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Maybe my soul never got ugly.
Maybe my soul stayed blue.
Maybe my soul turned black.
Maybe I was dead inside.
I walked past Vic sitting alone on the couch. Part of me wanted to stop and talk to him. What had he meant when he said there’s no saving him? Did he think that I needed to be saved? But more importantly, why did he think he wasn’t savable?
Instead of asking those questions, I kept walking to the kitchen. I just wanted something so I could fall asleep without hunger pains—or, more realistically, so I could lie in bed without hunger pains. There was a good chance I wasn’t falling asleep that night.
“I won’t have my little sister dating a drug dealer.” Vic’s chilled voice wafted into the kitchen.
My hand rested limply on the fridge door. “What?” I asked, staring at my steel reflection. That’s what I felt like now: steel. Cold. Molded by the elements around me.
“I won’t have my little sister dating a drug dealer,” Vic repeated. He was also staring forward, his reflection looking back at him from the empty TV screen. I removed my hand from the fridge and walked over to him.
“You know nothing about Eli. And little sister?” Is he serious? “You lost the right to call me that when you left sixteen years ago! I’m nothing to you! I’m a stranger.”
“A stranger who showed up on my doorstep,” Vic pointed out. Lennox came down the stairs but stopped midway when she saw us fighting. I glanced in her direction, feeling sorry for bringing such chaos into her house.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I’m a stranger that showed up on your doorstep.” I turned around, ready to leave. Vic and I were nothing to each other. He had no idea what I’d gone through. We didn’t share sibling memories. We hadn’t gone through the Wall War together. He’d gone AWOL. I’d taken all the mortar hits on my own.
I didn’t know what I had been thinking going there. The more I saw of Vic and his family, the more I realized how distant we were.
“Wait, Grace,” Vic stood up, calling after me. “Wait.”
“For what?” I turned to face him. “We have absolutely nothing in common. We are barely related. You and I couldn’t be more different.”
Lennox scoffed. I turned my attention to her, frowning. “Sorry,” she said, raising her hands up in surrender. “It’s just, you guys are ridiculously similar. You’re practically twins.” Vic and I exchanged a look. “Right,” Lennox continued. “Neither of you are emotionally damaged by your terrible parents. Neither of you regret not having a relationship with each other. Neither of you have relationship hangups. Neither of you speak in one-liners. Neither of you stare in lieu of polite conversation. Neither of you—”
“That’s enough, Lenny,” Vic said. Lennox raised her eyebrows in response, but kept quiet.
“I’m gonna go…pretend that I have something else to do while I’m really just giving you both time to talk.” Lennox turned around and walked up the way she’d come, leaving Vic and me in thorny silence. We both stared at each other, neither speaking.
Dammit, Lennox is right.
“Well one of us should say something,” I finally said.
Vic sighed. “What do you want to say?”
I guessed it was now or never. “I’m pretty pissed at you for leaving.”
Vic raised an eyebrow. “I can see that.”
I rolled my eyes and looked out the window at a beautiful view of the beach. The marine layer was gone and all that was left was bright blue. Bright blue sky and bright blue ocean, only the yellow sand separating the two.
“I couldn’t stay, Grace,” Vic said, breaking the silence. “I honestly thought you would be okay.”
It was my turn to scoff.
“When I left you were just a child,” Vic explained. “You were their child.”
“You were their child,” I countered, my voice lame and exhausted.
“No.” Vic shook his head. “When you were born I became the demon spawn that Daddy needed to beat. You were their angel. You were their saving Grace.”
I nearly gasped. I’d had no idea. I suppose some part of me knew that Vic left because of their abuse, but I’d been so young when he left I had no memory of it. I hated him for leaving, because I felt like he’d abandoned me to their abuse intentionally. Like he took off when he had the chance and didn’t care what happened to little ol’ me.
