POSIE’S already at the bottom of the stairs before I reach the staircase. She’s moving like the building is on fire and she’s trying to get out before she gets trapped in the rubble.
She’s shoving her bare feet into her discarded boots when I enter the living room.
Not turning to look at me, she asks, “Is there a jacket or shirt I can borrow for the ride home? Or maybe a pair of sweats? I don’t really feel great about getting into the back of a stranger’s car with basically nothing on. I promise I’ll give it back and I’ll even wash it so you don’t feel like you need to burn it after I wear it.”
I ignore her and ask a question of my own. “Why is Pax telling you that he’s sorry?”
Her hands, which had been busy tying the laces of her boots, momentarily freeze in place. She recovers quickly and her back remains to me when she answers, “I’m not sure. He’s probably upset that I saw him like that.”
“No.” I immediately disagree with her. “It was something else. It was like you guys were having a secret conversation, and the way he looked at you…” There’s been pain in his eyes since the day our father was taken away in the back of Captain Davenport’s car, but when he looked at her with his glassy gaze, it amplified.
With a heavy sigh, she finally turns around. Her eyes are red, and she looks emotionally exhausted, but I don’t care. I need her to answer the question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raff. The only conversation we were having was the one you heard. Pax is high and clearly feeling vulnerable. Honestly, me being here probably only made matters worse.” What she’s saying makes sense, but every cell in my body is telling me she’s lying.
“He hasn’t cried in almost six fucking years, and one look at you has tears falling out of his eyes. I want to know what it is about you that has him breaking like that!” My voice is starting to raise and there’s a pain in my palms from my hands clenching so hard.
She throws her hands up. “I was his best friend! He lost me and I lost him! We’ve simply missed each other. If you’re too angry to see that or understand it, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“He’s hardly mentioned your name in all these years.”
This has her rolling her eyes and releasing a frustrated breath. “I’m sure he didn’t. How could he when he lived with you?”
I take a step toward her. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Did you make him feel like he could talk about me, or did you try to push the hatred and blame you feel onto him? Did you try to force him to see me the same way you do?”
“Of course, I tried. I had to protect him from all forms of danger, even if he couldn’t see them himself.” He was never receptive to it. Pax remained quietly loyal to his best friend despite my best efforts. “But none of that has anything to do with why he’s apologizing to you!”
She lifts her chin and crosses her arms defiantly. “I already told you I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Tell me the fucking truth!” I demand, not buying her act. Just as she can still see through me and get in my head, I can do the same. Something is off about her right now, and she’s not leaving until she admits it.
“I am!”
I’ve had enough of this. Something uncontrollable snaps inside of me and I’m halfway across the room, charging toward her, before I realize I’d taken a step. Her eyes are wide, and her lips are parted in a silent gasp. All the air she’d managed to suck into her lungs is forced out of her when her back collides with the wall behind her.
Her delicate hands claw at my bare forearm while I press it to her throat and use it to hold her in place. The choking sounds she makes barely register to my ears as I glower down at her.
“You’re lying to me!” My roar reverberates through the high ceilings of the room and against the large arched windows on the walls. “Again!”
Posie, with utter terror on her pale face, shakes her head. “I’m not,” she manages to get out through her restricted airways. “I promise.”
I laugh cruelly at this sentiment. “You’ve proven to me already that your promises are nothing but hollow words.” I don’t feel in control of my body. It’s like I’m sitting back watching a rageful monster take over and I don’t know how to stop it. Every fiber of my being is aflame with anger and grief, and they’re burning away the pieces that remain of my soul. “Why does my brother think he owes you an apology?”
Her throat moves against my arm as she swallows. Tears are running down her pretty face and dripping on my too-warm skin. “I don’t know!”
My free hand wraps around the pocketknife in my jeans and she whimpers when she sees the glint of metal.
I press the end of the knife into her flawless skin, but not yet hard enough to break the skin. “I’m going to give you one last chance to be honest. If you don’t, I’m going to carve liar into your fucking chest. That way everyone will know with one look at you what you fucking are.”
Her panicked fighting has both of us shifting. When she pushes against my arm, the knife slips and slices her skin. As if someone has pressed pause on the situation, we both freeze in place, and I watch the crimson blood trickle down her chest from the cut.
The visual of her blood forces whatever is controlling me to let go, or like a spell being broken, I emerge from under its red mist. All the fight evaporates from my bones when I look at her face. The way she’s looking up at me causes a sharp pain to spear my chest. I truly thought I’d never see her look at me like that, but it appears I was wrong.
Posie’s body shakes against mine in silent sobs. Giant tears form in her eyes and fall down her face in a steady stream.
I don’t even know what to say to her, but I manage to say her name. My voice cracks when I do. “Posie…”
She sucks in a shuddering breath, and she wipes at her face the best she can with my forearm still holding her hostage. “The way you’re looking at me right now is the same way your father looked at you that night in his study.” Her raspy words are like a hot poker to my soul. “He was a horrible and cruel man who took his anger out on others, and I never thought you’d remind me of him.” Posie glances down at the cut I gave her. “If you’re going to give me scars, make them match the ones he left on you. Fuck the pocketknife. Go light up one of your cigarettes and put it out on my back just like he did to you.”
The dozen or so circular scars across my back and shoulders are long healed but now burn and ache as if my dad is standing behind me with his lit cigarette again. I always preferred his belt over that. The leather would leave welts and my skin would be tight for a few days, but at least there wasn’t a reminder of what I’d let him do to me permanently etched into my flesh after. Welts heal, burns leave ugly scars.
My knees, suddenly feeling weak, begin to give out and I stumble back away from her. The second she’s free of my grasp, she crumples to the floor against the wall. Seeing the pocketknife still in my hand, I drop it and it skids across the hardwood and out of sight.
Her words are like bullets, and they cause a pain I haven’t felt since I heard Paxton’s cry when he found our mom in the bathtub. Just like the sound he made will forever be engraved in my head, so will her words. And it’s because they’re the god-awful ugly truth.
I’m starting to become the man I hate most.
Losing my balance, I fall back another step but manage to catch myself on the edge of the leather couch. Leaning against it, I hold my hands on my knees and try to slow my ragged breathing.
For so long, I didn’t let myself feel anything but my anger at Posie and grief for my mom. While I was busy focusing on those, I was becoming the one person I never wanted to be. The person I swore I would never be. I’ve completely lost control, and in doing so, I’ve lost myself.
I thought Posie’s deceit and betrayal were the reason I changed, but I changed because I let myself be corrupted.
My head is a hundred pounds when I lift it. She’s curled in a ball with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks up at me through her tear-soaked lashes and her body continues to visibly shake.
“Posie…” I have no idea what I’m going to say next, but she doesn’t give me the chance to figure it out.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, sniffing as she does. “You finally did it, Raff. You win. I hope your trophy is worth it and will finally make you happy.” Looking down at her chest, she wipes the blood that’s dripping from the cut. It ends up just smearing across her chest in a bright red line. “In this moment, I hate you. I hate you almost as much as I love you,” she pauses with a heartbreakingly sad smile, “and my god, is that a deadly combination.”
I hate you. Those are the three words I’ve been craving to hear come from her lips since she’s been back, but right now, they aren’t the ones I’m fixating on. No, it’s the three words I haven’t heard since I was seventeen years old that are echoing in my ears like distant screams. Hearing them again feels like someone’s poured rubbing alcohol in an open wound. I love you.
I’m numb, frozen in place when she starts to pull herself off the ground. Moving stiffly, as if she’s in a daze, she goes to the pile of clothes I’d shredded many hours ago. This has been the longest night of my life. It feels like it was days ago that I’d chained her to the fireman’s pole.
Shifting through the pieces of her ruined sweater, she finds the pocket and retrieves her cell phone. She opens it, the bright light illuminating her sullen face. I don’t have to ask to know she’s ordering a car to come pick her up.
She flinches when I manage to stand up on my feet and step toward her. Reaching into my jeans, I retrieve my car keys. “You can take my car. It’s parked out front,” I tell her. My voice is hardly recognizable to my ears. “I don’t want you to have to wait for someone to pick you up. You need to get away from here—away from me—right now.”
I’m not telling her this because I’m angry at her and want her out of my sight. I’m saying it because I scared even myself tonight, and if it were possible, I’d try to run away from me too. I thought I wanted her to fear me, but right now, I can’t physically bear the sad look in her eyes for another second.
When she stands there like a statue, I shake the key fob at her. “I mean it. You need to leave. There’s a jacket in the back seat you can wear.”
Finally, she gives in and steps forward to take the keys. Her fingers wrap around them, and she pauses, looking up at me.
“How did we get here, Raff?”
For the first time in years, I don’t immediately want to blame her for everything bad that’s happened.
“I don’t know.”
