I ARRIVE at my mother’s apartment late in the evening, exhausted from today’s emotional events, the long train ride, all of it. I enter the darkened living room, thankful I kept my keyring on me so I can get in here in the first place.
I realize fast I’m not alone. I can hear other voices, coming from down the hall. In the bedroom. A male and a female’s. My mother and…whoever.
She’s back from the Caribbean, and she didn’t bother telling me. Didn’t wish me a happy Thanksgiving either.
Typical.
Dropping my duffel on the floor in the living room, I start for the hall, calling out as a warning, “Mother! I’m home!”
The voices go silent. And then, “Summer, is that you?”
“Yeah.” I go to my closed bedroom door and open it, flicking on the lights. It’s the same as I left it, though the air is stale. As if no one has been in the room for months, which I’m sure is the case. I flop onto the edge of the mattress and chew on my thumb, glancing up when my mother appears in the doorway, clad in a white silk robe and nothing else.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, breathless, pushing her hair away from her face, her cheeks pink.
I frown. “You aren’t happy to see me?”
“I didn’t expect to see you.” She smiles, but it’s fake. “I’m so glad you’ve come home, but don’t you have school Monday?”
“I’m not going back.” I’d made that decision on the train ride home, after my phone died and I realized I left my charger behind in the guest room. I’ve had a lot of time to think. And I realized there was no way I could go back there and face everyone. Sylvie.
Whit. Especially Whit.
“What do you mean, you’re not going back?” Mother frowns, her hands tugging absently at the belt cinched around her waist.
“Too much has happened—I want to graduate early. I have enough credits, so I think I can,” I tell her, flopping backwards atop my bed. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” She sounds confused.
“Go to school. Pretend I’m normal. I’m not. I’m messed up. I can’t deal with the repercussions of what I’ve done. I need therapy,” I tell the ceiling, my throat aching with unshed tears. “I feel so much guilt over the fire. What happened. What I did.”
She glances over her shoulder before fully stepping into my room and pulling the door shut behind her. “You promised we would never discuss that again.”
“It’s eating me up inside,” I practically wail to the ceiling, closing my eyes to try and stop the memories, but it’s no use. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
I had kind of stopped, but thanks to Sylvia Lancaster’s oh so lovely reminder, it hasn’t left my mind since. Knowing that she knows what happened is terrifying. I could go to jail. And I would deserve to go. What I did is…horrible. I took a man’s life. Two of them. One I hated, and one who meant the world to me.
I’ve made so many mistakes already. I deserve to be punished for them.
The tears stream from my eyes, sliding down my face as I think of Jonas and all the things he’d done for me. I never got a chance to tell him thank you for changing my life.
Though he changed my life in different, dark ways too, by bringing Yates into it.
“Darling.” She comes to the bed and settles on the edge of it, sitting close enough that she can reach out and cup my cheek, forcing me to look at her. “You didn’t do anything.”
“But I did. I started the fire. I knocked the candle over. You know this,” I tell her, my face crumpling as the tears really start to fall.
She holds me close as I cry, pulling me into her arms. I press my face against her neck, letting it all out. Crying not just for what I’ve done, but for all that I lost, especially these last few months, even the last couple of hours. How I had Whit in my life, only to lose him completely, thanks to what I did in my past. I loved him.
I still love him.
And I lost him.
The fire and the secrets I keep will affect me for the rest of my life. Maybe it’s time I come clean.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmurs against my hair, her voice so low, it’s almost as if I don’t hear her at all. “It was never your fault. The one candle you knocked over didn’t start that fire.”
I go stiff in her arms, pulling away slightly so I can look at her. “What are you talking about?”
She strokes the hair away from my face, her expression dead serious. “I was furious that night, you know. Jonas and I had another raging argument. He told me he wanted a divorce. He was through with me. He couldn’t forgive me for what I did with Augie, even after everything we’d been through.”
That she would even bring up Augustus Lancaster right now makes my stomach cramp.
“I saw you leave Yates’ room,” she says, averting her gaze, staring off into the distance as if she’s lost in her memories. “I had a suspicion about you two, and I didn’t want to believe it. Deep down, I knew. I knew, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I thought, perhaps, that you wanted—to be in a relationship with him.”
Tears well in my eyes and I want to scream at her. That was the last thing I wanted. And if she suspected, why didn’t she try and stop it? Stop him? Why didn’t she say something to me? To Yates? To Jonas?
Because she’s selfish. Thoughtless.
Too wrapped up in her own bullshit.
“When I saw you leave his room, I went in and confronted him. He was asleep, and I noticed the candle had fallen over, the flame sputtering in the spilled wax. It wasn’t going to start a fire, Summer. There was no way that could happen.”
“Then how did it start?” I whispered, scared yet eager to hear her explanation.
“I fixed the candle, set it back in its holder, and it knocked into the one next to it, making a clanking noise. Loud enough that it woke Yates up. He became very defensive when he realized I was in the room with him. Asking where you were, what did I know. And I told him I knew everything, even though I truly didn’t. I was only making assumptions.” Her eyes narrow as I can only assume she recalls the memories of that night.
“You said that?”
Mother nods. “He accused you of being a slut. That you asked for it. Begged for it. He said because you were so beautiful, how could he resist? As if it’s your fault. Men can be that way sometimes. Never wanting to take responsibility for their actions.”
I let her words sink in. It’s so true. Of course, Yates would blame me and say that I asked for it. Heaven forbid he be responsible.
“Then he started in on me. Saying he was going to tell his father I snuck into his room. As if I wanted to, I don’t know, molest him? Please. When I laughed, he got angry. Said I was nothing but a slut who used his father for his money,” Mother explains, her eyes falling shut for the briefest moment. “That’s when I grabbed one of the empty iron candle sticks and struck him in the head with it.”
I suck in a gasp, shocked by her confession. “What?”
“I killed him.” She nods, her gaze sliding to mine. “I thought I did. There was so much blood, baby. So much blood. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I went and washed up. Changed into clean clothes. Then I went back to his room and I tipped over a couple of the candles, making sure they caught the drapes on fire. But that happened so fast. Too fast. The fire climbed up the wall, eating the drapes until they were nothing but ash, and I knew. I needed to get us out of there. I ran from the room, went and got you, and you know the rest of the story.”
I stare at her, a whirlwind of emotions twisting inside of me as I absorb her words, and the meaning behind them. All this time, she let me believe I killed them. She let me believe I started the fire, when she did it all along.
My mother caused it. The fire. Their deaths.
And she was willing to let me bear the weight of all that guilt and fear.
“Why did you let me believe I was the one responsible?” I ask her.
“I couldn’t tell you what I did to Yates. You would’ve freaked out. Gone to the police. I’d be in prison right now if you did that. I couldn’t risk it,” she explains.
“But I could’ve ended up in prison too,” I remind her.
“From your perspective, it was an accident. You didn’t mean to do any of it. You would’ve never been convicted,” she says, dismissing my protest. “Thank God his body was burned beyond recognition. His autopsy results were inconclusive.”
“You told me he died of smoke inhalation.” My mind is racing, searching for all the details from that night and the aftermath. Some things I remember. Some memories are faded, or damaged by shock.
Others I’d rather forget completely.
“There was smoke in his lungs, which showed he was still alive during the fire. But he would’ve never survived what I did to him. Or he would’ve ended up brain damaged and hooked up to machines for the rest of his life.” Her expression turns bitter. “I did that little fucker a favor. How dare he force himself on you, and for so long.”
Just saying those last words tells me she knew all along. She knew and she never did a damn thing to stop it.
The disappointment that crashes over me is overwhelming and I rest a hand over my stomach, praying I won’t get sick. She didn’t care enough to stop it. She didn’t do enough to protect me. I’ve been on my own for so long. Longer than I’ve even realized.
“After a while, he didn’t have to force himself,” I admit, hanging my head in shame. “It was easier to just—take it.”
She rubs my back. “It’s a cruel world, darling. Men use us. I hope that doesn’t happen to you ever again.”
Her advice rings hollow. I’ve been traumatized and molested by my stepbrother, and that’s all she has to say to me?
Unbelievable.
I think of Whit and how he used me too. He used me up, and I let him. Worse, I enjoyed it. I could tell her about our relationship, but I’m scared of what she might do.
I don’t trust her. How can I? That hurts to admit, even to myself, but I’ve known this for a while. I just wasn’t as aware of the lengths she’d gone to in order to protect me—and herself.
I frown. More herself than anything else—this was never about me. She could say she did it because of what Yates did to me, but I know the truth.
She was on the brink of losing Jonas. Her social status. The money. The travel. Her entire life. She couldn’t stand the thought. So she killed them both.
And became the sole heir to Jonas’ fortune.
“Why don’t you want to go back to Lancaster?” she asks.
Just hearing the Lancaster name makes my heart ache. “I can’t, Mother. I hate that school and everyone in it.”
Except for one. And he’s just as bad as all the rest. He used me. As did his mother. And even Sylvie.
God, Sylvie. The venom in her voice. The cruel words she said. I adored her, but she hates me.
They all hate me.
“I can’t go back,” I say firmly. “I won’t. You can’t make me. I’ll go to public school here. I’ll take the GED test. I’ll do anything. Just—please don’t convince me to go back. It’s a waste of your breath.”
“Of course not,” she says, her hand running up and down my back. “I agree with your earlier suggestion. I’m sure you have enough credits to graduate early. Maybe take a gap year before you start college.”
“You’d really let me?” I send her a hopeful look, realizing that if I play my cards right, she can help me escape.
“You could travel,” she says, lost in her thoughts. “Europe in the springtime. See the sights. See the world. College is wonderful, but life experience is just as important, if not more so.”
“I want that,” I tell her, leaning against her. She wraps her arms around me and holds me close. We haven’t done this in years. I can’t remember the last time she hugged me. And while I don’t fully trust her, I need this. The comfort.
“I’ll give it to you.”
A muffled voice comes from down the hall. Deep and male, calling my mother’s name.
“Janine? Where are you?”
I pull away from her, instantly wary. “Who is that?”
She smiles. “Howard. I went to the Caribbean with him. But don’t say anything—his wife is down in Florida with the kids. She thinks he’s in the city working.”
“Oh Mother.” I’m sure he’s some rich asshole who bought his way into her panties, and she fell for his cheesy lines. This is how it always starts. She can’t help herself. This is how she believes relationships are supposed to begin.
“It’s different this time.” I remember her saying that about Jonas too. In the early days, when I was little and she asked me if I wanted a big brother. I’d been so excited, so desperate for more family, I’d readily agreed that it would be the best thing to ever happen to me.
Instead, Yates turned into my nightmare.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door. “Janine? What are you doing?”
“Coming!” she calls. “Give me a minute.”
He shuffles away and I hear her bedroom door close.
“Is he staying the night?” I ask once he’s gone.
“Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he?” She smiles. Hugs me one last time before she stands. “We’ll talk in the morning, okay? And I’ll contact the school first thing Monday.”
“You really won’t make me go?” I ask hopefully.
She shakes her head. “I will give you whatever you want. It’s the least I can do after…”
Her voice drifts, and I don’t say anything either. She owes this to me, and she knows it. There’s so much more she owes me too, but I can’t collect on that debt right now.
I probably never will.
It hurts, to realize your mother is human. Flawed. She’s made countless mistakes, many of them at my expense. I can either let those mistakes hold me back and make me hate her, or I can let everything go and pray she learns from the damage she’s done.
I’d much rather let it all go.
I watch her walk across my bedroom and go to the door, pausing as she turns to study me. “Just—keep what I said to you between us, okay? Don’t ever mention it again. Not even to me.”
I nod, fully aware of why she’s letting me drop out of Lancaster.
She’s buying my silence.
My compliance.
And I’m going to let her.
