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But Jace was a liar, just like the rest of them.
Okay, so maybe liar was too harsh – but he was just like the others who kept telling me that things would get better.
Eli.
Mav.
My stepmother, Mariana.
They’d all promised me over and over again that my father would pay for what he’d done to me, to Eli… to Nick, and that I’d somehow miraculously get my life back.
But how was I supposed to get something back that I wouldn’t have even recognized? My life had been watching my brother succumb to his drug addiction while I pretended to be a regular kid, even as my father found his way into my bed night after night after night. Take those things away, and who was I supposed to be? I’d hated what my father had been doing to me and I’d hated losing my brother to the drugs that had given him the same numb feeling I now craved, but I’d still had moments where I felt alive.
Moments like when my father would take me to a baseball game and high-five me as our team won, or we’d go fishing in Puget Sound and I’d reel in the first salmon.
I’d feel that little spark of energy inside of me that lit up whenever my father told me he was proud of me or when I saw glimpses of the old Nick, the one I’d practically worshipped as a little kid. There’d be those rare times where I’d feel only good things when I remembered the days before my parents had gotten divorced.
Camping trips.
Christmases with way too many presents.
Elaborate birthday celebrations.
Barbecues in the back yard.
Those were the things I wanted back. Sometimes I thought I’d even be willing to pay the high price tag that came with it. As sick as it was, I almost hated my father more for ruining everything by doing to Nick and Eli what he’d done to me. If it’d just been me, I would have found a way to live with it. But my father had been a greedy man… and an arrogant one.
I felt Jace shift behind me, and then he was getting out of bed. I didn’t ask him where he was going, because I knew.
He’d felt the cuts on my arm. He’d known what they were.
Now he’d be trying to find the cause of them. I had no doubt that he thought this was something else he could fix for me.
When he returned a moment later, I didn’t need to look to know he’d found what he’d been looking for. I felt him sit on the bed, but I didn’t turn to look at him. The old me would have been eager to please him, but I wasn’t that naïve seventeen-year-old kid who’d seen only a hero when Jace had stood over me in that psychiatric hospital and answered my whispered pleas for help.
I’d come to realize in the last year that it wasn’t so much that Jace wasn’t a hero, because he absolutely was. Just like Eli and Mav were heroes for everything they’d done for me.
No, the problem was that they weren’t my heroes.
Because I was beyond saving.
I’d wanted out of that mental hospital, but the truth was, I hadn’t really wanted out of my old life. Not the way I should have.
I’d wanted my father to stop hurting me, but I hadn’t wanted to give him up, either. I hadn’t wanted him to pay for the things he’d done to me… or my brothers.
I’d just wanted him… I’d wanted to go back to him just being my father and me just being his kid. I’d have gladly given up seeing him punished to get that back.
That was why I didn’t deserve to be saved.
That was why Jace and Eli and Mav had been wasting their time.
And why it had been a fool’s errand to come down here. That pesky feeling shit had reared its ugly head for a while as I’d contemplated my father coming back into my life, but only because I’d known when he did, it wouldn’t be so he and I could go back to the way things had been.
No, he was going to kill me like he’d killed Nick, and despite hating every part of my current life, for some reason, my instinct to survive didn’t seem to care about that fact.
It was just another sign of my cowardice.
I didn’t want to live, but I was too afraid to die.
I heard the sound of something heavy being placed on the nightstand. I was surprised Jace had brought his prize into the room with him, but I guessed he figured knowing where the box cutter was would ensure I didn’t use it.
I didn’t bother telling him that I was too numb to need it.
“Why?” I heard Jace ask.
I hated that the despair in his voice sparked something inside of me. I’d never heard him sound like that. I also hated the little sliver of guilt that began to gnaw at my insides.
