deep voice. “Thank you.”
He didn’t respond, but I could hear his footsteps fading as he left his room and shut the door.
The clothes fit, sort of. Deli and I were the same size in chest and hips, but I had a few inches on her, which made the legs of the sweatpants ride up to my calves. Still, they were warm and clean, a rainbow of color in contrast to Holden’s room. I found it funny that an artist’s room would be nothing but black and white. If not for the pencil sketches pinned to the walls, the guitar sitting on a stand in the corner of the room, I would have never guessed Holden considered this his space.
I wanted to take my time, now that I wasn’t bound, to walk and look closely at the images he’d sketched, but I felt like doing so would be intrusive. Holden had never been an open person. Even as a kid, he was reserved and quiet, a significant presence that hovered over the rest of us, but was always trapped in his head. The other children made fun of him for it, and it was his silence that was the beginning of the labels they assigned him in school.
Crazy.
Freak.
Goth.
Loser.
Hundreds more. So many that I couldn’t keep up with them all.
Yet, none of them fit.
Holden never reacted, unless it came to his sister. He’d said Delilah had been jealous of us, when, in truth, we should have been jealous of Delilah. How many people can say they have one person in their life that is willing to give up everything just so they can be happy? I could never say it, but Delilah could.
Another knock. “You okay in there?”
My head snapped to the sound. “Yeah, sorry. I was just -“
Just thinking about what a good person you are. Just spinning in a slow circle wishing I could touch, observe, smell, learn everything there is to know about you.
“Just getting dressed,” I lied.
Crossing the room, I opened the door to find Holden leaning against the wall beside it. His black hair was a disheveled mess framing his face, his clothes and hands spotted with paint in an array of color. When had he been painting, and where was the art? I wanted to see it, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking.
“I cooked some food. I know you weren’t hungry earlier, but-“
“I can eat,” I admitted, my stomach no longer pained by the dread I’d felt earlier.
He simply nodded his head and led me to the dining room table. Two plates of pasta sat on its surface, the smell heavenly. It was slightly embarrassing how quickly I devoured the meal. Within ten minutes, I’d practically licked my plate clean while Holden was still twirling the spaghetti around on his fork.
“Not hungry?”
His gaze lifted to mine. There one second before dropping back to the twirl of noodles on his fork. “Not really,” he breathed out.
Something was riding him, and I didn’t need to think hard to figure out what it was. “Are you scared?”
“More like annoyed,” he admitted. “Not by you, just by this entire situation. I’m not scared of prison. It is what it is. Just worried for Del.”
“I wasn’t lying to you, Holden. I want to help. And if staying here helps, then you have me for as long as you need.”
His fork clattered onto his plate. “By tomorrow, your family will be looking for you, if they’re not already. No matter what, this gets worse and worse.”
Sad laughter burst from my lips, the truth of my life depressing. “My family won’t be looking for me until after I don’t show for Christmas. Neither will Jack’s. Every time we come down here during school breaks, we always stay at Clive’s house or wherever the parties are being held.”
Anger flashed behind his eyes, his jaw ticking once. “Yeah, the parties...” he mumbled beneath his breath. Eyes meeting mine, he said, “If it hadn’t been for those damn parties I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I’d be in another state doing something other than washing dishes or cooking at a diner.”
Brows pulling together in confusion, I opened my mouth and closed it several times, my thoughts taking time to catch up with the need to speak. “You never went to any of the parties. Why do y
ou blame them?”
Holden leaned back in his seat, the wood creaking beneath his weight as he pinned me with blue eyes that saw everything. “Deli wanted to go to those parties, but knowing what I knew about them, there was no way in hell I’d let her. It’s what caused the fight in the cafeteria that day. Clive reaching for my sister with hands that had taken advantage of so many girls.”
“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.”
He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, sure. How many of the other girls did you help?”
Holden’s glare pinned me in place, the weight of it as heavy and truthful as his question. I didn’t respond, couldn’t with the shame choking me. Jack’s shame. Clive’s shame. The team’s shame. My shame for never saying a word about it.
“That’s what I thought,” he mumbled. Standing, he took our plates from the table and dropped them on the kitchen counter, his palms pressing against the counter holding his weight, his head hung low. “How could you stay silent knowing what those guys were doing to so many girls? Why have all of you stayed silent?”
“Fear,” I answered honestly. “Everybody knows what happens at those parties. It wasn’t some big secret. I never understood why the girls let it happen to them, why they kept showing up and swallowing whatever pills one of the guys gave them. But they did. They still do. I think they all want to believe that they’ll be the one that snags the heart of whatever creep they’re allowing to use them. But when the sun rises the following morning, it’s always the same. Tears followed by the girls leaving, drowning in the shame of it all.”
Our eyes met when he glanced up. “So, what happened was consensual?”
I shook my head. “Not always. Not after the girls passed out and were...shared,” I admitted, the knot in my throat breaking the word apart. “But saying something would have destroyed their reputations. They would have been torn apart at school, labeled with all sorts of horrible names. Nobody took on the team, Holden. You know that. Not even the teachers, administrators or the police would go against the team. They held the power and influence.”
Snatching one of the plates from the counter, he turned to scrape the food into the garbage. “That’s disgusting, Michaela. I hope you know that.”
A tear slipped from my eye, hot and guilty. “I know.”
Tossing the plate in the sink, Holden didn’t react to the clamor, but I did. After staring at the plate for far too long, he finally looked at me again. “I work a double tomorrow, which means I’ll leave here by ten in the morning and won’t return again until ten at night. So, you’ll be free to go. I won’t tie you up again.”
“I’m not leaving. You need time. It’s the least I can do for you.”
Eyeing me with suspicion, he shook his head. “If you say so.”
“I mean it.”
He simply shook his head again and went to work cleaning the dishes.
The silence between us was awkward. Holden and I weren’t friends. We had never really known each other beyond school and our shared connection through Delilah. We were complete opposites in everything. I didn’t know what to say, or how to act. So I did what I did best: shut up.
The minutes ticked past as he cleaned the kitchen, his eyes darting to me every so often, absent of friendliness or affinity. It wasn’t like I could blame him. I would have been suspicious of me, too. But, I wanted to prove myself, not just to him. To myself. Staying here and figuring out how to save him from prison would be my first sojourn into a life I’d always wanted, but was too afraid to live. Jack wasn’t around to knock me back in line. I was free. I just had to decide how I would hold on to that freedom.
Saying as much while Holden continued cleaning, I wasn’t sure how I expected him to react. With praise, maybe? Support? All he did was glance at me every so often, the suspicion still firmly in place. But as I told him more about my desire to move beyond being a tiny little mouse running her maze, pity filtered into his gaze.
Pity.
Holden Bishop pitied the woman who had always lived a life more fortunate than his.
He pitied me when he was the one facing prison for everything this town had done to him.
I had no other choice than to swallow that pity, no matter how bitter it tasted.
It was the first time I encountered a person who wasn’t jealous of me. The first time I didn’t have someone falling at my feet wanting to be me. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. My desire for Holden to approve of me was outside my realm of understanding. But I did want that approval. I craved it.
Unable to take how he said nothing, how he didn’t react, how he simply kept glancing at me like I was some annoying fly buzzing past his ear, I asked, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
A single brow lifted above his eye, silent thoughts lingering in his head that I wanted to hear but feared would never be spoken.
“What do you want from me, Michaela?” His stare finally met mine. “To cheer for you that you’ve decided to be a decent person? To jump up and down and dance across the floor because you think you have it in yourself not to be weak and fake as fuck? Do you want applause? Lives have been ruined. Not just mine, not just my family’s, but all the lives of those girls that were used while you sat back and watched. This entire town is just like you. I wouldn’t believe a place like this could exist if I didn’t live in it. And now that you’ve decided to turn over a new leaf, I’m supposed to breathe out in relief and smile? Congratulations on discovering that you’re a selfish bitch. I’m proud of you. But from where I stand now, I’d like to see you actually live up to your decision. I’d like to see how your epiphany will work to repair the damage that has been done. Because that’s what your silence has accomplished. It’s damaged people. And some of us can’t be repaired.”
Slapping the towel down on the counter, he stalked away, ignoring the tears dripping down my cheeks, unconcerned for the bucket of reality he’d just dumped down my throat. Turning to look at me from over his shoulder, he said, “I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to sleep on the couch or in Deli’s room. We’ll see if you’re still here in the morning.”
With that, he disappeared into his room, the door clicking shut quietly.
I’d never felt more alone in my life. Never felt so exposed and naked.
Not knowing what to do with myself, I sat in my chair for a while, my thoughts always returning to what Holden had said. It was painful, the criticism, the sharp edge of his words echoing endlessly, but I absorbed those words, tasted them, rolled them around in my head and over my tongue. There wasn’t a single one of them that was dishonest or vengeful. Holden had bluntly stated the sad truth, and I was left to learn how to make up for it.
Finally standing from my seat, I padded barefoot along the floors, took a left down a short hall and found Delilah’s room. On the outside of the door was a placard that had her name scrawled in a rainbow of colors. I wasn’t prepared for what I found when I pushed the door open.
I nearly crumbled after taking two steps inside.
Time was frozen within these four walls. A wash of girly color with pink paint, pink rugs, pastel bedding and photo collages framed with ribbons, small ornaments and dried flowers, Delilah’s room wasn’t what you would expect to see in an adult’s bedroom. I’d never visited her house when we danced together, had never witnessed what her tastes had been, but what I saw now was a young teen’s room that hadn’t aged or grown in the time since the accidents that stole the lives of Delilah’s parents.
“If you mean, she dances and smiles and enjoys the same hobbies she used to enjoy, or if you mean she goes to school and does stupid girl sleepovers, or goes to movies or even out to dinner once in a while without fear of missing her parents and not being around when they return home, then no. In that case, Deli died two years ago.”
I’d heard the words when he’d spoken them, but apparently, I hadn’t understood how true they were.
Stepping up to look at the photographs in their frames, I grieved for th
e girl smiling back at me. Many of the photos were of Delilah and Holden together, and the others were of Delilah in the costumes she’d worn for our dance competitions. Every pose was different and I wondered who had taken the photos. They caught her at her best, captured her in the moment when her talent far outshone mine. The girl was boneless when she danced, she was no longer human, she became the music. But for all the photographs displayed proudly, none of them were taken after the year her parents died. Nothing in this room was dated after that fateful night. Not a book. Not a photo. Not a magazine, a poster, a calendar, or a movie.
For Delilah, time itself had stopped moving.
Tranquil Falls had done this to her. I had done this to her. The evidence of what my silence could do to other people becoming a ton of bricks sitting on my chest, crushing me.
I had to make this right. Not knowing how, I promised myself - promised Delilah - that I would fix this so that she wouldn’t lose her brother, too. And with thoughts racing through my head, ideas and pain and promises, I lay down on her bed and pulled the covers over me.
I didn’t sleep well that night. The guilt was too pervasive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Holden
Waking up the next morning wasn’t easy. My eyes peeled open, pulling me away from dreams. My past was a source of comfort, my breath coming to me easier when I could pretend my life hadn’t slipped from my fingers to fall in a gutter beneath my feet. But reality has a way of slamming into you the minute you open your eyes and remember present circumstances, it has a way of pouncing on your chest like a hungry cat, mewling in your face to be fed, or petted, or scratched. Unfortunately, the cat pouncing on me now weighed a thousand pounds, had fleas, and mange, and was feral. I won’t even mention how sharp its claws were.
Regardless of the pitfalls I’d been forced into, I still had a few weeks to work and earn money. That was if Michaela was still here and I didn’t leave my bedroom to find the police sitting on the couches, twirling cuffs around their fingers, grinning to drag me off and lock me up. There was only one way to find out.