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It’s a mantra I’ve religiously clung to this whole time.
But at the sound of a muffled sob greeting me upon entry into the house…
Something tells me that’s all about to change.
My steps slow, but it feels like they stop completely. It’s as if my body is moving forward, while the rest of me remains back, hovering just outside the threshold, content to remain blissfully ignorant to whatever waits for me inside.
I’m vaguely aware of Waylon sucking in a breath, as if he’s bracing himself—as if he too realizes it’s safer out here. But then he brushes past me, and I kind of want to punch him for it.
Stay with me, I silently beg. Stay with me back here, out here, away from whatever’s up ahead. Don’t fucking leave me.
And before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m lurching forward, and grabbing his arm.
His steps slow, rocking back, and his gaze snaps down to where my fingers squeeze the spot just under his elbow with bruising force.
And for a moment we’re both at a standstill in the foyer.
“Don’t,” I say.
Don’t go in there, don’t go in there. Stay.
Hazel eyes, rimmed red with unshed tears meet my fierce, pleading gaze. And I give a little shake of my head, silently willing him to understand.
Stay.
Whatever he sees has his features bunching, and he quickly averts his gaze, wrenching himself out of my hold. He murmurs something, but it’s lost to the wave crashing in over my senses, drowning everything out but the sight of him walking away, his back to me the last thing I see before he disappears into the kitchen.
I can’t do this.
I can’t fucking do this.
This isn’t happening.
This isn’t real.
Yet, despite that insistence, and the fear blazing through me, burning through what little effects of the Vicodin I took earlier remained, my feet somehow carry me, tracing his steps.
This isn’t real, this isn’t real…
It’s the silence that registers first just as the kitchen comes fully in view. Silence beyond just my own clouded awareness.
Eva’s seated at the table directly across from where I come to a stop, her pale, tear-stained face slackened, her gaze empty as she stares blankly ahead, looking right through me.
A tingling sensation creeps down the back of my neck, spreading down my spine—not unlike the faint prickly feeling you get around your mouth when getting a cavity filled, right before the Novocain kicks in.
It suddenly feels smaller in here than it ever has before. Too small for us. Too small and tight, even for just me.
Ray, standing behind Eva with his face downturned, has one hand anchoring his wife’s shoulder. The other is rubbing his forehead.
Detective Morris seated next to them, twists around to stare up at me with an apologetic, knowing gleam in his dark eyes.
And when Waylon steps out of the way, shuffling into the corner, his shoulders hunched, arms crossed tightly like he’s trying to protect himself from an invisible enemy…
I find Jeremy, seated directly across from the detective, with his back to the curtained window. His expression, like his mom’s, is blank. Flat. But unlike her, he doesn’t stare through me. He’s not even staring down at the table, like I’d expect.
No, he’s staring intently at Detective Morris. Not through him, but into him, like he’s trying to read the man’s mind. Or tear apart his insides.
It’s that fierce not-quite glare that has my breath hitching sharply with my inhale, my lungs seizing.
