The question is. Do I want Willow for more than revenge?
19
Willow
The room still smells like Parker, even hours after he’s left. Or maybe his scent is just permanently ingrained into my mind now. I don’t know. What I do know is that having his smell around me soothes the ache surging throughout my chest.
I can’t believe the last twenty-four hours are real.
Everything seems like a dream, a nightmare really. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, to line up the puzzle pieces in my head. Ashton swore it was Brett, she looked me straight in the eyes and swore to me. Had I known it wasn’t him…
Guilt eats away at my insides, and that sick feeling I’ve had all day intensifies.
She’s never lied to me. Truth is, when we were little, every time she tried to lie to me, I knew. She’s a terrible liar. The worst, so how did I not see it, that time? And why lie in the first place? She could have told me. It wouldn’t have changed anything at all. I wasn’t the enemy in all of this, and I’m still not.
Holding my head in my hands, I try to calm myself down. It feels like the room is spinning all around me.
Since the moment Parker left, I’ve been trying to call her at the facility, since Alice didn’t pick up, but each time I call, they tell me she can’t come to the phone right now. And as much as I hate our father, I even resorted to calling him, but strangely, my calls have been going straight to voicemail.
What the hell is going on?
Not knowing what is happening and being forced to sit and wait is killing me. Almost as much as the thought of what I have done. I helped put an innocent man in prison. Two years of his life are gone, and I am partially to blame for that. I don’t know how to deal with it. And even worse, I am in a somewhat relationship with his brother. At least, I think I am. I don’t know what Parker and I are, but we are certainly something.
God, could this get any more complicated. All this time, he was right, he was right about his brother, and I really was a liar. I feel compelled to apologize, to beg for forgiveness. I did this. I was an accomplice. Why did Ashton lie? Why did she tell me it was Brett when it was Nate?
Having all these questions, without a single answer in sight, is making it hard for me to function. The hours pass slowly. All night, I sit in my room, every little sound terrifying me. I wonder if Nate is going to come back. If something bad is going to happen to me? Sleep doesn’t come, and I don’t hear from Parker, or my father, or Ashton, which only makes me worry more.
After a long while, I curl up into a ball and cry until there isn’t a single tear left to cry. I cry for my sister mainly, and for Brett, and for Parker and me because had Ashton not lied things, might have been different between us.
I finally fall asleep but come awake not long after, when my phone starts to ring somewhere in the sheets. It could be my father or Ashton. Panicked, I feel around the bed until my fingers find the phone. I don’t know why, but seeing my father’s name flash across the screen makes me feel like something terrible is going to happen or already has. No. Answer the phone, I tell myself. Shoving the feelings away, I hit the green answer key and bring the phone to my ear.
“Dad, is everything okay? I’ve been calling you all night.” The words rush past my lips.
“Willow, I… I don’t know how to say this…” The dread in his voice, it clings to me through the speaker. My father hasn’t sounded this way since the night of my mother’s passing, so why… falling down on me like acid rain, I gasp into the phone.
“What happened? Is Ashton okay? Please, tell me she is okay? Did they press charges?” Every worry known to mankind pops into my head. All I want to know is that she’s okay and that I can talk to her. Please, god, let her be okay.
“Willow, Ashton is dead.” I can hear the words he’s saying, but I don’t comprehend them. It’s like my brain is refusing to compute.
“What?” I whisper.
“She committed suicide last night. She left a note, but I’m not sure you need to read it right now. I’m in the process of making funeral arrangements. I’ll call you when it’s time for the funeral.” He… I don’t understand. What happened? Committed suicide? How? Why? She was in a facility being monitored by nurses and doctors? How did she kill herself?