As if being burned, he jerks his hand back. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
Hot tears of anger scald down my temples. “You know, Dad. You fucking know.”
“You’re the only kid I have,” he argues, his voice shaky and unsure. Guilt is written all over his face that looks like hers.
“You and I both know that’s not true,” I scream back at him. “I saw the way you looked at her. You knew!”
“I don’t have to take this shit.” He grabs his keys from the bar and storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
I crawl my pathetic ass back to my bedroom before passing out on the floor of my closet again.
I stare at the ceiling, numbness creeping over my bones.
Days.
Days and days and days.
How many days have passed?
Too many. So many.
When I finally plug in my phone and check, I cringe to see that I’ve been in this booze-induced fog for almost a week. I missed work and school. I’m probably fired from both my jobs. I have countless voicemails from both places. Texts from Collette, Darcy, and Dave.
Nothing from Sage.
I’ll text you later.
I promised her and I failed her. Failed my sister.
Pain crushes my chest and my stupid ass can’t help but look through my pictures folder. I need to see her. Her pretty smile stops time the moment I see it. For one second, I allow myself to see my girl. Not my fucking sister, but my girl. I see her as I knew her: perfect and sweet and mine.
My fingers hover over her name. I want to text her. To apologize…for what? For being related to her?
A harsh laugh of disgust barks out of me.
We can’t be anything.
We can’t even be normal siblings because I’ll always remember how she tasted or how it felt when her hand was wrapped around my dick. As if on cue, my cock jolts to life.
A darkness I have no hope of ever seeing through washes over me. So black. So empty. So never-ending. It’s so fucking scary. It makes me wonder if the darkness stole my mother. Is this how she felt? Hopeless and dead inside. Is this what happens when despair makes you its victim? Will I ever climb from the pitch-black depths of my new, dark soul?
I think about the shards of glass in the bathroom.
The many bottles of alcohol stashed in this house.
How Nicky, three trailers down, will sell me whatever drug I want.
I think about stealing my dad’s truck and driving it straight into a fucking wall.
Dark. So fucking dark.
But then I think about her.
Her smile. Her laugh. Her smell.
The way her ears would turn pink and her paint-speckled knuckle would tap against her lips when she was nervous. Her adorable love for grunge music. My dragonfly.
Light.
She’s light in my dark world.
Like an addict desperate for his next hit, I wade out of the fog toward her. Out of the darkness and into her bright. I find her pictures on my phone. I kiss the screen and ache for her. Fuck, how I ache for her. With trembling fingers, I text her like I promised, even if only almost a week late.
Me: I’m sorry.
The phone goes dark as I wait for her reply. Shadows from the night crawl in on me. They suffocate me. My maddening thoughts are cloying clouds and I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
My room lights up with her reply.
She chases it all away.
Sage: You have nothing to be sorry for. Please don’t shut me out.
The aching threatens to rip my heart in two. I’ve never hurt so badly in all my life. Maybe that’s why Mom did meth. Maybe she hurt like I do. Anything to numb the pain. But Mom didn’t have Sage. She had Dad.
Sage is a fixer.
Me: Can you talk?
My phone starts ringing the moment my text goes through. I stare at it as it rings. On the fifth ring, I answer.
“Hello?” I sound like I swallowed a handful of razorblades.
“Mars,” she whimpers.
The fierce need to chase away the hurt in her voice drives off all my disgust and lingering shadows. I grip my phone tight. “Sage.”
She sobs on the other end. Loud, ugly sobs. Her heart is broken, like mine. Her soul is shattered, like mine. Her existence is empty, like mine. As she cries, my own soul bleeds hot from the corners of my eyes and soaks my hair. My lip wobbles and my throat burns with my own barely choked down sob of despair.
“I can’t do this without you,” she murmurs.
“We can’t…we can’t be together.”
“Can’t we go back to Sage and Mars? Can’t we just be dragonflies again?”
I fucking wish.
“I don’t think so,” I whisper. “I’m not strong enough. I…I don’t know if I can handle being around you.”
“Because I’m disgusting to you now?” She sniffles. “Is that why?”