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"Or?"
"No more cookies."
"Fine." I link fingers with her, shaking. "No more secrets."
"Good." She heaves a sigh, her shoulders looking lighter. "It was terrible, keeping stuff from Boston. I hated it."
"I can imagine," I say, but I can't. Not really. I don't have anyone in my life like that. The yearning comes back.
I think of the girl, the kiss.
Something else nips at the back of my mind. Oooh yeah… I remember the thing I slipped from my pocket, determined to see her again.
What was I thinking? I shake my head. Ridiculous, what I did.
"Boston said he'd probably have done the same if he found out that he lived his whole life thinking his dad had left him, when really, his father was murdered." Ashely sighs.
“Murdered.” The word sends a chill down my spine and disappointment fills my chest. I didn’t complete the mission and now the tumultuous cycle continues.
She leans over, kissing my cheek. "I'm going to leave you a bit to rest. I'll be in the next room if you need anything."
"Thanks. I don't know what I'd do without you."
I think of what was taken from us.
I have a strong memory of my determined big sister reading the backs of cereal boxes to make sure I got enough vitamins, pushing a chair up against cabinets to reach the things she needed to care for me, her already short stature working against her alongside her young age.
I did what I could to take care of her, including outsmarting the neighborhood bully who was antagonizing her, flipping him off his bike so hard he broke his arm when he landed.
Never messed with my sister again.
We had each other, but still, it was hard.
To find out all these years later that our father hadn't left at all, but instead, was murdered in cold blood. Apparently, he'd made enemies along the way in our small, impoverished town in the rolling hills of upstate New York, owing money to the wrong men.
Ashely and I only became privy to this information after we joined the Bachmans. They knew more about us than we did. Boston told us that after Dad’s injury at the steel mill, he became addicted to the pain meds he’d been prescribed. Once the prescription ran out, he did anything to keep those little white pills in his cabinet.
Dad borrowed himself into a deep hole with a man he went to school with, Bruno. They were childhood rivals, their competition even extending to my mother. Apparently, they both fell in love with her, but it was my dad who proposed on graduation night.
She said yes. They were married before they turned nineteen. I guess Bruno held a deeper grudge than anyone knew.
Dad was unable to pay him back, and Bruno got rid of him. Then, he came after me.
Bruno, a stranger to me, offered me money, knowing I was young, clueless, and desperate to help pay for my sister’s college. It wasn't enough that he had taken our father from us. His vendetta ran stronger than that and he tangled me in predatory loans I had no way to repay. When Boston found out about the money I owed, he began negotiations with their family to pay them but when I found out what Bruno did to my father, I put those talks on hold.
They left me and my sister fatherless. I don’t want to pay them one cent. And my sister and I wanted to avenge our father’s death.
Although Ashely and I debated telling the family of our plan to go after Bruno for murdering our father, we knew the Bachmans would go to any length to protect the family and we didn't want to get everyone involved in a war.
It was a family matter we would have settled before we joined the Bachmans if we’d known the truth. They’ve done so much for us, we didn’t have the heart to drag them into this, making them take on our personal revenge and in the process, involving more people, thus creating a bigger problem.
My shoulder burns. The little orange bottle of pills calls to me from the nightstand. I reach out, wanting the relief that I know I can’t have. I knock them to the floor, the bottle falling with a rattle and rolling across the floor.
I won't take the opioids the doctor prescribed for me. I think of something else to distract me from the pain.
I think of the girl. The softness of her lips. The fear in her eyes.
I know it’s crazy, that I don’t even know her. But my gut tells me there was something chasing her. She was running from someone. Someone she was scared of.
