Trapped by my older sister’s sudden interest in my life. Trapped by the secrets that felt like they were rotting inside me. Trapped because everyone else seemed sofineand I was just sonot.
I was swimming in a dark, boundless ocean and any chance of making it to shore had vanished years ago—I was just too blind to see it. There was no bottom for my feet to touch, nothing to keep me afloat. The waves of the past kept crashing over me, pulling me down, and I just knew that eventually I’d stop fighting.
I’d just let it take me.
After the awful, awkward dinner where Lorraine chattered away happily and I barely acknowledged anyone but the waitress (are they called waitresses here?) Jamie gets us home just after eight o’clock. She turns off the car’s engine, but makes no move to get out.
“Molly, I really want to talk to you,” Jamie says, as my hand reaches for the door handle. Lorraine fell asleep in the back onthe way home. My plan is to get her out, put her down in her room, and go to my own.
“Later,” I say, knowing I won’t be interested at any point in talking to her. I grab the cup JJ gave me earlier—probably cooled down by now since I’d left it in the car during dinner—and shoulder out of the car.
I get Lorraine out of the back, shifting her to one arm and carrying my cup with the other and taking us both inside and up to her bedroom. She’s half asleep as I dump her in her bed and pry her shoes and jacket off.
“Molly?”
“Shh,” I murmur, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, Rainey. Love you.”
“Love you, night night.”
I tuck her in, then leave her room with JJ’s cup in hand. I start outside her door when I nearly run right into Jamie. I make to move past her and bolt to my room, but she catches my arm.
“Molly, please. I need to explain.”
“Explain? Explain what?” I snap, turning to face her. I jerk my arm away like her touch burns me, and in a way it does. The same way her being here does. I can never tell if I’m drowning or if I’m ablaze in flames.
“A lot of stuff,” she says, her voice choked up. “There was so much going on when I left, and I just want to explain everything to you. I wasn’t in a good place—”
“Youleftme! I needed you, I needed my sister, and you weren’t there!” I explode, not even caring that Lorraine might come out in the hall. The thought barely even crosses my mind. Everything that I’ve kept piled up for the last month and a half seems to be crashing over me and pulling me down.
“I had to! That’s what I’m trying to tell you—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I knew you’d be okay—” she tries to reach out,probably to pull me in, but I don’t move closer. I just stare at her, eyes hard and unwavering.
“I wasn’t,” I say, fingers flexing around my cup as I shake my head. “I wasn’t okay. And I needed you, but you weren’t there.”
Her expression seems to crumble. “What are you saying? What happened?”
I stared at her, the words piling up on the tip of my tongue like vomit—begging to be spewed out into the open. Wanting to explode out just like everything else.
“Molly?”
I could tell her about him. About how he called me his star player. About the things he did that made me want to peel my own skin off.
But I couldn’t. Something was stopping me. I never knew what the something was, but for some reason I needed to keep this secret a secret.
Because what if no one believes me.
Just like that ref on the field—didn’t believe me.
Then I’ll just ruin the rest of my life for nothing.
I have to keep it all buried inside the bloody walls of the memory. It needed to stay deep in the foundation of my soul while I hoped the weight didn’t collapse the rest of the building.
“It doesn’t matter. You weren’t there.”
“I’m here now,” she says, real, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “I can fix it. Whatever happened, whatever you need... I’m here. We can fix it together.”
“You can’t fix it,” I whisper, shaking my head. I felt something hot and wet run down my cheek, but I don’t wipe it away. I pretend not to notice it.
Telling her wouldn’t fix it, I reason. It would still be there. The pain would still linger, the nightmares would stay, the memories wouldn’t ever go away.
