making a statement with the police, it’s been verified that my father jumped from his building’s roof, and is dead. They found his phone on the ledge above where he fell.
Jeremy has been stuck to my side like glue as I’ve called Coach, sent a text message to Lily’s bodyguard, called her school, and now am staring at my phone not wanting to call my sister.
“Do you want me to call her?” Jeremy offers with his hand on my leg.
I shake my head, staring at her contact information on my phone. “No, I should do it.”
The hardest part is not knowing how to feel. Part of me is relieved he’s gone. He can’t touch me anymore. I’m free. But my father is dead. My sister and I are now orphans. We are our only family.
Taking a deep breath, I hit call and wait for her to answer.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you calling me?” She’s immediately on edge.
“Lily, are you in your room? Is there anyone with you?” I don’t want her alone when I tell her.
“You’re freaking me out, Preston. What’s wrong?” Her tone goes up an octave.
“Father is dead.” The words sound hollow in my head even though I’ve said them a few times already, they don’t feel real. It feels like a trick, like a game he’s trying to play to catch me doing something wrong so he can punish me. The most recent scar he gave me tingles so I rub at it.
“Lily? Are you still there?” I pull the phone from my ear to see if the call is still connected.
“Um. Yeah.” She sucks in a breath. “I’m still here.” On the exhale, her breath shakes and I hate that I can’t be with her. Once she graduates, I’m moving her to wherever I am. I can’t take this shit anymore. We need to stay together.
“Do you know what happened?” Her voice is small, like a child, and it hurts my chest.
My throat burns with unshed tears that I don’t really understand. I’m not sad he’s dead but it hurts to tell her.
“He, uh, jumped off his building.” She’s going to see the story in the news anyway, there’s no point in lying to her. “I was on the phone with him when he jumped.”
She gasps, holding her breath for a minute. “What? Why would he do that?”
Hot tears stream down my cheeks but I don’t bother to wipe them away.
“He was a broken man and at the end of his rope.” I pushed him over the edge. That’s a guilt I will carry the rest of my life. “I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the news, but there’s a lot of people coming forward with stories about him.”
“I’ve seen a few but I don’t know what to believe, you know? How much is the truth and how much is the media taking a story and spinning it, you know?” She doesn’t want to believe her father was a bad person. I wish I could protect her from the truth this time, but I can’t. “Will you tell me the truth?”
I close my eyes and my lip trembles. My shoulders cave in and my head drops forward. The weight of what she’s asking me is heavier than I anticipated. Logically, I know I shouldn’t be ashamed, I am the victim and not to blame, but the words he made me believe tell me otherwise. If I would have just listened, behaved, been good, he wouldn’t have had to hurt me.
“He cut me, Lil.” It hurts to say the words out loud. “I was like ten when it started. He drugged me at first, it was right around when Mom died. The last one was before Thanksgiving.”
Lily sobs, gut wrenching, soul shattering sobs and there’s nothing I can do. Even if I was with her, I wouldn’t know how to comfort her. I haven’t been able to do that in years.
Jeremy reaches behind me and pulls the quilt over my shoulders like a cape, making sure I’m covered in the physical proof that his family cares about me.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
I scrub a hand over my face. “What was I supposed to say? I let our father scar me so he would leave you alone? That when you would leave for school every year, I was grateful I didn’t have to worry about you being hurt?”
She cries into the phone and it’s a knife in my heart.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to have a good life.” My voice cracks and Jeremy slides a hand under my shirt, his cheek against my back. He surrounds me, grounds me, brings me peace.
“I want to be close to you. You’re my big brother and you’re all I have left.” Her words are choked but strong.
“You got it, once you graduate, we’ll move you out here. Maybe we can get an apartment or something together.” Relief is a warm blanket around my heart, weaving some of the holes in my soul back together.
Jeremy’s phone starts ringing.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles and slides out from under the quilt and out to the hallway.
The door closes behind him but I can still feel him with me. For the first time in my life, I have hope. I’m looking forward to the future.
“I don’t want to play hockey anymore.” I blurt out, taking myself by surprise.
“What? Why not?” I’ve officially derailed this conversation but Lily is rolling with it.
“Father is the one who pushed me to play. I don’t enjoy it. I’m good at it, but I don’t want to play professionally.” I shake my head to clear it. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Jeremy wants to coach so I guess I’ll just follow him wherever he ends up.” I shrug.
“Well, you’re rich so you can do whatever you want, dumbass.” Lily scoffs, but she’s right. Mom and her parents left us a shit ton of money. Even if our father left us nothing, we would never have to work and could live more than comfortably on our inheritances. “Why don’t you open a hockey thing and hire Jeremy to coach?”
“That’s not a bad idea…”
We chat for a few more minutes before we hang up. There will be lots of shit we have to deal with over the next few weeks, like our father’s estate, but that’s not for today. I put my phone on the charger and head to the door.
“No, you are not coming out here right now.” Jeremy is saying to whoever is on the phone. Probably his mother. “There’s nothing for you to do right now. No, you can come out later if you want to but not right now.”
He’s pacing the width of the hallway and hasn’t seen me. I lean on the door jam and watch him. I love him.
“I mean, if Grandma wants to send a bigger quilt, I won’t argue. Preston is a blanket hog.” I snort and he swings his head up to meet my eyes, a small smile playing on his lips.
He’s not wrong. I am. He mouths I love you then goes back to his phone call. I head back to the tiny bed we share and lay down with the quilt pulled up over me to wait for him. Maybe life doesn’t always suck and I’m not destined to be alone.
