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JOSIE
Isleep soundlessly for the first night in what feels like months, and when I wake the next morning I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Heavy limbs, swollen eyes, hair sticking to my skin.
Slithers of sunlight beam through the blinds, and I wince, flinging my arm over my face. Birds outside the window shriek. I haven’t heard those sounds since I left for the city. The mattress is hard and lumpy, the blankets are itchy and the room stuffy—but it’s home.
The walls groan and sigh. Every movement of my family carries into my room. Voices. Footsteps. Pipes humming. Pots banging. The sounds are so foreign and yet so familiar.
When I was here last, I was a completely different person. It hurts to think about it all now—all the choices I made.
Rolling over, I curl into a ball. My eyes roam over the walls. My chest tightens as my gaze skims across the photographs. Handwritten song lyrics, poems, and quotes are draped unevenly across the walls.
My head hurts. So many thoughts and memories I’ve refused to let creep in, washing over me in tidal waves.
My gaze drifts to my bedside table. Reaching over, I open the drawer. I rummage through it until I get to a small bundle wrapped in tissue paper with a bow on it. Holding my breath, I unravel it. The necklace has rusted a little over the years. Pressing my thumb over the patterns, I flick open the locket. I stare down at the photograph of myself and the boy smiling next to me. My heart squeezes and I snap the locket shut and throw it back into the drawer as if it burned me.
It was all a lie.
I fling myself back across the mattress and wince. The pain in my face is worse than yesterday.
I turn my phone on. It takes a few moments to start back up, and for a second, I think it’s dead. The screen eventually lights up, and when the vibrating starts, I place it down and wait it out.
Twenty-four missed calls from Elliot, twelve voice messages, nine texts.
I get through one text before I’m rushing to the bathroom, where I empty my stomach into the toilet bowl. Sitting back on my haunches, my arms tremble.
The door bangs open, and a foot kicks my leg. A manly scream fills the room, and I scamper to my feet, wiping my mouth.
My younger brother stands before me, open-mouthed, eyes wide.
“Are you a ghost?” he sputters.
“I wish.”
He’s silent as his eyes take in the bruises and scratches littering my skin. He swallows.
“Fuck … what happened to you?”
Sam’s hair is longer now, falling in his eyes. He sweeps it back, only for it to fall in the same place again. He’s tall now, a lot taller, and filled out too.
Words are stuck in my throat. I might be sick again.
“When did you get back?” he asks.
“Last night.”
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.”
Silence again. He surveys me, like I’m cattle he’s fattening up to sell at the next auction. He places his hands on his hips, a frown tugging his lips down.
“Well. Shit.” He shakes his head.
“Yeah.”
His eyes haven’t stopped roaming over me, inspecting every inch, frowning deeper with each passing moment.
“Want to go for a drive?” he asks.
