My hand pauses where it turns on the heater beneath her seat, the question taking me by surprise. Guilt swirls somewhere between myribs. Vincenzo deserves better. I’ve shuteveryoneout. “I haven’t had time for friendships, lately. I haven’t had time for much except …”
“Treading water,” she finishes for me, when I cannot find the words.
I breathe out a soft laugh, but it’s devoid of humor. It’s the perfect analogy. I’m not making any forward progress, not getting anywhere. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to start the day with an aim that isn’t just getting through it.
Making no progress has never felt so exhausting.
I undo my top button, suddenly too hot, the conversation uncomfortable for me. “Back to your stalker,” I say.
She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t listen. “Promise me you’ll keep treading water.”
“You said we can only talk about the investigation.”
She stares at her lap, fiddling with the friendship bracelet my sisters made for her. I trace my fingers over my matching one, the braided rope smooth and worn. “Shutting me out, shutting your friends out, I know you think it’ll make things easier. I know your depression convinces you that shutting people you love out is the right thing to do, because it’d be easier to disappear if no one would come looking—”
My voice comes out soft, pleading for her to be gentle with my fragile mind. “Ophelia.”
“It’s lying to you, Alex. Shutting people out will fix nothing. Believe me, I tried it for four years.”
“You and Harwood would be friends.”
She gives me a look I’ve missed so much. Amused exasperation, I think. But she drops the topic, which I’m grateful for. “I’m not afraid of your father, Alex. If he really is here, I wouldn’t run.”
God. Even the thought has me white-knuckled around the steering wheel. “Well, you should.”
“He doesn’t scare me.”
Too stubborn for her own good. But then again, that might be why I fell in love with her.
“I need you to cooperate with Mack, Ophelia. Anything he asks, tell him. If anything happens to you, anything suspicious, any strange mail or emails, anyone says anything unkind, you tell him straight away.”
She snorts. “Plenty of people have unkind things to say about me.”
This is true. The reaction to the article has been broken and backward. The only person who has received more hatred at Sorrowsong and on social media than my father—the man with a rotting mess for a heart—is Ophelia.
It’s the story of my mother’s life, and I hate how much it’s become Ophelia’s. The media will hold anyone accountable except those who are truly responsible.
Men like my father play chess with real people’s lives, and it’s always them who come out holding the medal.
The family divider, the torturer of an already sick woman, the disrupter of six little girls’ homelives, the betrayer of Alex Corbeau-Green. An elaborate painting has been constructed of Ophelia this past month, and it isn’t flattering. Each brushstroke is a new way to pick her apart. I’d throw every penny I can into having it taken down, but like with what people say about my mother, there isn’t a net big enough to catch it all.
Ophelia is the strongest person I know, but I see the heavy weight of it, the abuse, the texts, the attention. I want to pull overand wrap her so tightly in my arms that we both forget what it feels like to be splintered into so many pieces.
I can’t keep the pain out of my plea. “Please don’t believe what they say, Ophelia.”
“I try not to.” She shrugs, and though the tears that she blinks away gut me, it’s the fact I can’t pull her into my lap that delivers the killing blow. She should still be mine. None of this is the way it should be.
“Ophelia.” Her name is a desperate prayer. I slow the car to a stop in the middle of the deserted road, trying to recall the worst things I’ve read about her in the past few weeks.It’s no wonder her parents couldn’t put up with her any longer. I’d get in a broken helicopter, too.If that’s what people say online, I can only imagine it’s worse in the private confines of Sorrowsong’s dark hallways. “Shit, Ophelia.”
“I don’t need you to defend me.”
“I know.”
“Can you just drive?” she begs. “And talk about your father and Mack?”
She needs a distraction, and I’d do anything for her, so I talk. I tell her about Brendan, how evenheis struggling to get anything about the article leak. I tell her about Mack, about his time in the military, about how he’s tracking down my father, how Brendan hacks into CCTV feeds all over New York City in his search.
I don’t turn around to go back, not until she’s completely out of questions.
