Brant, age 12
“Cover your ears.”
My father’s last words echo in my mind, and I lean back against the brick siding, pressing my palms to each ear, as if I’m still trying to keep them out.
Boom!
A gun.
Blood, fear, deafening silence.
A hideous purple tie coiled around my mother’s throat.
And then…
A scream.
At first, I think it’s my scream. My mind is playing cruel tricks on me, replaying that awful night. The images are too close to the surface, trying to pull me under. I think about the tools Dr. Shelby has given me over the years to keep the maddening thoughts at bay, and I try to channel my “strong self” over my “hurt self.” I squeeze my eyes shut.
Be brave, Brant. Be strong.
But then my blood swims with ice.
No, that wasn’t my imagination. That was something else. That was…
June’s scream… ?
Horror spirals through me when reality fractures my gruesome, miserable thoughts. I had only run around to the side of the house to catch my breath, to collect some air—to get away from Monica Porter and her disgusting words—and I just needed a few minutes. I was coming back.
I was going to come right back.
My feet kick into action, and I round the corner through the backyard, running as fast as I can. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey are already racing through the sliding back door, while Theo and the girls jog from the other direction, blocking my view.
“Oh my God. June!” Mr. Bailey’s voice is booming, frantic.
No, no, no.
My heart is in my throat, my lungs burning with fear. “Junebug!” I push blindly through Wendy and Monica, shoving my way past Theo, until I’m standing over June’s crumpled body in the wet leaves. No! I’m sobbing instantly, falling to my knees beside her. “June… Junebug, wake up!”
“Don’t touch her, Brant,” Mr. Bailey orders, then turns to Mrs. Bailey and says in a frazzled breath, “Samantha, call an ambulance.”
She makes a strangled gasp and darts back into the house.
Tears are sliding down my face faster than the rain that pelts us. I rock back and forth in the grass beside June, watching as Mr. Bailey presses two fingers to the side of her neck.
Is she breathing? Is she dead like my parents?
She can’t be. I won’t survive it.
“She’s breathing,” he says, a rush of relief spilling out of him. He looks between us all, his dark, wet hair matted to his forehead. His cheeks are bright red, his eyes wide and filled with grief and alarm. “Everyone, stay back.”
I want to reach for her. I want to cradle her in my arms and whisper in her ear that I’m sorry—I’m sorry I failed. I failed to protect her like I promised I always would.
How could I be so careless?
Sniffling, I drink in her sweet face dotted with a light spattering of freckles. Her princess crown is cracked, lying beside her in the soggy grass, and her hair is camouflaged by the golden brown leaves. June’s eyes remain closed; she lies perfectly still. Motionless.
Just like Mom and Dad.
A rage I’ve never felt before infiltrates me, and I jump to my feet, spinning around to face Theo. He’s wide-eyed and mortified, completely silent as he links his hands behind his neck and shakes his head. Mr. Bailey continues to tend to June while sirens blare in the distance, and that’s when I crack.
I let my anger loose.
Theo’s misty eyes shift toward me, and both Wendy and Monica back up when they see the look on my face. I must look wild, crazed.
Swallowing back a stormy growl, I descend on Theo, shoving at his shoulders until he tumbles backward, his butt slamming against the ground. “Where were you? How could you leave her up there all alone?”
“I-I didn’t… I wasn’t—”
“It’s your fault if she dies! I’ll never forgive you.” My teeth are bared, and I’m nearly snarling like an animal. I feel like an animal.
“Enough, both of you!” Mr. Bailey bellows before turning back to June. “That damn treehouse is a deathtrap. I should have known.”
We all startle, then freeze.
Theo sits up straight and buries his face into his hands. He shakes and quivers as regret pours out of him, all the while, guilt pokes at me. I feel the anger morph into something else—something even worse.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s my fault.
I’ll never forgive myself.
Choking back another sob, I drop to the grass beside Theo and pull him into my arms. I hug him tight, apologizing over and over. “I’m sorry, Theo. It’s my fault. I left first,” I chant, our tears falling together, our respective guilt breaking us in half. He hugs me back. “It’s my fault.”
Red and blue lights illuminate the backyard, and when I look up, Mr. Bailey is talking to a medic, while Mrs. Bailey crouches down beside her daughter, stroking her soft, sandy hair. Monica and Wendy have moved to the patio, sitting together beneath the table umbrella and hugging themselves from the deep chill that has seeped into the Bailey’s backyard.
Wendy catches my stare and mouths to me with sorrowful eyes, “I’m sorry.”
I look away.
I sit in the grass beside Theo with my broken heart and broken promise, watching and waiting for good news as June is moved onto a stretcher and carried away.
All I can do is wait.
Theo sits quietly beside me in a hospital chair. We’re both slouched over in our sodden Mario and Luigi costumes, waiting for the doctors to give us permission to visit June.
Whatever a concussion is, that’s what June has. She has a broken arm, too.
She must be so scared.
Silence stretches between me and my best friend, the guilt eating us both alive. I feel bad for leaving June up in that treehouse, and I feel bad for blaming Theo for it. None of us should’ve left that treehouse—we’re all to blame. And I know we’re both going to be in big trouble when we get home. I can see it in Mr. Bailey’s eyes. He’s hardly said a word to us since we got to the hospital, and the quieter he is when he’s mad, the worse the punishment. His eyes are rimmed red, swollen and puffy, and his left eyebrow keeps twitching as he taps his feet in perfect time. Mrs. Bailey sits next to him, her head resting against his shoulder as she stares at the floor.
“Do you hate me, Brant?”
Theo finally ruptures the uncomfortable silence, and I jerk my attention toward him. Gnawing at my bottom lip, I shake my head. “No. I don’t hate you.”
“But you did,” he says. “I saw it in your eyes when you pushed me down.”
I slink lower into my seat, as if I can hide from what I’d done. The anger, the rage. It was a terrible thing to feel, almost like poison sailing through my veins, and I wonder if it’s the same feeling my father felt when he killed my mom.
The thought steals my breath. My stomach curdles.
What if I turn out like him?
No!
I’ll never get that mad again. I’ll never react with violence.
I make a silent vow to myself as I fight back tears. “I hated myself, and I took it out on you. It’ll never happen again, Theo.”
He swallows, staring straight ahead. “You were right, you know. It was my fault. I was the last one to leave the treehouse, and I wasn’t even thinking about June.” Emotion rushes to his voice, and he sniffs, swatting at his eyes. “I was thinking about Monica Porter. A dumb girl—a dumb girl who was cruel to you, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I let you down, and I let June down.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
“I’m going to be better, Brant. Promise. A better brother, a better friend.” He looks my way, his deep blue eyes glimmering with resolution in the artificial light. “I won’t let you guys down ever again.”
A smile pulls to the surface, and I nod my head. Then I hold out my hand to him. “Okay, Mario.”
Theo relaxes with relief and shakes my hand. He tips his red hat with the other. “Thanks, Luigi.”
The tension drains from the air, and that’s when a doctor approaches the Baileys, seated across from us on stiff, ugly chairs. He says five words that cause my heart to gallop with joy. “She’s going to be okay.”
She’s going to be okay.
They are the most wonderful words I’ve ever heard.
I love them so much, I store them away in my galloping heart, knowing they will never leave.
It feels like ages go by before I’m able to visit June, but when we’re finally summoned to her recovery room, I snatch Aggie from the empty table beside me and make my way down the corridor.
“Brant!”
When I step into the room, my eyes widen. She’s hooked up to cords and monitors, and the image makes my chest pinch tight. June is far too little to look so broken. A clunky white cast adorns her right arm, but it doesn’t take away from her beaming smile. I return it instantly. “Junebug.”
Racing to her bedside, her baby blues glisten with a glaze of tears. She doesn’t even notice her parents filing into the room, followed by Theo. I have her full attention. “I didn’t mean to fall. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you ever apologize, June. It was an accident.” I pull Aggie out from behind my back, watching her eyes grow even wetter. When I discovered June was going to have a cast, I rushed to the bathroom and wrapped his little elephant arm in a spool of toilet paper to match. “Aggie wanted to have a cast, just like you.”
“Oh, wow!” she exclaims, reaching for her favorite toy with her good arm. “Thank you!”
The Baileys run toward her, besieging her with tender hugs and kisses. Theo cries quietly into her pillow as he lays down beside her, apologizing for leaving her all alone. There are so many tears, so many whispered words, so many thankful thoughts. I watch from my perch in the corner, grateful I was made a part of this family.
Where would I be without them?
When emotions have settled, June reaches for me again, so I curl up beside her on the small cot, breathing in the scent of her lilac hair. “Thank you for bringing me Aggie,” she murmurs, snuggling into me. “I was scared without him.”
I smile sadly. “I know you were, Junebug. I had a stuffed elephant when I was your age, and he always made me feel better when I got scared.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
She ponders this, blinking up at the ceiling. “What happened to him?”
I knew the question was coming, but it’s not the time to give her the gory truth. It’s not the time to explain to her Bubbles’ fate—that he was part of a massacre, stained with my father’s blood, and tossed away like garbage.
Maybe it’ll never be the time to tell her that.
“I lost him one day,” I opt for, my voice hitching slightly.
“You lost him forever? Not just for a little while?”
I swallow. “I lost him forever.”
Closing my eyes, I try not think about my old childhood comfort. Instead, I drink in the comfort of June and her warm breaths, and her swiftly beating heart.
“I’ll find him for you someday, Brant,” she says then, squeezing my hand in hers. “I promise.”
I realize it’s a promise she can’t keep, but I smile anyway.
“Can you sing me the rainbow song now?”
Mrs. Bailey pulls her chair closer, right next to June’s beside, and runs her hand along my arm. “How about we both sing it?”
June nods with enthusiasm. “Yes, please. It’s my favorite.”
It’s my favorite, too, Junebug.
It used to be my favorite because it reminded me of Mom.
Now, it reminds me of June.
While Mrs. Bailey twines her fingers with mine and sweeps a loose tendril of hair from June’s forehead with her opposite hand, she sucks in a deep breath. My eyelids flutter closed.
We sing.
We all made promises that night.
I promised I would never react with violence again, and, well… I did a pretty damn good job of keeping that promise. I only went off course one time, years later, and I like to think I had a good reason for doing that. (Wyatt Nippersink might not agree.)
But that was it.
The fear of snapping, of doing irrevocable damage like Lucas Elliott had done to my mother in a moment of what the detectives called “blind rage,” was a highly effective motivator over the years.
And then there was Theo’s promise.
Theo hardly left June’s side after the treehouse incident. He was overly protective, fiercely loyal, and, unlike me, unafraid to lash out at any person who put June in harm’s way.
Even if that person was his best friend.
Even if that person was me.
Lastly, there was Andrew Bailey.
Andrew made his own promise that night—he swore it was the last time we would ever step foot into that godforsaken treehouse.
Come sunrise, it was nothing but a pile of firewood.
