by Haley Jenner
Using the back of my hand, I wipe away my tears. “She loved you, Roc. She loved us. She made a promise to mom to protect us. She did right by mom,” I finish softly, knowing exactly of the love that ran through Mira’s veins. She wasn’t our mom, not technically, but she was close enough and the only one we’ve known for the past eighteen years.
“I need to get her blood off our floor. It doesn’t belong there. She shouldn’t be remembered as a pool of blood on the ground,” he declares out of nowhere, standing quickly and moving away.
“Roc—”
“Help me. Get rid of any reminder of him as well. I want everything from this day to just go, dollface. Far the fuck away.”
We spend the next few hours scrubbing the floors, watching the diluted red liquid pour down the sink. The last of Marcus and Mira’s lives, washed away, down the drain.
“At least he’s dead,” I speak at my feet when we’re done, standing in our kitchen, lost in emptiness in uncertainty. “Just wish I’d been the one to pull the trigger, not Dominic.”
Twenty-Six
Codi
“At least you’re dressed,” Ryn comments, moving into the room, a long sleeved black blouse tucked neatly into her black pants.
I glance down at my own attire, similar to hers, but ignore her comment, refusing to speak.
“I want you to try and talk to him today, Codi. You can’t go on like this. It’s not healthy.”
I raise an eyebrow in challenge. “Pot, meet kettle.”
Her head shakes side to side, anger and disapproval twisting her lips.
I offer her the same, my head turning away to avoid the judgmental glare in her eyes. “My trust, my love was violated. Same pretext.”
Her bottom lip tips out in disgust, her head once again shaking hotly in disagreement. “Parker is nothing like him. He’s a good person. You know that, Codi.”
“Why are you defending him?” I bite out, betrayed by her want for me to look past everything that happened without question.
She saw what happened. She knows what he did. How he inserted me into his foolish sea of hatred and now I’m drowning in it too. I can’t catch my breath. Can’t find the strength to swim out of the anger and animosity living inside of me.
Because. Of. Him.
“Babe, I’m not defending anyone. I’m not justifying his actions. I’m not telling you what he did was okay. I’m also not telling you that he’s the most disgusting human being on the planet and he’s completely lacking any kind of soul.”
She moves in front of the TV, thwarting my view of Jax Teller in the shower and I scowl over at her. She huffs, rolling her eyes and leaning forward to retrieve the remote. The screen goes black and she throws the remote out of reach, turning back to me.
“I was watching that,” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Look, Codi. I get it. I get why Parker did it. I’d die for any chance of vengeance; to be able to finally kill the monsters in my mind. To find a chance a peace and not be woken by my nightmares.”
I look at the sincerity, the truth on her face and the scowl stamped along my face eases, because more than anything, I would want that for her too.
“I would take it. In a heartbeat. I think about how good it would feel to kill him, to rid his body of breath, of life. To take from him what he so effectively has taken from me. So, I get it.”
“Ryn,” I start but she shakes her head, moving closer and sitting on the coffee table and leaning forward.
“He was a kid, Codi. A little kid, whose mom was murdered. Brutally. And when she died, the good in his life died with her. He’s known nothing but hate, the want for blood since that moment. You can’t hate him for that.”
“I don’t,” I admit softly. “I don’t hate him for wanting revenge. God, when he told me, I told him to never feel sorry for the people that brought that onto him. I told him to find his revenge. But he used me.”
Ryn sighs loudly, her shoulder dancing in an almost shrug, her head moving side to side with indifference. “He thought our dad did that to him. It was a logical thought. No one would have assumed Sarah and Marcus had weaved such a fucking cesspool of cluster fuck and deceit.”
“Don’t bring him up.”
“Codi, babe, you’re gonna need to deal with this sooner or later. Dad’s hurting. You’ve cut him out.”
“Dad?” I spit. “Oh. My dad’s not hurting, he’s dead.”
“You know what I mean.”
I look away in shame.
“Look, back to Parker. He and his brother wanted revenge and they deserved that. They deserved peace. Sure, their hate was misguided, but that was because they were fed a lie for the entirety of their lives. You can’t resent Parker for that. They paid the ultimate price, they lost the only family they had left,” she adds accusingly at the end.
She waits for me to speak, but I have nothing to say. Everything she said rang true. Everything. But that doesn’t mean all is forgiven. How could it be? Everything we built our relationship on was deceit. I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I can tell myself that every small snippet of vulnerability he showed me was true, but I don’t know that any more than I think he does. Surely, he’s confused as to where his lie started and his truth began. Of when his lie morphed, with or without his knowledge or permission into something forbidden. He knew our relationship could never go any further, that’s why he spoke in riddles, spoke of our expiration date.
I was planning for our future while he was planning my funeral. I saw marriage and kids and he saw my death as his peace. I fell in love while he was still lost in hate.
Is it even possible to fall in love when you’re so drowned by hatred? They say the line between love and hate is a thin one. That I understand. You can love someone powerfully but become so burned by their betrayal, that the intensity of your feelings morph into something unpleasant. Gone is the feeling of completeness, of happiness, of contentment. In its place the festering echo of emptiness, of pain, of misery and regret begins to eat away at you.
But can it really be said for the opposite? Is there really a thin line between hate and love?
How can an immense feeling of animosity turn into something of fondness? How can you start off aiming to inflict pain, to impose the worst possible kind of hurt on someone, to find love? The two feelings don’t go hand in hand, not this way. It’s not possible to build a foundation of love; a deep feeling of infatuation and affection on feelings of hostility and loathing.
I hate Marcus Dempsey with everything inside of my body and I know deep in my heart, I would never have found it in my heart to love him. Even if he was my dad, biologically speaking.
So how could Parker have ever truly loved me, when he innermost thoughts, his deepest feelings for me began in bitterness. I guess in truth, he never actually told me he loved me. Sure, his actions showed he cared deeply for me. But maybe that was guilt. Maybe I misread it all along.
Tears sting my eyes and I will them not to fall. I’m so tired. I feel stupid. Melodramatic. I can’t control the swell of emotions coursing through my veins. It’s actually frightening how the thoughts in your mind can elicit such powerful physical reactions in your body. People regularly claim they’re ruled by their heart. But I disagree. The mind is so dominating, so consuming. In reality, that overwhelming need in your heart, that burning desire you can’t ignore, they’re all powered by the driving thoughts in your head. In your unforgiving and relentless mind.
If I could remove Parker from my mind, I’m certain that suffocating pain I can’t seem to escape from would dissipate. It would go and I’d be given a reprieve from the chronic agony my mind is insisting I live through. Day after day. Hour after hour. Minute after minute.
My grief hits me wherever and whenever the hell it wants. I can feel stronger, more collected, plodding on, persevering and boom, I’m crippled with anguish. Fresh tears will hit me out of nowhere and every moment spent with Parker replays like a movie, tortur
ing me with what I’ve lost and it’s only been a week. Is this the torture I’ll be subjected to for the rest of my life?
I wrestle with every negative emotion possible.
I’m drowned in grief, struggling to find my breath through the very real agony of my heartache, the stuttered sobs that force their way into my throat, and the endless supply of tears that sap me to the point of dehydration.
When my grief has consumed me for hours, for days, my anger spikes. I feel hate. So much that my skin burns with animosity and rage. At Sarah. At Marcus. Dominic. Kane. Rocco. Parker. At myself.
Then the despair hits. The loneliness. I’m moving through the monotony of life, no longer wanting to survive. Not without him. Without the man that cursed us to live without one another by inserting me into an ill-directed plan of revenge.
I go to bed every night missing every last thing about him. I fall asleep with tears in my eyes and self-hatred blackening my fragile heart. What kind of idiot longs for someone who caused them so much pain?
Seems I do. Achingly so.
Am I convincing myself he was more to find forgiveness for myself? For wanting him, knowing I shouldn’t?
My dreams are filled with him.
The smile he rarely lets free; the sweet, damaged sweetness to the gesture.
The way he’d touch me, like he couldn’t help himself; the need too great. His addiction to me just as dependent as mine on him.
The strength of his body.
The demons in his eyes.
Even unconscious, he consumes me.
That’s why I crave the single moment when I wake. The quiet breath between unconsciousness and awareness when I feel nothing. When my mind is pushed into a state of rest and it’s yet to catch me up.
I feel free.
Unburdened.
My heart isn’t broken.
My mind isn’t consumed with Parker and I can take a breath, a single breath, before it all hits me again. Like a freight train. Forcefully. Fatally. Unforgiving.
I wonder how long I can survive this murderous routine without wanting to die. My torture begins every morning and I count down to that moment again, if only to be able to fill my lungs with air and not pain.
The overwhelming need to cry is the worst. I can’t fight it. No matter how hard I try and hell if I don’t try my hardest to keep them at bay. But I’m hopeless against their power.
So I hide. In my bathroom, doors closed, water running, trying to shut myself away. If Camryn knows, she doesn’t let on. I’m grateful she offers me my horribly broken moments to be had in solitary.
I consider that I’m grieving him as though he’s dead. I guess in a way he’s lost to me. Likely forever. But it always gives me pause, because in those moments, hidden away to let my grief paint my face with the saltiness of my tears, I let myself consider the pain he lived with after losing his mom.
Could I survive this for almost twenty years without it irrevocably changing something deep in my soul?
I know I couldn’t and in those retrospective moments, I forgive him that little bit more. Until one day I began to reflect whether I ever really blamed him.
“You ready?” Camryn pulls me from my thoughts and I nod solemnly, standing to readjust my clothing.
“I’ve never been to a funeral,” I state unnecessarily and she nods, handing me my purse as we leave our apartment.
The drive is quiet, a thick level of emotion drifting between us in the car.
“I can’t get the blood out of my mind,” Camryn finally speaks. “I don’t understand it, there was no exit wound. Obviously, I understand the science behind it, the heart continuing to pump blood even without brain activity. It’s the nerve cells,” she explains as she drives. “I just... It was a tiny wound. A single bullet, but the blood, on her face, on Rocco’s hands as he tried to get it off, only to make it worse.”
She exhales heavily. “I just can’t get it out of my head.”
“It happened in slow motion for me, her dying,” I admit. “I don’t remember the blood, apart from what was on me. But I remember seeing her face, this one single tear falling along her cheek as she stepped in front of Rocco.” My hand covers my face and I work to control my breathing, not wanting to become lost in my emotions. “I remember thinking that I would’ve done exactly the same. If it was you. If it was your child, I wouldn’t hesitate. All I can try and force peace from is the fact that Mira died doing something she’d never in her life regret. That has to stand for something, right?”
***
His black suit hugs his body perfectly, a thin black tie, roughly loosened around his neck. The delicateness of the petals from the rose tattooed along his neck peeking from the crisp white dress shirt underneath his dark jacket.
Like the one inked into his neck and the one inked along his tricep; a single white rose is held loosely in his hands. He hasn’t noticed me, hasn’t noticed much of anything really. His eyes remain downcast, like Rocco’s, staring blankly at Mira’s coffin, hovering above the earth, readying to be lowered as her family says their final goodbyes.
There isn’t many people here. Rocco and Parker, a few other unfamiliar faces. Clearly, no one of importance to the two brothers, neither having acknowledged their presence.
My dad, Camryn and I keep back, for respect more than anything. I’m not actually certain if our family would be welcome. It’s better this way, with us standing away. Still paying our respects, but trying our best to do it in a considerate manner.
An older man officiating the service speaks in a quiet drone of words. I’m not listening to what he’s saying. It’s not personal, not to Mira. It’s a customary collection of words that are no doubt recited at every service. Instead, I kept my focus on Parker. On the single white rose held in his hand. The one that seems to signify loss for him. Maybe that’s why he’s inked it into his skin more than once. A reminder of all that he’s lost in life.
My heart aches for him. In every sense you could imagine it.
It hurts for the pain he must be feeling.
But it longs for him too. I miss him and I hate myself for that. It feels wrong admitting that at someone’s funeral. Mira should be the only thing on my mind. I know I didn’t know her, but that’s why we’re here, supporting the people grieving her. But all I can think about is how my heart beat faster when I saw him again. How I’d give anything to meet his eyes, just once. How I miss the sound of his voice. The feel of his hands. The touch of his lips. His smile. His smell.
All the things I shouldn’t let myself admit. Because I hate him. That thin line between love and hate, he pushed me over it. With excessive force. He sent me sailing to the other side, lost in the negativity of my emotions and I don’t know how to claw my way back.
Rocco takes a step forward, dropping his rose, identical to Parker’s along Mira’s coffin. He whispers his words of farewell, to quiet for the rest of us to hear. But I respect that. His goodbye is between he and Mira. No one else. It’s theirs, no one else should be privy to those final words.
Finally, he steps back and Parker moves forward. He brings his rose to his face, eyes closing as he inhales the soft warmth of the scent. I watch on as he touches his lips to the top petals, pausing for the briefest moment before dropping it next to Rocco’s. His goodbye is said silently as well, his lips moving without sound.
Stepping back in line with his brother, his face finally lifts and our eyes connect. I was ready for pain, for shock, for anger even. What I wasn’t ready for was the vacancy in the swirling gray storm in his eyes. The emptiness. The nothingness. He barely even reacts before focusing back on Mira’s coffin.
It begins to lower and it’s awful, watching her descend into the earth. I choose to rest my eyes on Parker and Rocco instead of Mira and in that single moment, I’m grateful they have one another.
Their hands connect, holding on tight. So forcefully that even through their suit jackets, I can see the muscles in their arms shake with the intensity. The angu
lar cut of their jawlines wire shut, and I know it’s to stop the sound of heartbreak from escaping their lips. Their heads turn, bringing one another into focus and their eyes stay that way, anchored as Mira disappears, now nothing more than a wooden box ready to be buried in dirt.
His eyes meet mine for a split second again, but he turns, walking away without a backward glance.
“Are you gonna follow him?” Ryn asks softly, watching their retreat.
“And say what? I’m sorry for your loss, you know, the one the man who spawned me forced upon you when he killed your aunt.”
I turn and move in the opposite direction Parker and Rocco had left in, dad and Camryn fast on my heels.
“You know, negative, mean Codi, I don’t like her much. Seriously, I get your life is a lot fucked up right now, but we’re here,” she gestures between herself and Dad as she rushes to keep up with my power walk. “We’re trying to be here for you and you’re shutting us out. Let us help you.”
My feet stop and I sigh, turning toward them both. I see the pain in my father’s eyes, the want to fix what seems to have broken between us now the truth has forced its way in and pushed us apart. I look away fast, unable to meet the hurt in his face without feeling shame for the way I’m acting.
“I’m allowed to feel lost right now,” I whisper defensively. “I’m allowed to have a selfish minute and try to work out the mess in my mind. I need that. Let me have it,” I argue, the fight in my words lost, the demand sounding more like a plea.
“Camryn,” Dad warns her off and I sigh in relief.
“Codi,” he starts and I swallow the nerves in my throat, meeting his eyes. Eyes that are so different to mine, so similar to Camryn’s. “We’re your family. You’re allowed to be mixed up by everything that’s happened, but when you’re ready, you come to us. We’ll be waiting and we’ll move on together. As a unit. The three of us. As we’ve always done.”
The hope in his voice magnifies my shame. Dominic Rein is formidable, respected, assertive. Yet here, trying to do the right thing for me, he’s just a simple man, trying to do the right thing. Even when everything inside of him is screaming for him to take charge, to make me see. But he knows me. Almost as well as Ryn does. And he knows I need this.