AllFreeNovel
Share Us
FIFTEEN
Amethyst
“You have a good night, Amy,”Carol called a few nights after the ice cream social.
“You too, Carol,” I responded. I cleared my throat before I went on. “And you too, Josh.”
I spoke the words on a mumbled rush and didn’t dare meet his eyes. He nodded, then proceeded to help Carol to her car.
It had been a week since the night I’d slept with him, and I was a wreck.
I’d tried to be smart. Compartmentalized and told myself that it was nothing.
I knew that to be true, at least in my head, but I didn’t feel it.
I wanted him again.
Even liked him as a person.
But I couldn’t, not when I knew what he was. Knew what he had threatened to do to me.
What he might do still.
Remembering that might help keep me alive, so I tried to forget the way he’d made my body sing. Instead, I made myself read that dossier every night, forced myself to remember what Davit and his family really were.
And it worked. Sort of.
But as much as I wanted my feelings for him—my traitorous, awful feelings—to go away, they didn’t.
Nor did the guilt.
It nagged at me, ate at me.
I waited until Carol and Davit were gone, and as I stood in the lobby, something caught my eye.
I walked closer to the wall, what we called the Founders’ Wall.
On it was a picture of my grandfather and his first boat.
He looked so young, so hopeful, and I thought about all he had done, working in a system designed to make him fail, fighting through all of that to build a legacy that still lived today.
And I was betraying that.
Letting it be consumed from the inside out.
I turned away from the wall and rushed to the bathroom, washing my hands, then wiping my face.
I stared in the mirror, grabbed the locket that was ever-present around my neck, and squeezed it.
“What should I do, Mama?” I whispered.
There had been so many times in my life that I’d wished she was here, but never more than I did in this moment.
I squeezed the locket, then opened it and stared at her picture, the image blurring through my tears.
I couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t betray her, my grandfather, my father.
