Page 78 of For the Ghastly and Beautiful

“My mother died when I was ten. Penny, my sister, was fourteen. While Dad and I grieved together, she turned to her friends. They were all a bit older than her, and none of them were good kids. They eventually led her to trouble and drugs, or maybe she led them. It doesn’t really matter anymore.

“For years, she was in and out of rehab—rehabilitation clinics to help her break her habits,” I clarify before they can ask. “But she didn’t want to stop. She lived with Dad and me when she wasn’t in rehab. And she used to bring all sorts of people around, mostly addicts who wanted to get high and fuck around. She didn’t care as long as she got what she wanted from them.

“When I was fourteen, she started dating a dealer—the guy who sold her drugs—and he moved into our house. Between school and practice, I wasn’t home very much. But when I was, I stayed to myself unless Dad was there. For the first couple of months, everything was fine, or as good as it could be. Penny and I fought a lot, though we learned to just ignore each other.”

I run my fingers through my damp hair as I stare at the wall. Now that I’ve started this trip down memory lane, I want to spill the rest and wipe my past away. Like I’m finally cleansing before I close the book of Earth completely.

“Then school was out for the summer, and I was home more often than not. I went to practice for a few hours every morning, but that was it. We had a pool, so I would swim in the evenings, too. Until her boyfriend started showing too much interest in me. His interest made me uncomfortable.

“A few nights after my fifteenth birthday, I decided I wanted to swim. Dad was messing with his boat, and Penny wasn’t home. I thought I could relax instead of practicing. A few hours passed, and I was tired, so I climbed out of the water and went inside.

“I passed Penny’s room, then backtracked to ask her if she would turn her music down. I knocked, then opened her door. She was lying on her sofa, grinning at the picture she had hung on the ceiling, too high to function. Her boyfriend wasn’t, though.”

I pause, taking a deep breath as I glance at the guys.

Imryll’s hand is flat against Talodus’s chest, keeping him from standing up. Connak sits with his elbows propped on his knees as he watches me, listening intently. And Ecaeris covers his mouth with his fist, biting into his knuckle to stay quiet.

They know where this is going.

“He tried to flirt, seduce me maybe? I excused myself and went to my room to change and shower. But I wasn’t thinking about the bathroom… It connected to my room and Penny’s. I remember locking the door, not that it helped. If you really wanted to unlock it, all you needed was something flat to twist the mechanism from the other side. I’d done it a few times to check on Penny when she had taken too many pills.

“I stepped out of the shower, and went to grab my towel, but it was gone. Her boyfriend was sitting on the bathroom counter, my missing towel folded neatly beside him. I backed away, and he followed. I tried to close my bedroom door before he could get through it, but I wasn’t strong enough.

“We fought. He had me held up by my hair. I could barely stand on the tips of my toes. And he said, ‘No one will hear you. I slipped a little something into your dad’s drink. He’ll sleep like the dead tonight, and your sister doesn’t care.’ Then he knocked me out.

“When I regained consciousness, I was on Penny’s bed, and he was holding me down, already inside me. She stared at me as I screamed and sobbed, but she didn’t try to stop him. She was either too high to move, or she really didn’t care. It lasted for hours before he dropped me in a scalding hot bath and left me alone to go sleep in Penny’s bed.”

“And you killed him?” Imryll asks gently, although I hear his voice shake.

I nod and give half a shrug. “Not immediately, but yes. A few months passed, and I grew angry instead of depressed or withdrawn. I had done nothing to make him think I was interested or wanted him in any manner. And yet, he continued walking through my home like he’d done nothing wrong.

“He introduced Penny to heroin shortly after, and I started paying more attention to what they were doing. That drug fucked them up more than any of the others. With that knowledge, and some carefully worded questions, I made a plan.

“I waited for them to pass out from the high. I put some gloves on before copying the same motions I’d watched them do dozens of times. Then I stuck the needle into his arm where all the other marks were and shut the door behind me.

“The next day, I woke up, went to school and swim practice, and then came home to see the coroner wheeling his body out of the house. He was a known drug abuser, so it was a closed case. Cause of death: overdose.”

Imryll tilts his head, lips pressed into a thin line. “That was the first time. What about the other one?”

“Two,” I correct him with a sad smile. “There were two more, though one was an accident.”

He nods in understanding. “Your sister and your dad.”

“As the years passed, Penny got worse. More drugs, more rehab, more money, more fights between us. She became violent toward me to the point of breaking bones. Dad sold our childhood home to pay off the massive debt she had acquired in our names. I dropped out of my last semester of college to help.

“We moved while Penny was in yet another rehab. She was clean for three or four weeks when she got out, but it never lasted. It was the cycle of our lives, and we were sick of it. Dad became depressed, a shell of his former self. And when I saw his tears, I lost what little peace I had regained.

“Penny was in another pill faze. I found her stash and dropped a dozen or more into her drink. I kissed Dad on the cheek and left for work, knowing he would leave shortly after me. She was high and would pass out on the sofa like she always did.

“She wasn’t supposed to get in the car, much less the driver’s seat. But that’s what happened. I received a call right as I got to work, and they told me there had been an accident. Dad and Penny were pronounced dead at the scene.”

I sit in silence, waiting for some kind of reaction. I’m not sure what I’m expecting, though I feel better now that everything is off my chest.

“This is what you meant when you said you felt guilty while trying to mourn?” Imryll states, piecing past conversations together.

I tug my lips to the side, searching for the right words. “I feel guilty for causing my dad’s death, but nothing else. I know I should. I just… Don’t.”

“I understand,” he whispers, causing me to recall the short story of his parents’ death.