Page 50 of The Unravelings

Huxley.

Licking my lips, I sit back and let the music thumping through my sound system take me to another plane of existence. It fills my room with its bass, drowning out anything else but the letter sitting in front of me.

I want to live in an existence where Olivia isn’t permanently out of reach. An existence where she’s safe and by my side.

Not out there…

My gaze lifts, peeking out my open window. The cemetery beyond our home beckons me, but I decline its calls. It will never trap me like it does Mack. He devotes so many hours a day, kneeling before her and confessing all his woes by pouring his heart out to the gravestone and dirt.

I run a hand over my face, sucking in several breaths. The bass of the song thumps through my chest, forcing my heart to pound harder and harder.

It cascades through me, almost electrifying my veins with life. I’m living. I’m here. Fucking barely, though. My fingertips tingle as I drop my pen on my desk and stare at the piece of lined paper lying on my desk.

This is my getaway. The letters. The music. This room. I can’t publicly mourn like Mack, so loud and free to the world. I can’t sit at her grave and let the tears fall freely without judgment. It’s unacceptable in the eyes of Franco, especially for me—the heir to his throne. I’m the man he’s molded me into being. Just like my brothers. He’s taken each of us like pieces of clay and manipulated and carved us into the men he wants us to be.

The stronger I am. The better I’ll be.

So I do this. I stew in the words she’ll never get to see. I lock myself away in here, bleeding on these pages so she’ll know everything she’s missed while she’s been away.

It’s the least I could do for her.

The music blares around me, filling the room with its emotion-filled screams and whines. The bass runs through my chest, pounding a rhythm with my heart. I squeeze my eyes shut, losing myself to it and letting all my words bleed onto the page. All my emotions. Everything that I keep inside.

Until the reality of everything slams straight into me and knocks me out of my reprieve. My eyes peek open, the light of the sun peeking through the blinds before me. It’s only then that I put my mask back into place and become the Huxley Crewes I present to the world. The Huxley Crewes, Franco expects me to be for him. The son and heir. The miserable fucker who can’t show how goddamn unhappy he is to be there.

I rub a hand across my heavy chest, weighed down by the longing pressing harder on me every time I suck in a breath. One day, everything will be too much, and things in my mind will spill free.

But not today.

Today, I’ll fold this letter like I do every day, put it in an envelope, seal it shut, and hide it away from everyone in my life.

Like I always do.

With everything.

Lifting my pen one last time, I scribble the day.

And tomorrow?

I’ll do the same fucking thing when I wake up. Before I can take a step out of this room. Since the day we buried her and said our mournful goodbyes, I’ve fallen into this routine. Day in and day out. It’s what I owe her.

Getting up from my desk, I walk to my large closet, flip on the light, and step inside. Music continuously pounds, shaking my room as I shut the closet door behind me. Bringing the envelope to my lips, I murmur a few words only for her and me to hear.

“I’m sorry, Trouble. So sorry,” I whisper to the page, gently kissing it.

The cool draft from the attic access panel above my head sweeps through my closet as I place the envelope into a large plastic container nestled in the rafters.

Now it won’t see the light of day. Ever. It’ll be hidden from my brothers, who think my lack of grief means I don’t care.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I care too fucking much. I always have. Only I hide that, too. I hide everything.

Every-fucking-thing.

Who am I, really?

A sham. A ghost wandering through this life, waiting for my chance to escape all the bullshit happening around me.

My head hangs in what looks like a silent prayer and defeat as I take several breaths to ground myself in the stillness of my closet. Once I step out of this door and my bedroom, the reality of today will crash into me.